Dances offer chem-free choice Member of Harrington VFW sees opportunity for entertainment

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HARRINGTON – The Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall on Route 1A was packed and rocking Saturday night, but instead of veterans cutting loose on the weekend, many of the dancers had been dropped off by their parents to revive the rollicking good times that characterized the dance hall when it was known as the Lobster Ranch. Except this dance was chem-free.

On Saturday nights once a month in western Washington County, parents know where their kids are for four hours of mingling, music and dance.

As recently as three years ago, the hall was the site of an adult social club, but the Lobster Ranch closed in 2003 and the VFW converted it into its local headquarters.

One of its members, Clyde Merrill of Milbridge, saw the space as an opportunity to promote chemical-free dances for rural towns that have little else for weekend entertainment.

He spent $2,500 on a sound system at Christmas and downloaded all kinds of music from the Internet. “DJ Clyde” was in business – not to make money, but to provide a community service.

“There was the meeting in Machias recently about all the problems of teenage drinking,” Merrill said Saturday night between songs by groups popular with the teenagers, if not their parents. “Well, this is what I’m doing about that. This is my answer.”

The dances have drawn 50, 60, and just last Saturday, 70 kids. They pay $5 at the door to dance and sip sodas through the evening.

If they head outside for anything more than a cool breeze or a cell phone call, adult chaperones bring them back.

Merrill didn’t plan for his dances to attract youths as young as 12, some of whom aren’t even out of elementary schools in Harrington, Addison, Columbia Falls, Milbridge and Cherryfield, but they do.

Others are older, but not by much, and many go to Narraguagus High School.

Merrill initially wanted to provide an activity for adults in the area who live their lives clean and sober.

However, once teenagers started crowding the place, the adults stayed away. A handful of Merrill’s friends still turn up regularly around 9 p.m. to support what he is doing for the area’s youth.

“It’s better than kids getting into the drugs or alcohol,” said Tini Wieninker of Harrington, who comes to keep an eye on her two daughters, 17 and 15.

Girls outnumber the guys, but nobody minds. The girls dance with each other, flipping their hair and snapping bubble gum as they shake and grind to flashing disco lights. They wear their shirts tight and their jeans low. They strut, show their belly buttons and wiggle in ways that the last generation didn’t dare.

“It’s a little suggestive,” said another mother who was chaperoning the other night. “But what the heck, everybody can see them here. It beats what they do in the woods or in the back of a car.

“It’s great that Clyde started this.”

At 8 p.m. at each dance, Merrill puts his music on autopilot and joins the kids on the floor.

That’s when his kind of tunes take over and everyone dances. First they do the cha-cha slide – music that gets the group clapping and dancing together. Then comes the electric slide, “YMCA” and “Macarena.”

The hokeypokey and the chicken dance follow in step. And then the limbo bends kids backward under the bar as they go through the line repeatedly.

Merrill dresses for the evenings in Hawaiian print shirts and dances as if he’s getting married next week. And he is – to Laura Leighton, who holds up the other end of the limbo bar, sells sodas and watches the door.

Life couldn’t be finer for Merrill, a Vietnam veteran who grew up in East Millinocket and later worked in its mill. He moved to Milbridge four years ago to be with Leighton, whom he met at one of the Ramada Inn’s dances in Bangor.

He turned 57 this month, “but this keeps me young,” he said.

Kids pepper him through the night with special requests, and he covers all of them.

“They like me,” he said. “They talk to me. Many parents don’t talk to their kids, the young people.”

Merrill didn’t intend to be a Saturday night savior for the area’s teenagers, but that’s what he’s looking like six months into his effort.

In the process, he has come to know – and like – today’s hits. He had to study the music station on satellite television to know what works with the teens.

The most requested songs? Try “My Humps” by the Black-Eyed Peas. “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls is another.

The common ground between the teens and adults seems to be country, Merrill said. “Redneck Woman” especially gets the girls screaming the lyrics (“Hell, yeah!”).

Merrill’s favorite?

“Oh, I like the oldies,” he said.