“You can dance, you can live/ Having the time of your
life/ Ooh see that girl, watch that scene/ Digging’ the dancing queen...”
The birthday woman
was everything in “Dancing Queen,” that great song of ABBA, the sensational
Swedish group that took the music world by storm in the 1970s. A lover of
songs, a great dancer and a lady fondly called “queen” by fellow student nurses
in the 1960s, not only by virtue of her being pretty but also by having many
things unusually common with the reigning Queen of England. She bears Elizabeth
like the queen, both share the same birthday, April 21 (she was born April 21,
1943 while the queen, her namesake, was born April 21, 1926). Again both were
born on the same weekday, Wednesday! Still they seem to have a common passion
for music. One of the queen’s hobbies is dancing. So is her fairy tale alter
ego.
Elizabeth Ayodele Oderinde, retired nurse and Iyalode
Ijo of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Ayetoro, Osogbo, was indeed a dancing
queen on December 21, 2013 as she belatedly, due to what family sources
described as unforeseen circumstances, marked her 70th birthday. She regaled
her audience with fanciful dance steps and a flamboyant display of joy at
reaching the remarkable 70th milestone after such a long walk in life.
Tagged a
celebration of “God’s Goodness,” the two-part event was an opportunity to go
down memory lane. An offspring of migrant workers who literally traversed the
length and breadth of the old Western Region in search of greener pasture,
little Ayodele was born in Gbongan and had her primary and post-primary
education in Agege, Lagos, Otan Ayegbaju (her hometown), Ile Ife, and
wherever the call of duty took her parents. She later enrolled at the Sacred Heart
Hospital, Abeokuta, for a course in midwifery and another in general nursing
qualifying as a state registered nurse. She started work as a midwife at the
Igbaye Maternity Centre, Igbaye, near Inisha in present day Osun State before
crossing over to the popular Jaleyemi (Our Lady of Fatimah) Hospital, Osogbo.
She eventually retired as a senior matron in 2000 having earlier transferred
her service to the state’s ministry of health in 1977…
Inside the St.
Benedict’s Cathedral Church hall, Popo, Osogbo, venue of the reception, the
bandstand had a busy day beating the drums and singing songs of praise in high
decibels. The celebrant could not help displaying some few more dance steps to
the admiration of her husband, a retired principal, children and grandchildren
in tow. Other relations, guests, former colleagues and teeming well-wishers did
not miss out on the spectacle. Like in ABBA’s song they watched the scene, saw
and clapped all the way, “diggin” the dancing queen. It was happy time and she
had the fun of her life.
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