Part I: Shake What Your Momma Gave You

Mary Ellen Kiser
EVWP Summer 2009



Popcorn always takes me back to going to the movies in the summer with my mom and sister. We would use it like a heat refuge escaping the south Georgia sweltering hot that I know has been described in classic southern novels. Well, they are all true. It makes you feel like you can’t stand up against it. You will lose. It will keep knocking you down over and over again.

We would go to see all kinds of movies: Staying Alive for mom, the ultimate Travolta fan; The Fox and the Hound, I’m sure for the benefit of my youngest sister; and for me some sort of break dance movie that must have been out the summer of 1985. You may be wondering how I convinced my Southern Belle of a mom to go see a break dance movie. My mother whose favorite fragrance was gardenia; my mother from Alabama with an accent so thick you could get lost in it. One word- dancing. She loved all kinds and she loved watching it. She also loved “Shaking What Her Mama Gave Her” as I guess the song goes.

She always encouraged us to dance at home. Which I guess would explain why I was enrolled in ballet and tap even though I was the pudgy one in the leotard and not at all graceful like the dance company head ballerina if that is even her title. She would often say, “Dance for me” and then exclaim, “That’s cute!” in her Alabama accent. Behind closed doors, I enjoyed watching Soul Train and wishing that I had the courage to truly let lose. Secretly, I knew I could dance like that.