Former circus performer still does the twist at 95
By Jeff Barnet / jbarnet@lcsun-news.comPosted: 08/14/2010
Dorothy Pabst, 95, struts her stuff as she does the twist during a recent Swinging Dancers event at the Munson Senior Center. (Steve MacIntyre / Sun-News)LAS CRUCES - Dorothy Pabst is a natural.
Whether she's walking a tightrope, flying through the air on a trapeze or ballroom dancing, she has a knack for picking things up like she's been doing it all her life.
She can do the waltz, the Texas two-step, the jitterbug, Scottish dances and the twist. At 95, she can twist almost to the floor and back up again - a feat many people half, one-third and even one-fifth her age cannot do.
In fact, she out-twists everyone else at the Munson Swinging Dancers' Saturday night dances to the floor, and she can do this as many times as she likes, all while dancing for almost two hours nonstop.
In her spare time, she bowls, makes her own clothes and Jet Skis.
Yes: she Jet Skis.
She also enjoys competitive pingpong.
Pabst said she has been dancing since only the age of 71 and has never had lessons.
"Oh heavens no," she said. "I just listen to the music."
Dorothy Pabst takes a break before going back out on the dance floor at the Munson Senior Center. (Steve MacIntyre / Sun-News)Tightrope walker without a net
Pabst said she would have liked to have danced before the age of 71, but she was busy raising a family. In addition, her husband, a one-time dance band musician, didn't really like to dance, she said.
However, there is evidence from her early years that suggest Dorothy's amazing skill on the dance floor is a continuation of a lifelong natural gift for balance, rhythm and physical grace.
For two years, beginning at the age of 14, she toured as a tightrope walker and trapeze artist with a local circus put together by a Ringling Brothers Circus performer named Lou Palmer, who retired to Dorothy's hometown of Poynette, Wisc. Between 1929 and 1931, Dorothy performed her act - without a net, she said - in county and state fairs around Poynette, a little town 20 miles north of Madison near the Baraboo Range.
"One time we were at a a city hall somewhere and he had me do the tightrope from a balcony down to a stage," she said. "I had never done that before."
She didn't practice the move, she said, but the performance went off without a hitch.
Dorothy said she did double trapeze acts with her brother. She would fly through the air and he would catch her, she said.
"We did practice that one a bit," she said.
At age 16, Dorothy was offered a job with "a big time circus," she said, but her father said no to that.
"I don't have any regrets about that," she said. "My father did not think the circus was the best place for a young woman."
Dorothy said she always had good balance. She could do back flips and "lived (her) life on roller skates," she said.
She rollerskated everywhere, she said, while delivering newspapers, going to the store, to school, to the post office.
"I had six brothers," she said. "I did everything they did."
Dorothy said she loved to play baseball and basketball. She recalled the day her father, the town iceman, asked her to go to a nearby town and pick up a truckload of ice.
"He said to me, 'Babe" - he called me 'Babe' - 'Babe, I want you to do a favor for me. Get in the truck and go pick up a load of ice.'"
She remembers the day because she forgot to downshift while driving the load up a steep hill, and she started to slide back down. Somehow she got control of the truck and brought the ice home safely.
These days, while her 87-year-old brother in Wisconsin still goes out and clears his block of snow, Dorothy said she is the only one in the family who dances.
Her 70-year-old son, Don Pabst of Las Cruces, said he tried dancing with his mother once, but she dropped him and got another partner because he was so terrible.
"I don't see myself dancing at 95 years old," Don said ruefully. "Actually, I don't see myself being 95."
read more at: http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_15783055
However, there is evidence from her early years that suggest Dorothy's amazing skill on the dance floor is a continuation of a lifelong natural gift for balance, rhythm and physical grace.
For two years, beginning at the age of 14, she toured as a tightrope walker and trapeze artist with a local circus put together by a Ringling Brothers Circus performer named Lou Palmer, who retired to Dorothy's hometown of Poynette, Wisc. Between 1929 and 1931, Dorothy performed her act - without a net, she said - in county and state fairs around Poynette, a little town 20 miles north of Madison near the Baraboo Range.
"One time we were at a a city hall somewhere and he had me do the tightrope from a balcony down to a stage," she said. "I had never done that before."
She didn't practice the move, she said, but the performance went off without a hitch.
Dorothy said she did double trapeze acts with her brother. She would fly through the air and he would catch her, she said.
"We did practice that one a bit," she said.
At age 16, Dorothy was offered a job with "a big time circus," she said, but her father said no to that.
"I don't have any regrets about that," she said. "My father did not think the circus was the best place for a young woman."
Dorothy said she always had good balance. She could do back flips and "lived (her) life on roller skates," she said.
She rollerskated everywhere, she said, while delivering newspapers, going to the store, to school, to the post office.
"I had six brothers," she said. "I did everything they did."
Dorothy said she loved to play baseball and basketball. She recalled the day her father, the town iceman, asked her to go to a nearby town and pick up a truckload of ice.
"He said to me, 'Babe" - he called me 'Babe' - 'Babe, I want you to do a favor for me. Get in the truck and go pick up a load of ice.'"
She remembers the day because she forgot to downshift while driving the load up a steep hill, and she started to slide back down. Somehow she got control of the truck and brought the ice home safely.
These days, while her 87-year-old brother in Wisconsin still goes out and clears his block of snow, Dorothy said she is the only one in the family who dances.
Her 70-year-old son, Don Pabst of Las Cruces, said he tried dancing with his mother once, but she dropped him and got another partner because he was so terrible.
"I don't see myself dancing at 95 years old," Don said ruefully. "Actually, I don't see myself being 95."
read more at: http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_15783055
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