Seniors groove to tunes of yesteryear

BREWER – It was evident recently that music has the power to propel us back to an earlier time. The dance floor at Well Forms fitness center was the time machine accomplishing that melodious feat.

Nearly 100 people aged 60 to 90 danced to music from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s spun by DJ Art Dearing. The dance was the next to the last in a series that began in November. The last dessert and dance is set for 1-3 p.m. today. There is no charge for the event.

“We’re getting lots of requests to continue the dances,” said Well Forms Manager Deb McCue. Dearing and Frank’s Bakery collaborated with Well Forms to donate music and refreshments to the dance series.

Out on the dance floor, six women line danced to the Patti Page version of “The Tennessee Waltz.”

Shirley Randall, 83, one of the line dancers, said she attended all but one of the dances.

“The nice thing about line dancing,” she said, “is that you don’t need a partner.” She has been line dancing, which she learned at the Bangor YWCA, for seven years. She also dances at Peaks Hill Lodge. “If you can walk, you can line dance. I’ll keep dancing as long as I can.”

As a younger woman, Randall used to square dance.

“It’s great exercise for the brain, too,” she said of line dancing. “We memorize all those steps, different steps for every song.” Music from the 1950s and ’60s, she said, is not music she and the other line dancers prefer. “Our music is today’s music,” she said – meaning the current top 40 hit songs.

“We’d like more men to do line dancing,” she said, “but men seem to like partner dancing better.”

More than a few couples were grooving through the steps of the jitterbug. Although they didn’t execute the dance’s more gymnastic moves, they moved to the music with the precision and confidence years of social dancing brings.

Older, more skilled dancers showed younger dancers, who grew up with the frug and the monster mash, a few new steps.

Gene Spearrin, 56, didn’t dance at all until six years ago.

“I wasn’t brave enough to get out on the dance floor when I was young,” Spearrin said. He went to his brother’s wedding where he was expected to dance and suffered the indignity of not knowing how. After the wedding, he went home and signed up for classes. Now, not only does he dance, he teaches dancing.

“What that shows,” he said, “is that anyone can dance.” He is a member of the Maineiac Swing Dance Society and is currently involved in organizing monthly dances at Alamoosic Lodge in Orland. Those dances begin Saturday, Jan. 10.

“I try to dance with as many as I can,” he said of the Well Forms dances. At the Dec. 4th dance, a woman taught him the Hungarian polka. “I get a big kick out of it. I hope the Well Forms dances continue.”

Many of the dancers were residents of Westgate Manor and the Maine Veterans Home in Bangor. Staff people from those facilities were out on the dance floor, too, gliding to the music with those in their care.

Those needing to use walkers also enjoyed the dance, clapping their hands and tapping their feet to the music.

It looked like a great place to have fun, and for this writer, the perfect place to learn that a lively beat can help us grow old gracefully as time propels us forward.

For more information about Well Forms and its activities, call 989-9730. To learn more about the Maineiac Swing Dance Society, call Gene Spearrin at 942-6537.