Shuffleboard takes place in the gym at the Clinton County Senior Center, 5139 North Catherine St., Plattsburgh, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays.
The Plattsburgh YMCA program is funded in part by the Clinton County Office for the Aging.
Other YMCA activities for seniors, financed in part by state funding through the Office for the Aging, include aerobics and senior swim (water aerobics), both located at the YMCA on Brinkerhoff Street.
Aerobics takes place at 8:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday, with about 20 minutes dedicated to exercise to music, some weight resistance work and stretching.
Senior swim (water aerobics) is 11 a.m. Wednesdays.
The YMCA is looking for a new instructor for that program.
The activities are free, but donations are accepted.
This year's Empire State Senior Games takes place June 8 through 13 in Cortland.
Entry deadline is May 1.
For information, call Cathy Witkowski at 561-4290.
PLATTSBURGH — Stay away from the kitchen when playing shuffleboard.
"It's minus 10 points," said Gloria Bouviar, waiting for her turn in the gym at the Clinton County Senior Center, stick in hand.
The kitchen is a narrow strip marked off at the end of each shuffleboard court, where the puck tends to slide, it seems, just out of sheer perversity.
LOTS OF LAUGHS
Gloria drives almost 30 miles from her home in Ellenburg Depot to play doubles shuffleboard, picking up 83-year-old Helen Russell in Altona on the way.
The pair are still newcomers to the game — Helen saw an item about it in the Office for the Aging publication the Senior Sentinel and thought she'd give it a try. Again.
She'd played shuffleboard in her teens.
"I love to tease her," Gloria said. "I said (to Helen), 'You had it back then?'"
As partners, they stood at opposite ends of the court, so that means Gloria needles the opponent standing beside her instead.
All three shuffleboard courts were busy Monday morning as a dozen players competed, but as Lucian Bernard's puck skidded over the spots where it would win points and landed in the kitchen, everyone knew how delighted that made Gloria.
"Beautiful!" she cried. "He's got a minus 10. I love it!"
But her enthusiasm over her competitor's bad luck maybe did her wrong, for her next thrust had a little too much oomph.
"No, no, no!" she said as her yellow puck slid over the pointed spaces then came to rest in the kitchen, too.
She turned to Lucian with a ready excuse. "I felt sorry for you," she said. "I didn't want you to be alone in there."
GOOD EXERCISE
Shuffleboard is gaining ground in Plattsburgh, with about 25 registered for the twice-weekly YMCA activity.
The Senior Center makes the space available for the program, which makes it convenient for shuffleboarders who enjoy lunching there after an active morning.
In the beginning, about three years ago, YMCA Senior Citizens Programs Director Cathy Witkowski would set up a portable court in the gym. It proved so popular that she installed two permanent courts.
"It's grown so much that we put the third one in this year," she said.
Bill Clark, who for three years has helped Cathy set up the courts, came up with the perfect buffer to keep the discs from leaving their appointed aisles — flat lengths of fire hose.
"Bill is a very clever guy," Cathy said.
Cathy, Bill and Louis Levaque buffed the finish off the floor, painted on the lines then added a high gloss of polyurethane. A dusting of yellow beads gives the pucks a smooth ride.
"In Florida," said regular player Ernest Deyo, 70, "of course, (shuffleboard) is outside on asphalt.
"Wood is better."
He and his wife, Annette, who live in Beekmantown, enjoy the game.
"It's good exercise — nothing strenuous," she said. "And a little bit of competition."
"Helen is very competitive," Gloria said at her end of the court.
That lady, who still works two days a week at the Altona Library, said shuffleboard is a matter of luck.
"It's lots of fun, though."
LUCK AND FINESSE
Cathy does help newcomers learn how it works — who goes first, scoring "¦ The object is to land the puck — or disc — in the areas that win points. The trick is that, if the second player manages to dislodge the first disc from that spot, the points disappear. Highest score, of course, wins the line, or game.
"We got a 10!" a woman called from across the room in the midst of an intense game.
Anyone can play, said Ernest, "as long as you can pick up a stick and hit those pucks."
"Like any game, it's what you make of it," observed Bill, 77. "There's luck in it, and it's skill." He laughed. "I have a lot of luck, not a lot of skill."
It does take some finesse, Cathy noted.
"You can't push it too hard; you can't do it too lightly.
As four-time gold medalist at the Empire State Senior Games, she knows.
"There's a technique on how to hold the stick right and push — you don't want to jab at the puck; you need to be gentle with it."
For four years, she traveled with seniors to the games; the fifth year, as she'd turned 50, she entered, too, and has played ever since.
"I'm only getting gold because there isn't a lot of competition," she confided, chuckling.
She kept an eye on the action, thinking, no doubt, about the next state games.
"We really want people to get involved," she said.
One couple she's counting on is wintering in Florida, playing lots of shuffleboard to ready themselves for the contest. Kind of like spring training.
Cathy is urging others to join the fun, whether as shuffleboarders or in any of the many categories of competition.
Gloria was too busy trying to improve her play at that moment to think about higher competition.
The kitchen might be bad, she said, but her first line of the day was even worse.
"I was in the woodshed," she invented a fitting description. "This guy knocks my discs out."
Lucian kept his composure, aimed his puck and let fly.
His black puck clicked against Gloria's yellow one, knocking it neatly out of the spot marked for seven points.
"Hey, hey, hey!" she said.
E-mail Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com
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