Seniors square off

Whether it’s a do-si-do or promenade, Trussville area seniors are up and moving every week, and even taking their moves on the road at times.

A group of about 60 seniors form the Trussville Square Dance Club known as the T-Squares, which meets every Tuesday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Trussville Senior Activity Center on Cherokee Drive. 

The two-hour dance time is social meets aerobics meets prayer group for these seniors, ages 55 and older, who are known to not only spend the two hours a week dancing, but socializing and praying together. Each week’s meeting includes at least four square-dancing tips, some line dancing and occasionally some round dancing. When the two hours are up, it’s not uncommon to see members go together to watch a movie, eat a meal or plan an upcoming trip or party.  

“It’s good exercise and some of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. They just are salt-of-the-earth people,” said Jim Choate, T-Squares president. “They say square dancing is friendship set to music, and it really is … You develop friendships, and you become just like family.” 

Formed in 2008, the group is not unique to central Alabama but its design is — meeting every week and being exclusive to senior citizens. The club not only draws from the Trussville area, but across the Birmingham metro area.

Ray Myers, possibly the club’s oldest member at nearly 89, lives in Hoover and has been square dancing since living in Texas in the early 1960s. He has been a member of more than a half dozen square dance clubs in Birmingham since the 1980s.

“It’s my aerobics. It’s just like taking any different aerobic classes. It keeps you going. If you’re smart, you stay active,” Myers said. “One thing about that club is it meets in the afternoon, and you don’t have to dress up for it. You don’t come like a bum, but you don’t wear the western stuff.”

Choate said he believes the club’s midday, informal style is one reason why he’s seen the club grow from 16 people and two squares when the club began to now up to 16 squares on some weeks. Each square requires four couples. 

Another reason for the growth is square dancing is fun and fairly easy to learn, he said.

“The first time I saw it, I said, ‘Man, that looks like fun.’ I never had dancing lessons,” Choate said, who was introduced to square dancing in 1965. “You don’t even have to know how to dance. If you are mobile and you can listen to the caller, he will tell you everything to do. There’s seven more people in the square that’s going to help you, if you need some help.”

Square dance lessons are required ,though, to avoid breaking down the squares during the club’s dances. Twelve-week lessons are offered at the Wheels Around club in Fultondale.

That’s actually where club member Donna Bush and her fiancé, Ed Nesmith, had their first date. Prior to her lesson, Bush, 61, first learned about T-Squares while visiting the Senior Center. 

“I just happened to be invited to go to the Senior Center and saw this group over there. They always seemed to be laughing and cutting up … Once they met me, they treated me like they’d known me all my life. I wanted to be a part of it immediately,” Bush said. “I hated when I became a senior. I didn’t like getting older, but I like being a senior now, and being able to share that with others.”

While the club members’ ages may range from late 50s to late 80s, members say it’s hard to know how old other members are. 

“We’re just about all the same age,” Myers said, who would like to see more single men join the club to give dance options for the single women in the group. 

“They just blow me away with their age,” Bush said. “They are so keen, and they don’t seem their age there. I’m hoping that’s the way we’ll turn out, that as we get older and older we’ll still be keen or as young-looking as they are.”

The club hosts a potluck luncheon at 1 p.m. the first Tuesday of every month, where it invites and honors two local firefighters and two law enforcement officers. In addition to its weekly meetings, T-Squares occasionally hosts activities at the Pell City Veterans Home and Fair Haven Retirement Community, as well as hosting its annual Dance for a Cure fundraiser for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, which raises an average of $2,000 per year. 

For more information, contact Jim Choate at 948-7360 or jim_patchoate@bellsouth.net.