70-year-old pole acrobat calls it quits, but 'nobody believes me'

Now that he's 70, Jerry Arsenault says his days dancing on top of a 30-metre highpole and doing somersaults onto a zipline are over.

Then again, he said the same thing at 50,and 60.

And there he was this weekend entertaining crowds at the Acadian Festival in Abram-Village, P.E.I., just as he's been doing almost every year since the 1980s.

"I guess it's my last year, I've been saying that for awhile," he said. "Nobody believes me because I've retired so many times. They think I'll be back in a year or two."

Arsenault's hour-long show is a mix of competition, acrobatic feats and comedy.

"I guess maybe I didn't get enough attention when I was a kid and that's one way to get it," he joked. "People find it entertaining I guess. And we kind of enjoy doing it."

But this is it, he insisted. He said it's time to "respect your age."

"It's a little sad, I suppose," he said. "My wife wants me to cut the pole down today as part of the show. But it's too nice a pole to cut. I think we'll leaving it standing for awhile."

What he'll miss most, he said, is practising the stunts with his brother and son, who perform in the show with him.

"We are up 100 feet in the air hanging from rope running chainsaws so we have to kind of practise, and make sure we're safe. So it's been good to get together and play on the poles."

He'll still be climbing plenty of trees, though. He runs a tree cutting and removal business called The Branch Manager, and said he has no plans to retire from that.

With files from Sarah MacMillan

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