He's as fit as a fiddle

Harry Bolyard has owned the same violin longer than the average person will live - 85 years. He was 10 years old when his dad bought it for him, so that makes this feisty fiddler a 95-year-old.

Though he's certainly made more than enough money through his various business enterprises and work as a stock broker to buy a new one, Bolyard seems attached to the old instrument, which he calls a "Stradivarius factory copy."

However, he can't explain in the same way other musicians do why he's kept the same instrument for all these years.

Is it the tone quality? The action? The sentimental value?

"It's still a cheap one," he says matter of fact. "I've played it with dozens of groups."

Well beyond the age when most musicians would have hung it up for good, Bolyard still plays his violin regularly.

Every Friday at 9:30 a.m. he plays with a small group for a sing along at the Enrichment Center behind Oak Hill Hospital. Selections range from patriotic songs to Elvis.

"I just do it to keep in practice," Bolyard says, but admits he can be "a big showoff."

His zeal for music goes beyond just playing it. Bolyard, who has danced since age 12, struts his tall, lanky frame twice a week at the Brooksville Elks Lodge. He also likes to hit the dance floor when any of the local big bands perform.

"If you're a man who likes to dance you don't have just one partner," Bolyard boasts. "You can dance with any woman who needs a partner."

It's not just the dancing that has kept Bolyard in good physical shape over the years. Until age 67 he could run an 8-minute mile and says he played semi-pro basketball in his younger days. And he's never smoked.

The nonagenarian gets serious on Sundays morning when he plucks out some sacred tunes for the all-denominations service that begins at 8:50 a.m. in the clubhouse at Frontier Campground and Mobile Home Park on State Road 50. Bolyard has lived in the park for the past several years.

Then - as if playing at the campground service isn't enough to satisfy his soul - Bolyard heads downtown to play at First United Methodist Church, where he has been a member for the past 40 years.

He says he can play everything from gospel, to country to classical.

"I've played in a symphony; I've played hoedowns," he says. "I don't do well at one thing. I do a little bit of everything."

He played in a local group called Margaret's Happy Gang until the leader died in 1998, and has recorded a CD with "Sam the Banjo Man."

The duo used to play at the Airport Flea Market on Spring Hill Drive across from the airport.

Bolyard was born on a farm near Middleton, Mich., where he milked cows and had to "walk a mile through the woods to get my violin lessons."

He says he took up the violin partly because another boy in his neighborhood was taking lessons and getting good at it.

"In those days a lot of people took music lessons because their parents wanted them to have a better life," he explains.

While growing up, he played violin at Sunday school and at square dances where his dad was a caller.

He made his first trip to Hernando County with his parents in 1926 to visit a relative's Spanish moss gin.

The moss was collected from trees, bailed and shipped to New York where it was used to stuff automobile upholstery.

As an adult, Bolyard traveled back and forth from Michigan to Florida to manage his various businesses, including a poultry dressing plant.

He built a home in Brooksville in 1968 with his first wife, Bernice, who died about 20 years ago.

His second wife, Eleanor, died from Alzheimer's two years ago.

'I've outlived just about everybody," Bolyard says.

A man who's been good with numbers all his life, Bolyard has charted out with insurance actuary figures his chances of making it to the century mark.

"I've got a one in five chance," he quips.