Ladies night out in Las Vegas

Scott Dickensheets

Thursday, Aug. 21, 1997 | 10:02 a.m.

Sometimes you just gotta cut loose. Whatever your age or infirmity, sometimes you have to go for it. Sometimes you have to look convention and political correctness straight in the eye and demand, boldly and life-affirmingly, take me to the naked men!

So it is that four ladies from the Cheyenne Care Center nursing home, two in wheelchairs, all in high spirits, pay a little visit to the Olympic Garden's male strip show Tuesday night. They're here for a little sweatin' with the oldies.

OK, they're really here because most people would think they shouldn't be. Because we expect our old people -- and particularly nursing home patients -- to sail serenely into an asexual twilight, their only hot passions consigned to memory, marking their final days like bingo cards.

Well, forget that! "We're not dead, we're alive," shouts Olga Dorris, 69, sounding the group's rallying cry. Olga is the group's ringleader and animating presence. It was she who rounded up support among the Cheyenne ladies and pushed for this outing.

"This isn't the first time I've done something stupid," says Olga, who was once kicked out of a pro wrestling match in Chicago for being too disruptive. "And it won't be the last. Maybe I'll run off with Mickey Rooney."

If you're wondering how this adventure came about, you should know it started with sugar cookies. "They were making sugar cookies one day," says Lenadams Dorris, Olga's proud son and owner of Enigma Garden Cafe, where the gals had gathered for lattes beforehand. "One of the ladies said, 'I'd rather see nude dancers than make sugar cookies.' That's all my mother needed."

As Dorris says this, he's standing outside Olympic Garden, where the ladies -- who, besides Olga, are Mary Larned, 82, Winnifred Thomas, 92, and Gladys Krueger, 84 -- and their retinue of attendants and nursing home administrators are awaiting entrance. His mom greets incoming male dancers and outgoing male patrons alike with a hearty "Hiya, boys!"

You almost wouldn't believe she'd had a stroke in November, except for the wheelchair. But if the flesh is weak, the spirit is more than willing. "Let the party begin," Olga hollers. "Last one in is a dirty dog!"

"I've never seen a male stripper," Winnie muses.

Upstairs, it's a few minutes before showtime and the Tuesday night crowd is sparse -- plenty of stageside seating available. "It's psychologically and emotionally important for these women to experience life outside their four walls," says Royce Kohler, sounding like the social worker he is. "They're really having fun." And the dancing hasn't even started yet. But so what? Olga is swaying in her wheelchair to a John Mellencamp stomper, her hand already poised over the stage, dollar bill at the ready.

The announcer has been briefed about the unusual audience. "Did you bring your heart medicine?" he bellows to them. "We might get you a little excited! Is that all right?"

Oh yeah. Serve up the beefcake already, and nothing but Grade-A prime. "Come on, let's go," Olga shouts as the first dancer, Tristan, crouches motionless on the stage, all leathery in full cowboy gear.

Finally the music starts and after a few slow rambles around the stage, he stops in front of Olga and rips open his long leather coat. The gals get their first glimpse of what the Marlboro Man wears under his gear: Calvin Klein undies over a thong. He may not be naked but he's still hunky dory, and when at last he wiggles his hips within range of Olga's dollar bill, she jams that baby home.

Then he's over to Winnie for another dollar bill from a trembling hand. He kisses her on the cheek as though she was one of the office-worker cuties on the other side of the stage.

"Hey, big boy," Olga hoots. "Shake it! Shake it!"

And, boy, does he. It's not long before Olga's singled out -- quick, someone, pass her another dollar bill! Someone does, and Olga takes it from there.

As Tristan crouches, Olga starts talking to him. It's impossible to eavesdrop over the throb of George Michael's "Freedom," but ...

"She's probably asking him to go home with her," one of the attendants chuckles.

Sure enough! "She asked if I'd come to the nursing home and chase her around," Tristan reports afterward, smiling. "I told her I'd get her a power wheelchair so she'd have a chance to get away from me.

"I was kinda surprised," Tristan says of the ladies. "But they looked like they were enjoying it, and as long as they were, that's great."

Meanwhile, Zack is onstage and Olga is ... where is Olga? Whoa, over there, getting a $20 personal dance. A guy in a thong, boots and cowboy hat is dancing mere inches from her. His strap bristles with George Washingtons. Soon enough, Mary joins her, whooping it up in an 82-year-old-woman kind of way.

You next, Gladys? No way, sonny! "I don't mind looking," she says, but she doesn't want to get much closer than that.

Backing up from the stage minus a dollar bill, Gladys gets caught up in the thumping music and swirly lights. Doing a geriatric shimmy, she mimics a striptease of her own -- she was a Hollywood dancer in her day, you know.

"Our administrator is going to kill us," one nurse laughs, not sounding too worried.

The gals call it a night during the fourth dancer; an hour of bold life-affirmation is apparently enough. As the attendants wheel Olga and Winnie toward the elevator and the administrators stand around verbally high-fiving over a successful field trip, Gladys breaks loose and rushes -- in an 84-year-old-woman sort of way -- toward the stage. "She's got to give away her last dollar!" someone says.

Afterward, there's really nothing left to say except Hubba hubba! Wahoo! Yowzah! Rrrroowwww! They got to cut loose and go for it, and the gals are exuberant. "It was wonderful," Olga says as Robert, an attendant, pushes her down the white hallway exit. "It brought back a joy I hadn't had in a long time."

"She didn't want to leave," Robert says.

"I can't afford to stay," she says.

No kidding! "I spent 60 bucks and got one drink," Kohler says. "But it was worth every penny."

"I never saw anything like it," Winnie sighs.

Kohler hopes this isn't the last such field trip; the women had a feisty good time of a sort they don't have on their usual outings to casinos and restaurants. Of course, it's all up to the facility administrator. And you just know Olga is raring to go again; in fact, if she can't, she might explode. Or worse, run off with Mickey Rooney.