Long live the dancer

Everybody's doing it ...... but Patrick Swayze must be memorialized in this space on this day.

Oh, this clip from the climax of "Dirty Dancing", when Johnny Castle takes Baby and her twirling skirt out of her corner and into the spotlight.

I've seen it, without exaggeration, more than a thousand times. Enough to anticipate that circling camera shot (0:45), Baby's awkward head shakes (1:19) and best of all, the moment (2:50) Johnny leads the Latin Groove back up the aisle to get his woman.

"Yes I know what's on your mind when you say, 'stay with me tonight '.... "

This movie has easily the most cheesy, cheesily-delivered lines ever found in one film in the history of the industry. ("He wouldn't know a new idea if it hit him in the Pachenga.")

But that moment is powerful and Patrick Swayze is beautiful.

I was in 8th grade in 1987. As the biggest cliché of awkwardness to ever pass through puberty, I nevertheless wanted to be Baby Houseman. To wear those embroidered blouses and Keds and have that flouncy perm. (I took her photo to my hairdresser, even.) These things were definitely cool , but only because I wanted Johnny to spirit me to the lake on a rainy afternoon to practice the lift ... in white jeans, natch.

I had no self-confidence as a female teenager, with the triple threat of glasses, wings for bangs, and enormous sweaters. I did not know how to look a boy in the eye. I had zero concept of flirtation. I had no true objects of lust, maybe because I couldn't imagine anyone lusting back.

So let it be said: Patrick Swayze (those cheekbones, that gallantry, that butt) was the first boy (amazingly, at 35) who made me want to wear white jeans, who made me fantasize about waking up next to someone, who made me want to find that elusive soft-hearted bad boy for myself.

(Do they exist for real? Tell me yes?)