LEWISTON – She forgets the names of the dances. After all, there’s the Arizona Freeze and the Arizona Shuffle. But when the music starts, the moves come back.

A tiny boom box played the classics: “Achy Breaky Heart,” “Boot Scoot Boogie.” With each tune, Georgette Morin and 15 other women swiveled, kicked and shuffled across the gym-turned-dance-floor Monday morning.

Morin wore dress slacks and practical flats – a popular choice – and hung her arms at her side, focused on the footwork.

“All my family go to play bingo. I say un-uh, I’m not old enough yet,” said Morin, 74.

She has line danced almost every week at the Multi-Purpose Center for 11 years.

Part social mixer, part exercise class, the Lewiston Senior Citizens class has boasted up to 45 members over the years. Participants, mostly women, have been into their 90s.

Sue Driscoll instructs, using her lunch break from work at Central Maine Medical Center to duck over for the 45-minute class. During each 10-week session she tries to introduce five new dances, often repeating the steps over and over, emphasizing, “We’re not going for perfection.”

She talks them through one dry run, then turns on the music.

“I think we’ve got this one down pat,” Driscoll said, as the class moved to the left, then the right to the beat of the “Electric Slide” as they practiced the Arizona Freeze.

“We all need to go to the same wedding so we can do this,” she told them.

“As long as it’s not my wedding!” shouted one. Laughter.

At the end of each song, dancers clap, take a little breather, then ready for the next one.

Lorraine Young from Lisbon sat out the Funky Shuffle. It’s hard on the knees. She’s been coming to class for four or five years. She tries to line dance three times a week.

“Most of us are widows,” Young said. “We don’t have to wait for anybody to ask us to dance, we just get up and dance.”

It’s a way to meet lots of nice people, Young said. But if you let your mind wander while you’re dancing, you fall behind.

The class costs $20 to members of the Lewiston Senior Citizens Program. Membership in the program costs $10 a year.

The program has something going almost every day. On Mondays there’s social bridge, pool and snooker. On Tuesdays, duplicate bridge. Every other Wednesday is bingo day.

Thursday is cribbage and pinochle, Friday is card and game day.

The next line dancing class starts in September.
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