POCATELLO, Idaho — If the world were square instead of round, Dorothy Sidell is convinced more people would help each other.
"I have a philosophy that when you're square-dancing, you're so worried about telling your right from your left, you forget all your other cares," Sidell says.
Sidell is a part of Pocatello's square-dancing society, a group of aficionados dedicated to the dance and the culture associated with it.
"You've got to keep up with it. You have to go out and dance a minimum of once a month, I'd say," says Art Ross, who has been square-dancing with his wife, Jeri, since the mid-1970s.
The two started again on a dare after taking a brief break.
Veteran square dancers say it takes at least nine months to learn the dance's 40 or so basic moves. After that, couples choose whether to learn around 15 more moves to advance to the next level.
Larry Stewart has been "calling" square dances for nearly seven years. Callers are like disc jockeys, choosing the music and giving dancers instructions.
"Once you get to know what you're doing, it's not too bad. The trick is keeping people straight and getting them back to their own partners and their own corners," Stewart says. "You're just making it up as you go."
Stewart first started calling when a couple of girls took him square-dancing at Ricks College.
"When the caller couldn't do it, I filled in," he says.
The pastime takes a lot more energy and coordination than some may think, dancers say.
"What makes it challenging is that the caller can put things in any order he wants," Stewart says.
Learning how to square-dance isn't the only challenge. Square dancers encourage participants to dance in costume.
"I like to see the women in those dresses," says Dennis Hanners, president of the Choo-Choo Square Dancers.
Men wear brightly colored shirts with kerchiefs or bolo ties. Some wear hats, and nearly all wear boots.
The women wear dresses with enormous, flouncing petticoats made from as much as 100 yards of fabric.
"It makes me feel very ladylike." Jeri Ross said. "I can flash and twirl and it makes me feel pretty."
Not everyone feels the same way.
"If I could wear pants, I'd love it," says Barbara Davies.
To complete the total authenticity of the costumes, many of the women wear pantaloons beneath the petticoats.
Some sew their own costumes, and others order them through catalogs.
Bigger cities, such as Salt Lake City, even have specialty square-dancing shops.
Wearing a petticoat is in itself a difficult task. Getting in and out of vehicles, going through doors and even sitting down takes practice.
"The first two or three weeks, it's different, but you learn how to handle it," Jeri says.
Most square-dance clubs meet on a weekly basis and dance for about two hours. The dances usually alternate between "tips" — or sets of two dances — of square- and round-dancing. In round dancing, couples do the two-step, rumba and cha-cha in a circle. The counterpart to a square-dance caller is called a cuer in round dancing.
Square dancers expend a fair amount of energy in one night. A beginner dancing half of the dances in one night wore a pedometer and had gone five miles before the end of the night.
"It's good exercise for the body and the mind," Bob Davies says. "You have to sit down once in a while."
Spending your weekends do-si-do-ing and promenading has its rewards.
"It's a lot of fun and it's cheap entertainment," Hanners says. "I guess the reason people keep doing it is because they have a love of square-dancing and a lot of friendship."