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Thousands jam the free event for food, fun and displays of all the things available to make growing older easier.
By MIKE BRASSFIELD
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- Onstage, four gray-haired men in their 60s and 70s performed a strip tease with metal walkers. They shook their booties, exposing skimpy gold thongs beneath their open-backed hospital gowns.
Scores of women screamed uproariously.
Beneath the stage, rows of display tables offered help for everything that can go wrong with an aging body: high-tech back braces, testosterone replacement therapy, skin cancer screenings.
Aside from free food and entertainment, the Senior Free Fest at the Coliseum on Thursday displayed a vast array of options available to Florida's aging population. It also provided evidence that the best-educated, longest-living retirees in history are determined to maintain control of their bodies and lives.
"I've always been independent. Of course I'm going to keep living in my own home," said 71-year-old Lucille Morrison of St. Petersburg, one of about 5,000 seniors who attended Thursday's event.
While plenty of retirement communities and assisted living facilities had tables at the Senior Free Fest, just as many exhibitors were trying to keep seniors out of nursing homes and ALFs as long as possible.
They offered to install handicapped-accessible bathrooms in private homes, deliver stacks of frozen meals to the home and teach people who are going blind how to keep brushing their teeth.
"People don't want to have to depend on others," said Molly Kellogg of the Watson Center in Largo, which trains people to live with deteriorating eyesight. "People tell us, "I want to stay in my house. If this doesn't work, my kids will make me move in with them."'
Ada Scherer, 72, and Marion Davidowicz, 65, strolled past vendors pitching motorized wheelchairs, massage therapy and acupuncture. The women had their blood pressure, blood sugar and hearing screened.
"I'm not in as bad a shape as I thought," Scherer said.
Richard Learn, 73, recalls earning money as a youth by delivering bottled milk for 10 cents a quart. Now he spends his savings on medication.
He listened as a salesman offered cheap prescription drugs from Canada.
"We live in the most powerful nation on Earth, and we're at the mercy of the drug companies," Learn said.
In each of its four years, the Senior Free Fest has drawn about 5,000 people from around the Tampa Bay area.
"We nearly had to shut the doors in years past because of the fire code," said Lisa Parsons, publisher of the Senior Voice of Florida, a free monthly newspaper that organizes the event.
For participants, Thursday's fair and others like it are helping to foster a new attitude toward getting older.
Witness the day's two closing acts at the Coliseum:
The Grandmother Rockettes were followed onstage by the Forever Young Dancers, a quartet of St. Pete Beach retirees who strip down to their bikini briefs for charity. The men were inspired by the movie The Full Monty.
"I'm a great-grandpa," said the group's founder/instigator, Fred Clausen, 72. "If young guys strip, why can't old guys?"