This book was inspired by a 3,900-mile trip taken with my Father in the spring of 2018. My father has always been “a car guy.” He bought his first one at fourteen, then proceeded to drive it following his parents as they returned home to Kansas after a decade in California where his parents had settled during the “Okie” Migration of the Great Depression. On the occasion of his 85th birthday, he told me he was going to buy himself a brand-new Ford Mustang GT. With the new car purchased, he began planning a trip back to his hometown in Kansas from Central California where he lived most of his adult life and had retired. We had a great time traveling “The Mother Road,” the term used for Route 66 by many of the Okie migrants of the 1930’s Dust Bowl era. We visited family, saw his old home outside of Neodesha, Kansas, stopped by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “little house on the prairie” just a few miles from there, and enjoyed miles and miles of open road with the 460 horsepower in the Mustang GT. It was a wonderful trip.

Life is happening now. The music of life is playing. The ballet of life is underway. Whether you are dancing or standing still indicates if you are a performer or an audience member. Life is a Ballet is a book about life lessons learned through ballet. It offers lessons for the dancer and for those who appreciate the art form. 

"Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can."

• Danny Kaye, American Actor, Singer & Dancer

Yesterday I was on set. I was working as a background actor on a major motion picture. It has “A List Actors” and an Academy Award winning director. I may even get a few shots with my mug clearly visible. Maybe, fingers crossed.

We all know about the cutting room floor. However I’m in a few scenes that I think might make it in. We shall see. Whatever the case may be, I’m grateful to be working. I’m nowhere near having my name on the marquee, however, every step forward is one in the right direction.

My journey to this point of being on set for a Hollywood production began around 2006...

“We can’t always change the music life plays for us, 

but we can choose how we dance to it.”

– Unknown

Scott Erwin never imagined as a high-schooler playing tackle football that in his late 40s he’d be asking his wife if she’s seen his ballet shoes or whether the seams on his tights are straight.

But heading into his ninth year with the Civic Dance Center, producers of Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic “The Nutcracker,” Erwin will execute the ultimate dancer-dad pirouette and don the costume of the valiant wooden hero the Nutcracker.

The annual holiday presentation has become an Erwin tradition that keeps the entire family on its toes, giving new meaning to the phrase “the family that dances together stays together.”

It all started with his son ...