Editor’s Page

Welcome to the Winter, 2024, issue of the Promenader, a quarterly publication of the Western NY Federation of Square and Round Dancers Inc (WNYF).

In the winter, we enjoy the festive dances of the holiday season, then wave to many of our dancers—our Snow-Birds—as they migrate south to ride out the cold and snowy months.

Those who stay enjoy dancing as usual, though occasionally inconvenienced by weather-related cancellations. Keep an eye on the WNYF Home Page for “Breaking News” and on our Facebook page (Square Dancing Rochester group) for announcements.

In this issue

Articles in this issue cover awards recently presented to six dancers from the Copy Cats, Cloverleafs and Silver Squares. Photo articles feature four of the Silver Squares’ fall theme dances, as well as a Banner Retrieval by the Copy Cats.

There’s also an article introducing the first post-COVID Amateur Caller dance. This should get you thinking about encouraging yourself or someone you know to speak with your caller about trying your hand at calling a tune. I can say from my own experience that it’s a lot of fun…even if you have no intention of ever taking up the microphone on a regular basis. Amateur caller dances have given many active callers their start, so even if you have no interest in calling yourself, please plan on coming to dance. The dancers on the floor are at least as important as the amateurs at the microphone.

When your club hosts interesting dances or special events, be sure to take photos and send them to us with a brief description of the event. Sharing these in the Promenader and on the Facebook page will help new dancers see how much fun it would be to come to your dances.

Awards

The fall of 2024 saw multiple award presentations, as you’ll see in the Photo/Feature section. The Circle of Service award was presented to six dancers this fall, in appreciation of long-time service to their clubs and area dancing in general.

Nominations for the annual Daphne-Norma Leadership Award are due in February. Please read the article about this significant award and consider the leaders you encounter in dancing around our area. Then download, fill out and submit the nomination form.

Club News

The Club News section contains descriptions and news from each of our member clubs.

Federation Website

Fresh Promenader Photo/Feature articles and Club News reports are posted every three months (March1, June 1, September 1 and December 1), with the submission deadlines set at one month before the publication dates. In addition, webmaster Sidney Marshall maintains the Calendar/Flyer database continually, posting flyers and updating changes to the schedule listings as soon as he can after he receives them. So, there’s no deadline for schedule information. For fastest service, he recommends sending flyers (in PDF form) and schedule change notices (as .doc/.docx attachment files) to him directly (sidneym@frontiernet.net), with a copy to the Promenader (promenader@rochester.rr.com). In addition, for maximum distribution of urgent messages, clubs should send Sidney the text for any “Breaking News” to go on the WNYF home page (squaredancingrochester.org). And clubs should also consider posting their news on the “SquareDancingRochester” group Facebook page.

In Memoriam

This issue includes the obituaries of Phyllis Smeltzer, John Roden and Charlie Nientimp.

Editorial Comments

My tenure as Promenader editor began ten years ago, when Betty Ludwick and Sidney Marshall merged the Promenader into the Federation website. As some of you already know, this issue will be my last in that role. I have truly enjoyed the connections this role has given me with leaders and dancers from all clubs in our area and a few from further away.

My life has now shifted several hundred miles north, though I hope to keep up many of the friendships I’ve formed in 30+ years of Rochester square and round dancing. It all began in 1991, when our dear friends Gerry and Harold Schwartz invited Sally and me to dinner…and afterward “took us out” to what turned out to be a Village Squares Open House dance. Classes soon followed and we were hooked.

Over the past two years, a group of us has been unsuccessfully seeking a successor, and more recently planning for my departure. You’ll hear more about that in the coming months.

Quarterly Chuckle(s)

To help save the economy, the government will announce next month that the immigration department will start deporting seniors (instead of immigrants) in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs.

Older people are easier to catch and will not remember how to get back home.

Be sure to send this notice to your relatives and friends, so that when you go missing, they’ll know why.

The thought of this happening to you made me start to cry.

Then it dawned on me: I’ll see you on the bus!

Hmmm, that might have been too close for comfort to be funny, so here’s my final offering:

No wonder I was confused at school:

Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.

A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.

You think English is easy?? Here’s the reality:

1) The bandage was *wound* around the *wound*

2) The farm was used to *produce* *produce*

3) The dump was so full that it had to *refuse* to take more *refuse*

4) We must *polish* the *Polish* furniture

5) He could *lead* if he would just get the *lead* out

6) The soldier decided to *desert* his dessert in the *desert*

7) Since there is no time like the *present*, he thought it was time to *present* the *present*

8) A *bass* was painted on the head of the *bass* drum

9) When shot at, the *dove* *dove* into the bushes

10) I did not *object* to the *object*

11) The insurance was *invalid* for the *invalid*

12) There was a *row* among the oarsmen about how to *row*

13) They were too *close* to the door to *close* it

14) The buck *does* funny things when the *does* are present

15) A seamstress and a *sewer* fell down into an open *sewer* manhole

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his *sow* to *sow*

17) The *wind* was too strong to *wind* the sail.

18) The painter shed a *tear* upon seeing a *tear* in the painting

19) I had to *subject* the *subject* to a series of tests

20) How can I *intimate* this to my most *intimate* friend?

Let’s face it—English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, nor is there apple nor pine in a pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese, so why not one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not a single amend? Suppose you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, then what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented and molded by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity and flexibility of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they become visible, but when the lights are out, they become invisible.

P.S. Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’? AND finally: if a male goat is called a ram and a donkey is called an ass, why is a ram-in-the-ass called a goose?

Peter Emmel, Editor