The Garage Gang: Four decades of square dancing, mischief and friendship on P.E.I. | 24CA News

At 8 a.m. on the primary Thursday of every month, the Garage Gang arrives at Sam’s Family Restaurant in Charlottetown. The tables are already set for them, their favorite server Heather having obtained a name the evening earlier than indicating what number of place settings to place out.

“It’s all ready when we come in in the morning,” stated Stan Skeffington, one of many unique members of the group, and nowadays the de facto chief. “We’ve been here so many times that mostly now she just looks at you and says ‘the same?'”

There had been initially 22 within the group, however nowadays, 12 of them sit at two separate tables. The seating plan rotates every month, so that everybody will get an opportunity to speak to everybody else.

Stan Skeffington and his spouse Trudi sit at a nook desk. Next to them are Myron Younker and his spouse Glenn, and Virden and Naomi Robinson. A number of toes away, spanning a desk within the centre of the diner are Eleanor and Gerald Robinson (Virden’s brother), Joan and David Arbing, Fay Mayhew, and Rowena Brown.

A hand-picked crew

Their ages vary from 77 to 93, however at coronary heart they’re as spry because the day they first met, again within the Nineteen Seventies. Joan Arbing remembers how it began. Her cousin requested Joan and her husband David to check out a brand new dance group on the YMCA in Charlottetown.

“I was going and he said he wasn’t. And I said, ‘Fine, you stay home, I’m going,'” Arbing stated. She was about 22 years previous on the time. “He wouldn’t let me go by myself, so he came with me.”

The group clicked immediately, and those that lived in Brackley Beach began hanging out collectively exterior of dance lessons.

“We had a lot of fun when we were dancing,” stated Stan Skeffington. “So I guess between Trudi and I, we kind of hand picked a bunch of people to come out to our house just for a get-together.”

Soon, the group expanded past sq. dancing. When the {couples} began having kids, they wanted a brand new excuse to maintain assembly up.

“Trudi got pregnant, that’s how it all started, because she couldn’t go square dancing anymore and she wanted to get together with the gang,” stated Eleanor Robinson. “So we had a big, big celebration in her garage and everybody brought some food.”

The Skeffingtons say the primary pot luck at their residence in Brackley Beach was purported to happen within the yard, however wet climate pressured them into the storage.

“Somebody was wondering, ‘well, what can we call ourselves?'” Stan stated. “And I don’t know who it was, somebody come up with the Garage Gang because we meet in the garage. So that’s how it happened.”

Garage Gang ‘shenanigans’

It wasn’t lengthy till dancing changed into dinner events. The crew solidified their friendships even additional, and even acquired right into a little bit of bother again within the day.

Glenn Younker remembers a twenty fifth wedding ceremony anniversary shock for one of many {couples}. Everyone acquired collectively at midnight and confirmed up of their yard, waking them up.

“We had a cake, we had a bridal bouquet made out of rhubarb. We had a minister to perform the ceremony,” she stated. “And we were there until I guess about 2:30 in the morning.”

The Garage Gang fondly calls these reminiscences their “shenanigans.”

“I think every one of us through the next few years were visited by this garage gang in some shape or form with some kind of a crazy event,” stated Younker.

Stan Skeffington stated there was at all times a youthful member of the household who was in on the joke to assist somebody get away with their prank.

“We would get into a house and you might find most of your shoes are missing and if you want to gather them up,” he stated. “You would get one at one house and the other shoe mate would be at another house.”

Dancing for days

But shenanigans apart, the group’s foremost focus was at all times sq. dancing. For a few years, they’d dance anyplace that will allow them to. In church, in a McDonald’s, on the P.E.I. ferry. They even danced within the Gold Cup Parade one 12 months.

The Charlotte Twirlers, as they had been identified then, had been led by sq. dance caller Murray Mayhew.

“He was one of the best callers in the world,” stated Glenn Younker.

Mayhew would at all times make sure that everybody acquired again to their companion — one of many objectives of the dance. But not everybody was good at following the steps.

“Sometimes somebody would look at you if you’re in the wrong place and they say ‘What are you doing here?'” Rowena Brown recalled. “I said, ‘Just standing. I dunno where I’m supposed to go.’ But that’s how it went.”

The group’s longest-dancing member was Virden Robinson. He danced for 44 years, proper up till COVID-19 got here into the image in 2020.

“Nobody, I don’t think, is square dancing right now on the Island,” he stated.

Until we meet once more

As the dancing got here to an finish, the group rapidly seen they wanted a brand new technique to keep in contact.

“We realized that in order to keep the group together we needed to go out for breakfast or something once a month,” Stan stated.

But the entire gang is not round anymore. A number of years in the past, the group misplaced their first member, Murray Brown. His spouse Rowena reads a poem the group shares every time they meet, remembering the now seven members who’ve died.

As the primary widow of the group, Rowena says the Garage Gang was at all times there for her.

“My husband had ordered windows for the house, for the front of the house. And these guys came and put them in for me when he had passed away,” she stated. “And you didn’t even really have to ask them — they just did it. And if ever I needed anything I knew that they would be there to help me. It’s been a fabulous group. You can’t ask for better friends.”

The Skeffingtons finally bought their home with the storage that gave the Garage Gang its title. So nowadays, the assembly place is Sam’s Restaurant, the place they will at all times order the identical factor, and their months-long sport of Chase the Ace supplies some laughs — and a chance to poke enjoyable at one another.

When requested the key to their decades-long friendship, the Garage Gang’s recommendation is easy: keep in contact with good individuals and good pals.

A little bit after 9 a.m., the group begins to disperse. Some pay one another’s payments, a back-and-forth that is gone on for longer than anybody can bear in mind. They say their farewells till subsequent time. No one is aware of which assembly could also be their final, however all of them make plans to fulfill once more subsequent month.

“I imagine we’ll continue on as long as some of us can come, and hopefully quite a few of us can continue for a few more years, anyway,” says Joan Arbing.

But after all, Stan has an concept for the Garage Gang’s ultimate assembly — one final shenanigan, if you’ll.

“I once thought that we were going to get a bottle of wine and put it away,” he stated.

“It may come down to just two old ladies that’s going to come in here, When it gets down to those last two that they would get this bottle of wine and they could sit and drink it. Just set it aside for that very purpose of the last two people surviving the Garage Gang could sit down, and drink it together.”