Find the Beat? Where do I Look?

By Fred Bruning

May 18, 2025

This may not be an encouraging update from the natural world but chimpanzees have a sense of rhythm that matches the percussive chops of human beings, a reminder from whence we came.

Debate Darwin all you want but when a primate can beat out a drum line that sounds something like Gene Krupa, there’s not a whole lot more to say.

“Our ability to produce rhythm – and to use it in our social worlds – that seems to be something that predates humans being human,” Cat Hobaiter, a University of St. Andrews primatologist, told the Associated Press.

The disclosure may be particularly alarming if, like me, you have been slighted by the evolutionary process when it comes to grace, timing, rhythm and ability to execute the old swing and sway.

At a family reunion, my daughter invited me to waltz which I could have told her held the same promise as figure skating or a tightrope walk over the Royal Gorge.

Footing escaped me, balance, too. I became a danger to myself and others. What began as a waltz ended as a Class 2 misdemeanor.

“Don’t you feel the rhythm – one-two-three, one-two-three?”

“What I feel is only deep, profound and lasting humiliation,” I said, sensing her toe beneath my heel. “Where’s the bar?”

Even with Wink, my wife, I am hopeless.

“We’re off,” says Wink whenever we give it a try. “I can’t figure it out.”

Oh, yeah?

I’ll tell you when she could figure it out.

We were at a party at some ritzy private club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan years ago.

An old friend married in middle age, lovely. Her new husband was a fellow who at one point had studied for the priesthood so some of his old divinity pals were in attendance.

As the music picked up, I found my usual spot removed from the dance floor.

But what do you know?

There was Wink doing the boogaloo with a great-looking guy in a Roman collar, carrying on like they were regulars at Studio 54.

How swell.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“No big deal.”

“Where does a priest learn to dance so good?”

“Didn’t ask.”

“I bet.”

The band started something smooth and navigable.

“Slow dance,” I said. “Should we?”

“Exhausted,” said Wink. “Phew. Let’s sit.”

Things can always get worse.

I was at a celebration that involved line dancing, another questionable social enterprise. And this wasn’t just the Electric Slide or Macarena but something more suited to a roadhouse in the Texas panhandle.

Details are a blur – Were the authorities called? Was I ousted by a bouncer? – but things did not go well. In whatever direction the line dancers headed, I – yeehaw! – started in another. Unsure of our liability coverage, I took a seat.

Things weren’t always this way.

As teenage Luther Leaguers at St. John’s Church, Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn, we convinced dear Henry Krooss, the adult supervisor, to allow doowop over the speaker system.

Before you know it, we were jitterbugging to “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and “Tutti-Frutti,” by Little Richard. We slow-danced – Henry ever vigilant – to “Devil or Angel,” by the Clovers, and “Most of All,” by the Moonglows.

You’d have to check with the Luther League girls – “We’re 80 all of a sudden!” one recently wrote – but I don’t remember sulking in a corner while everyone else ended the night in close contact, the Penguins singing, “Earth Angel.”

Also worth a mention:

On our first date, Wink and I danced at a college spot called the Rathskeller. I did not step on her toes nor cause her to trip and fall. We did nothing to endanger the Fox Trot. I kissed her on the cheek. She was 18; I, 20.

Didn’t take long before we were married. Would she have said “I do” to a guy who threatened foot problems for the next 50 years?

So what happened?

Inhibitions creep in, is what I think.

At some point, appearances start to count more than they should. You think everyone is passing judgment. You tighten up. Your body feels like a battleship. Defeated, you say sorry and speed toward the bar.

Wink once suggested dance lessons. OK by me but can’t help wondering. How come chimps find the beat without instruction at Fred Astaire?

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive