In one of the swankiest joints in town, amid well-dressed couples sipping wine around candlelit tables, a man with a wispy white beard sits on the carpet stretching. In the dim light, flecks of glitter sparkle on the bald crown of his head and shadows exaggerate his gaunt and toothless face.

His name is John Williamson, but around town he’s known as Old Man Dancing, or, as he tends to refer to himself, OMD. Luna, a live-music lounge attached to one of Eugene’s most fashionable restaurants, is one of the 63-year-old’s favorite spots to dance.

The staff at Luna has embraced Old Man Dancing as “good karma.” They greet him by name and let him in without paying the six dollar cover charge, but they keep a friendly distance. For OMD, who spends his days alone, these interactions are among the most intimate he knows, and he’s proud they think so highly of him.

The clientele, however, is not so sure. From their seats at cloth-covered tables, they eye him with a mix of wariness and amused curiosity as he stands on the edge of the dance floor shaking out his limbs and rolling his neck like a boxer warming up before a fight. By the door, a gray-haired man in a sports coat nudges the woman next to him and motions with his chin in Old Man Dancing’s direction. “Oh yeah, I’ve seen him before,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “He’s always wearing that same coat.”

The coat is a black Coast Guard jacket that Old Man Dancing found at Goodwill, where he gets all of his clothes, except for socks and gloves, which he buys new. The sleeves are decorated with red stripes and the lapels, more recently, with pins proclaiming “No Blood for Oil” and “The Worst I Can Do is Make a Fool out of Myself in Front of all my Friends.” Although he hated the scratchy wool he wore in the army in the early 60s, today military wool is nearly all he wears. He calls it the material of antiquity—durable fabric meant to be worn.

A whiz on the sewing machine, OMD has tailored almost every article of his clothing to reflect his unique style. He’s replaced most ordinary seams with decorative stitching, and each button on his many vests—one of which he constructed out of a vintage Eisenhower jacket by removing the sleeves and lowering the pockets—has been sewn on with a different brightly colored thread. Most nights, he can be seen dancing in bright blue pants with red stripes up the sides or a khaki green pair with orange zippers and a hand-embroidered patch on the knee.

Tonight, respectful of the classy atmosphere, OMD is wearing black pants, a billowy wine-colored shirt, and a shiny black vest shot through with silvery threads. Moving out on to the empty dance floor, he takes deep, concentrated lunges in sneakered feet, while dragging his back ankle gracefully along the floor behind him. With his narrow, wiry torso perfectly erect and his arms slightly bent and held out to each side, his purposeful steps look as if they might culminate in a martial arts move. He quickens his pace to match the music and begins taking circular steps, holding his wrists daintily in front of his chest. Although his eyes are closed, and his attention turned inward, sometimes he senses that people are staring at him. But it doesn’t bother him. When he dances his monkey mind is still; the bullshit is turned off.

OMD spends the greater part of his days recovering from, and resting up for, nights like these. Some weeks he dances six nights out of seven. His only mode of transportation is his bicycle—although his neighbor lets him borrow a truck from time to time—so most days he keeps himself busy in and around the shed-sized apartment he’s called home for nearly a year. Tucked away down one of Eugene’s graveled alleys, the small stand-alone structure was built as an artist’s studio for the landlord’s daughter. It doesn’t have a stovetop (he gets by with a hotplate), and the living quarters are unbelievably cramped, but OMD says it’s the nicest illegal apartment he’s ever lived in.