ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 17, 1996 TAG: 9612170022
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
Lillian Howell stands at the side of the pool, clapping loudly.
"Together, open, open, down."
At her feet, in water the temperature of a bubble bath, seven women are on their backs, toes touching, making a human star.
"Some of them don't hear so well," Howell explains softly, then ups her volume: "Don't get too far away - come back, Mary. We don't want a shooting star."
Laughter, then applause. All in all, the formation looks pretty good.
It's Tuesday morning, and the women, who average 85 years of age, are practicing for the annual Christmas Water Pageant at Friendship Manor, a retirement center in Northwest Roanoke.
Howell (who also goes by her late husband's last name - Hostetter) has been in charge of the pageant for three of its four years. One year she was sick and couldn't manage it, but now she's poolside again, wearing a black leotard and pantyhose and organizing the swimmers: "Slowly, together. Slowly, together. Watch the center. Right there."
"We believe we're the only retirement community that puts on a water pageant for Christmas," said Howell, who, at 77 is the youngest of the group. "I don't know of any other. Of course, we could get challenged on that."
Previous pageants have included "A Christmas Carol," complete with pallbearers and a patio burial for Scrooge, and "The 12 Days of Christmas." This year, it's "Christmas Around the World."
Time has shown what works and what doesn't.
"One year we were snow queens and we had white tutus," remembers pageant veteran Mebs Skinner. "And do you know that as soon as we got wet, they were transparent? It was like we had nothing on. So now we wear black tights. No more tutus."
Black is the color of their bathing suits, too. "When you wear black, you can get away with anything," Howell explains.
Though for practice, some of the women sport flowered suits instead.
During the production, they'll wear costumes, too, many of them crafted by Howell and her trusty, 55-year-old Singer sewing machine. Yellow hats and yarn braids for when they portray swaying tulips during the Holland number. Red, white and blue vests for the United States. Parasols patched with pieces of flowered wallpaper for Japan.
They realize, of course, that Christmas isn't celebrated by the popular majority in Japan, which is predominantly Buddhist and Shintoist. But Joan Stone did have that kimono, and "the umbrellas were so cheap."
So that leaves Florence Nelson, who will wear the kimono on the side while the women take their synchronized steps in the pool, adjusting her bustle and trying to figure out what to do for a headpiece.
She holds a bouquet of purple silk flowers against her white hair.
"I think that looks real Japanese-y," calls out Kitty Lyttle, who won't be setting foot in the water, but gliding alongside it as a Dutch girl.
If old age had public relations officers, the women in this pageant would be worthy applicants: active, teasing each other, willing to try something new.
And sharing this in common: "We're all old," Skinner says.
There is little room for vanity in the 18-by-24-foot swimming pool. Being 80 is not just the subject for jokes; it's bragging rights.
They make fun of their figures and their hearing. They laugh at the prospect that pageant publicity could embarrass Mary Beahm's grandchildren.
"I won't wear it," calls Ray Dunfee as Howell shows off an Austrian costume she's just completed - a pink jumper with a short skirt for Herta Freitag, whose nose is barely above the pool's depth of 4 feet. Dunfee won't be swimming (``Men don't swim, but they take part," Howell said) though his wife, Frances, will be.
"I think they're all inspired by each other," Howell said. "When I think I can't do something, I look at Herta who went to Europe last summer, alone at 88. I think there's nothing I can't do at 77. Sometimes we're ill and can't do the things we want to do, but it's not age that deters us."
Some have had surgeries, some strokes. But there they are - trying to create that perfect star.
Howell is still an associate broker at Reality Services at Smith Mountain Lake. She's sold $1 million worth of real estate this year.
Freitag returned this month from presenting a mathematics paper in Savannah, Ga.
And trying to add another day to practice for the pageant is a sure way to complicate things. There are eye appointments, aerobics sessions and choir practices to rearrange, though the occasional outpatient surgery can't be rescheduled.
Still, the show goes on.
Skill levels in this pool vary. "Some swim some, some very little," Howell says. "Some keep one foot on the bottom and we never tell. We don't turn anyone away."
In all, 30 people will be in this production, including Howell's son, who will play guitar, and three of her great-grandchildren, who will portray Mexicans.
Beahm explains her participation this way: ``We didn't have the sense to say `no.'''
And so they swim back and forth across the pool, touching shoulders, smiling as they pass each other in a crisscross pattern.
"I like the halt in the center," Howell says. "We'll do that in the act."
She opens the door to cool the room off a little, and steam rises from the water.
Come show time, she says, there will be standing room only around the perimeter.
After the pageant, residents and guests will eat Food from Around the World, then move on to the line-dancing portion of the show.
That's where Phyllis Smith, who has been leading practices every Wednesday for months, and another dozen dancers will take their turn in front of the audience. The oldest dancer in the group of women (``We have a man, but he goes to Florida every winter," Smith says) is 90 years old.
The line-dancing group formed a couple of years ago with the help of a maintenance worker and dance aficionado. He left Smith and a group of residents with a tape of dances for senior citizens. They learned those, then added a few steps of their own.
"Line dancing is just what it says: a line," Smith explains. "But we'll be doing two or three in circles or squares instead."
Normally, they practice to polka music, particularly music they grew up with, by Lawrence Welk. Wednesday's performance will feature Christmas songs.
``Every time we try something new, some of the older ladies will say, `We can't do that,''' says Smith, who is 75 and one of the youngest. ``But we work with them until we all get it down pretty good.''
Back at the pool, the hour-long practice is over and Howell gathers up her costumes and heads toward what Friendship Manor residents call her "little red sports car," a Ford Taurus.
"Red," Howell says. "That's my color. It moves fast. It keeps up with me."
LENGTH: Long : 132 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. 1. Geri Glosh falls back on a goodby CNBsense of humor when things don't go right in practice for the annual
Christmas Water Pageant at Friendship Manor. 2. The grand finale for
the pageant will include seven women forming a star (above) to the
music of "God Bless America." Lillian Howell (right), who has been
in charge of the pageant three times, gives instructions for a
Japanese segment of the production. 3. Mary Beahm (top), Mebs
Skinner (middle) and Geri Mills enter the pool dressed as Dutch
girls. 4. Cast members (left to right) Geri Glosh, Geri Mills and
Fran Dunfee use large form tubes as part of their routine. color.