THE STRANGER IN A PARTY OF EIGHT

Joseph Stanovsky PhD 2010 by J. J. Stanovsky I thought you might be willing to read about a future event that occurred once in a time now past. The party began at dark-thirty on a Thursday night. The celebrants gathered at Goldfingers Dinner Club where they were seated at a large, beautiful round table. The decorations were dinner plates, napkins and silverware, empty glasses for wine, glasses filled with water, a vase of flowers and all of this displayed on a white tablecloth. George, the owner of Goldfingers, prepared for seven university students and their professor. George meets and greets each student. He says they were easy to identify. He collected them at a table on the edge of the dance floor, a table with a good view of the stage. Later, George greets the professor, and enthusiastically invites him to dinner at Goldfingers. This welcome changes from generous to royal when the visitor asks George to seat him with the Ziad party. The semester had ended a week before and grades had been recorded at noon on the day before the celebration at Goldfingers. Thats why seven students were happy and thats why the professor was too. It was late afternoon the day before the party that Ziad, a student from Iraq, began to arrange this end of semester party. Ziad once worked at Goldfingers, knew George, and knew about the Greek music, dance, Greek food and that it was all coupled with the magnificence of Greek hospitality. Like home. After the eight were seated, the party begins. Soon, the table lights dim while the stage lights glow. This sight captures the attention of the audience when the musicians burst onto the stage. They wear colorful clothes, embroidered shirts with puffy sleeves and baggy pantalones. This Greek band plays unusually shaped string instruments, they sing and dance. Both song and dance was like that you might hear and see in a taverna in Thessolaniki or Pireaus. The players interrupt their stirring show after news the cooks had Greek food ready for the tables. On queue, the band disappears from a darkened stage while the table lights flicker on. The table lights attract servers carrying food. The students and their professor friend engage in eating good food, prepared well and at the same time savoring the company of their friends. It was a happy time shared by all, even for diners at adjacent tables. After a while the tables are cleared by the servers and then covered again with desert, tea, coffee, wine, ouzo and other things good and Greek. With no music Goldfingers dining room fills with conversations, happy laugh and the sound of chairs sliding on the floor as diners leave the tables for trips to a spruce-up room or to visit with new friends at nearby tables. While the party continues, few diners notice the band return to the stage but everyone notices when the music starts. This brings out the dancing diners. After a rousing song, the leader of the band invites well fed and happy patrons to the dance floor. There, with Greek music and the Goldfinger dancers the diners are connected into a long line that moves around, in and out and under like a colorful snake with long legs. While this community dance is in motion, the tables are vacant. All except one. -1-

THE STRANGER IN A PARTY OF EIGHT

The professor and a student are seated at that table. Both enjoy hearing the music and watching the dancers. The young lady at the table had a certifiable reason for not dancing; she sits in a wheel chair (put there by a truck accident), listens and excitedly claps her hands in rhythm with the music, rolls her head from side to side and laughs and laughs. The professor sits sharing all of this joy. Why he does not dance is not explained but he was older and more like a happy father than a reveler. After a while the stage show ends but the band plays on so visitors can engage in dancing. The music, played slowly, invites many dancers. There are at least a dozen partners on the dance floor and a pleasant sight to see. It became noticeable that one of the men dancing was more than just a dancer. He appeared with several partners, and on more than one occasion the dancers around him stop to stand and watch. These watchers stand in front of the stage and admire a dance of professionals. During the intermission, a pianist plays. During that interlude the stranger dances again, but this time he is alone. The strangers moves are magical. It was that dance by a stranger and the events that follow after that you ought to know about. They are the basis of this story. Only two individuals remain at Ziads table. The professor didnt dance and the lady in the wheelchair couldnt. But these two were involved in happy talk about what they see and the sounds they hear. The stranger comes to their table wearing a smile and asks the professor if he can sit and visit. It soon becomes clear that he knows our party celebrates the end of the semester. He asks if he can talk to the lady and continues by asking if the lady in the wheel chair will dance with him. She hears him ask the professor for permission to invite her to dance. The lady is delighted and tries to explain to the stranger that she can not dance. The professor was politely out of their conversation. The stranger speaks directly to the lady and indicates he knows about her life in a chair with wheels and adds, we can still dance. You smile while I push! With that said she happily agrees to dance. The stranger walks to the happy students chair, grabs the push handles, pulls the wheel chair from the table and the three move on to the dance floor. When the stranger and the lady in the chair enter the dance floor things begin to happen. The band stops. Then starts again. They play a magnificent waltz. The stranger rolls the chair one way and then another. He dances around the chair, rotates the chair while the smiling lady moves her arms and tilts her head in rhythm to the music. It was a magic sight to see. The musicians were inspired. Soon, the only dancers on the floor were the stranger and the rolling lady. Their song ends, but the band repeats. The stranger and the lady dance on. This was written for all those who were at Goldfingers that night. that the best end of a semester party, ever? Wasnt

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