In my recent message about negatives of applying wax to a
slow floor, I
wrote:

> ...
> Note also that wax, unlike, say, corn meal, will not easily
be
> removed by sweeping at the end of the evening.


As it happens, while
looking for something else, I just came
across a 2013 thread on the
trad-dance-callers list where
someone mentioned corn meal and another list
member replied
with a cautionary tale about a local dance series that ...

>
... had to temporary relocate, and settled in a church basement which had a tile
floor. The caller sprinkled corn meal over the floor in hopes of improving it
since it had been waxed.
> As the evening progressed, the crowded
unairconditioned hall became quite hot & humid and the cornmeal grains absorbed
the moisture, softening and sticking to the floor.
> It couldn't be swept off
after the dance. It had to be laboriously *scraped* off by the custodian on
hands & knees.
> 
> The dance was evicted from the church, never allowed to
return.

I'm not sure why the experience reported here differs from
what I've
seen with corn meal.  Was it the humidity?  Was it
something about the
underlying floor or about what had been
done to it before the corn meal was
added.  (For example, had
it not been well cleaned after an event the previous
evening
where people had dropped food and spilled sugary drinks?)
Was it
something about the kind of corn meal? Was it really
corn starch?  BUt I
thought I should pass along the
report.

--Jim

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