There is never a shortage of great quotes by great and not so great people, which can best express one’s feelings or worldview. Most great quotes are timeless: even if it was uttered centuries ago, a certain quote can still apply to life, love, war, civics, politics, etc. as fittingly today as when it was first coined. I am not one for reinventing the wheel. I am too lazy and I lack imagination. So when I read a book or a magazine and come across something that captures my own thoughts in far fewer words than I am known for, I employ it shamelessly. Having said that though, I have decided that my favorite quote came from the sharp tongue of my dear departed mother.
Marilyn Mazziotti Moran was also a sharp wit. My mother was born in 1929 just before the Crash and her family never seemed able to lift itself out of poverty. They always had food and I have a picture of my grandfather in his Model T Ford, but it didn’t seem that there was much else. My mom always recalled that she never had a dresser or a closet in which to put her few clothes and she had to lay them on her bed. Still, she had class. As she grew into adulthood and became employed she purchased her own very smart and classy clothes and explored the world of art and culture which included studying ballet for adult learners at the Edna McRae School of Dance in the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago. Later when she married my father and I was born she determined that I would have what she didn’t. Of course that included a dresser and closet but, most importantly, that meant ballet.
When I was about six years old she brought me downtown to the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Ave. to have my first lesson with Miss Edna McRae. Of all of my teachers she stands out in my memory as literally the most colorful. She was plump by then but always looked beautiful. Her fully gray hair was always soft and pretty around her face and her dresses were colorful and chiffony with matching ballet shoes. She would also wear a coordinating necklace. This was the early 1960’s and ballet was still a very prim, proper and formal class. The cultural deterioration had started to eat away at the foundations but the damage was not yet visible. By 1968 there would be drastic changes.
In the beginning though, ballet at a school of this caliber was more, much more, than just a dance class. My mother could have marched me into any neighborhood dance school, but she made no bones about the fact that those schools were inferior. The neighborhood schools tended to concentrate less on true ballet technique and more on sequins and tiaras. She couldn’t stand it and she passed this prejudice right down to me. In some areas of life I wear the badge of SNOB proudly thanks to Marilyn. In Miss McRae’s class we were required to wear a uniform that was age appropriate because Madonna had not yet been born. We addressed her as Miss McRae and we did not dare display any signs of ADD because she carried a wooden cane and pounded the floor if your eyes happened to look in the wrong direction. The cane was also used for slight raps on bent knees but I don’t remember ever actually being hit by it. And did I mention that the better schools never had classes for preschool children? They did not believe that children younger than six had the physical or mental ability for this discipline. At that time they did not believe in wasting their time and your money. Ballet was not yet a racket. One day a young mother brought her preschool child into Miss McRae’s office, insisting that she was talented enough to be enrolled. Miss McRae told her to take the girl home and put her in the sandbox. Now that is wisdom.
Those first four years of ballet I was scared to death of Miss McRae. During one class I had to go to the bathroom but was afraid to raise my hand and ask for permission to leave the room. I went down into a grand plie and promptly peed all over the dance floor. Miss McRae was very understanding and after my embarrassed mother cleaned up the mess I resumed the class with the tendu exercise. My mother confessed that she was scared to death of her too. In those days no hover mother dared challenge Edna on her classroom scoldings and discipline of flaky little ballerinas. You see, a parent or grandparent was required to sit in the class and take notes of the exercises dictated by Miss McRae. Then the parent was required to watch us practice at home everyday according to the notes. We had to learn French. All terms and phrases in class were French and by the time we were nine or ten we took our own notes. We spent a great deal of the class sitting on the floor with our pencils and notebooks copying down the new dance steps and bar routines and recording the new terms in French with their English translations. We also had to buy the piano sheet music for the end of the year recital and spent a good deal of the class time on the floor marking the music according to the adjustments being made for the recital. I still have that music. Aside from the dance instruction we were taught discipline and propriety in all areas of life. Regularly Miss McRae would walk into the dressing room and instruct us on how to keep it clean and tidy. She would say, "if you see something on the floor, stop and pick it up." Another great quote. I used it with my own kids regularly.
My mother was unlike most mothers. She had faith in my ability but she was realistic about what it took to be a ballerina. She was willing to make the financial sacrifice of paying for classes and toe shoes and she dedicated her time to driving me downtown first one, then two and three days per week until I learned to take a bus. But she never made any predictions. One day she sat outside the classroom, in the company of several very well dressed and coifed mothers from the affluent areas of Chicago’s north shore. As usual they were going on and on about why each one thought her daughter had the talent to be the next Margot Fonteyn. Finally Marilyn could not take the boasting anymore. She interjected and the conversation came to a halt. She said, "I put my daughter in ballet so that when the Russians take over, they won’t shoot her." Now that is wisdom.
