My Friend Jody
That crazy redhead on the left is my friend Jody. We worked together as ballroom dance instructors in Houston for many years. Now you know why I like to watch Dancing With the Stars. This season was particularly fun because I knew Mark Ballas, the professional who danced with Cloris Leachman. His Dad, George Ballas, owned Dance City, the mega-huge studio where Jody and I taught. We hardly ever saw George because he was busy in offices next door inventing things. One day George came to our teacher staff meeting and told us about this great new invention he had. He had a contract to provide this revolutionary item to the city of Houston and he needed some extra money to speed up production. He had a stock offer for us. We could buy stock in his new company for fifty cents a share. Seemed like a good idea to us so we all dug deep and bought lots and lots of stock. The new invention was named that day. It was called the Weed Eater.
Jody had a heart transplant a number of years ago and only lived a year or so after the transplant. She wasn't a Catholic and I don't recall her ever attending any church. But she had more Christian charity and goodness than many of the "good" Catholics I have met - including yours truly.
Before she died we would talk on the phone about the state of young people. She hit the nail on the head when she said, "Darlin, they aren't doing anything we didn't do, but at least we knew it was wrong. These kids today think it's alright."
This was taken a number of years after we left the business and you can see we are doing what we did best - smoke and drink. I miss Jody..............
