Before and After… Self Promotion

by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Nov 26, 2024 | Featured, Personal, Shorter Stories Book

Almost 35 years ago I nearly lost my name, but 60 years ago I definitely lost my innocence.

Back in the mid-1990s, I was an aspiring business litigator who liked intellectual property. The Internet had entered the world and I reserved “bowie.com” as an email. Shortly thereafter, I got a phone call from a gentleman with a thick New York accent who asked, “Are you Robert BOWee?” I said I was Robert BOOwee. That is the exact moment I lost my name. He responded “Hello Mr.BOWee, I am David BOWee’s representative (you can look me up) and David told me to tell you that “if you will give him bowie.com he will give you front row seats, backstage passes… and all the shrimp you can eat!”

I thanked him for his interest, but demurred.

Two days later, I got a second phone call from the gentleman, who again asked me if I was Robert BOWee. I corrected him and then he corrected me back and ever since then my name was forever changed to BOWee except in Maryland and Texas.

I have been a good sport about it because, for the first five years or so, I would get email directed to David that offered “the greatest sex you’ll ever have, just meet me in the basement bathroom at Penn Station.” I am such a dork that I routinely would forward these messages directly to “Davidbowie.com,” but never once got a thank you back.

That is how I almost lost my name, but this is how I definitely lost my innocence. It’s a story from my book:

 
For my friends and me, life was abruptly changed on the after school athletic fields in the spring of our eighth-grade year, when all of our parents signed us up for dancing school.

My friends and I were all told it was a non-negotiable part of our education.

We were divided on the subject, until one of us confessed that in church he had recently prayed to God that he be allowed to live long enough to experience sex.

We found this to be reasonably compelling and it was sufficient to open the door for the rest of us to give in and accept the inevitable.

We had been given no previous training for this.

My preparation for dancing school was to wash my hair and then soap and rinse myself several times until I was squeaky clean, then do pull ups on the shower curtain rail in front of the mirror until I began to perspire and I couldn’t do anymore, in order to improve my physique.

Dancing school started at 4:30 pm. It was held in the middle school cafeteria at our all-boys day school. After lunch, all the tables were moved to one side, the chairs were placed side by side along opposite walls, and a piano was rolled into place.

Our instructors, Mr. and Mrs. Knot, were a husband and wife team who appeared to be in their 30s. The husband played the piano, smoked constantly, and showed no enthusiasm. We all liked him from the start.

His wife however was stern, and dressed in black high heels and a low cut black dress that featured her remarkable figure. From the start we had a problem. We couldn’t look at her, but we couldn’t take our eyes off of her.

Mrs. Knot would single out the tallest boy to dance with her. She would teach him the steps while the rest of us watched. We were then lined up with the girls from tallest to shortest and we could repeat their example.

Mrs. Knot soon showed the boys how they could politely change partners on the dance floor by tapping a boy on the shoulder.

One of the shortest boys in the class, who had big glasses, tapped Mrs. Knot’s dance partner on the shoulder in what appeared to be a shameless attempt to gain favor with his teacher. She appeared to approve, until they began to dance and she realized that her high heels and his height had placed his nose in her cleavage and his glasses were focused squarely on her breasts.

The girls were at least a head taller than most of the boys and, after a week or two, Mrs Knot announced a “ladies’ choice.”

The ladies’ choice turned out to be an extremely athletic event. The girls were choosing boyfriends but we didn’t know that.

They would slowly stand and walk toward their target, but if there was competition, they would pick up the pace and start running. There were times when two competitors, in an effort to get their boy and also to stop, would pile up and slide under the chairs where we were sitting.

The situation grew more mature. Later that spring, I had a girlfriend for almost a month, but I didn’t know that until she dumped me.

This was not unusual. Attachments were formed and broken in many cases before a boy even knew he had been going steady.

I was in my second relationship and didn’t know it until I was informed that it was over. I was told by a girl who I didn’t know that I had just broken up with a girl and that I was now available.

As the classes drifted into spring, the more adventurous girls would talk their parents into parties in the basement of their home.

They were all pretty much the same. They featured a record player and rotating chaperones to make sure nobody danced close during “Moon River.” The rule was stiff-arm dancing with visible open space between the dancers.

As the spring finished up, the chaperones and other parents migrated upstairs and gathered in the living room for cocktails. Occasionally, they would do sneak attacks or peek down into the basement to make sure the lights had not been dimmed or turned off and people were not dancing close to “Moon River.” They always claimed they were just making sure “the snacks had not run out.”

By summer, we had made friends with girls and even fallen in love and knew it.

Something beautiful had happened that spring. Nobody really knew what it was other than a transition, but it was beautifully woven together as a right of passage for everyone, including the parents.

The following spring, as upper-school ninth-graders, we would spill out of school at 4:30 pm and look in the windows of the cafeteria as Mrs. Knott waltzed her way through another dumbfounded eighth-grade class.

We had friends that were girls now, and we even knew enough to know we had girlfriends. I had even learned to do pull ups before the shower.

 
***
 
“Dancing School” appears on page 29 of The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be, available online at bookshop.org (https://bookshop.org/contributors/robert-r-bowie-jr) and amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/Older-Shorter-Your-Stories-Should/dp/162806420X/).

This is about self promotion before and after. Please consider buying this book and giving it as a holiday present. It would make someone very happy and also that would include me, so you get two for one!

My First Unsolicited Review

by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Oct 15, 2024 | Featured, Personal, Shorter Stories Book

Modesty prevents me from saying anything too nice about my new book, The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be (though I am very proud of it). Fortunately, I was able to persuade several prominent folks to read it and offer nice blurbs ahead of publication, for which I am endlessly grateful.

Now, I’ve just received my first unsolicited review and I couldn’t be more elated. This really made my week!

“I wanted to write and let you know how much I loved your newest book. Starting with its clever title, this wonderful book hooked me and reeled me in immediately. I literally read it cover to cover in a single sitting, and each story was more captivating than the next. Your insight into your surgery experience was especially compelling and your Christmas story moved me to actual tears. And I had no idea what an adventure hound you are! Or that you were Mac Mathias’s driver (the last good Republican)!
 
“Surely more erudite readers than I will be telling you how much they love your book, but I wanted to add my voice to the chorus of your fans. I look forward to reading whatever comes next.”
 
— D.R.

 
Thanks, so much! And thanks again to everyone who came out to help launch the book and to all who’ve picked up a copy (if you’d like your own, I recommend Bookshop.org).

If you have purchased online, writing a short review would be doing me a great favor, if you’re so inclined.