“I’m gonna learn to play that thing,” Ethan Shelton says of the fiddle older than him he picked up about three weeks ago.

Most of the hour he played music Saturday with 65-year-old guitarist Max Davis for The Timbers’ ice cream social, Ethan strummed a mandolin, but he gave a go to bowing “Amazing Grace.”

“He’s an inspiration to all of us,” Davis said.

“This is an unknown factor,” the 107-year-old quips about his fiddling.

Usually, when Mr. Shelton comes into Dowagiac from M-140 in Berrien Center, it’s for a meal at Zeke’s.

“It’s a good place to eat.”

But here he was March 12 entertaining a packed house whose audience included such relative youngsters as Second Ward City Councilman Bob Schuur since 1985 and Dr. Fred L. Mathews, 46-year chairman of the Southwestern Michigan College Board of Trustees, with standards such as “I Shall Not Be Moved,” the Carter family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side of Life,” “This World Is Not My Home,” instrumentals such as “Wildwood Flower” and a tuneful tale about newsboy Jimmy Brown as a WNDU-TV camera rolled.

Afterward, Mr. Shelton enjoyed a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream, eschewing any toppings.

Ethan and Rose Shelton started Shelton Farms in 1947 when they sold their corner grocery store near Lincoln Park in Chicago and moved their family to Berrien Center.

To help make ends meet, Ethan barbered in Niles and Rose worked as a payroll clerk at Berrien General Hospital.

Eventually, Ethan owned his own barbershop and Rose became personnel manager and filled in as administrator of the hospital.

The couple were married for 69 years until she passed away in 1995.

He is also known as a ballroom dancer, avid gardener and golfer — especially since he gets to play for free at Indian Lake Hills, where he scored an eagle on the first hole in 1997.

He didn’t take up golf until 1975 when he was just 72.

When asked for the secret to his longevity, Ethan has suggested chewing your food well and eating lots of vegetables.

Those close to him would say his eternal good humor, positive thinking and active lifestyle probably contribute as well.

He was born in Alabama in 1903 — the same year the Wright Brothers took flight.

Though he owns a variety of stringed instruments, including ukuleles, Mr. Shelton said he first played music on an 11-cent Sears and Roebuck harmonica at 7.

“I took one piano lesson.”

Mr. Shelton, a red “I Give Good Hugs” button clipped to his suitcoat, said he came to Michigan at 15 from Alabama.

“My dad took me to town, bought me a pair of overalls and put me on a train to Detroit, where I had a brother.”

He remembers riding the boat to Boblo.

“It’s only been a couple years that I’ve been taking him to jam sessions,” said Davis, Shelton’s neighbor on Painter School Road.

“We play bluegrass gospel at Hillside Missionary Church in South Bend, Ind., from 6 to 9 p.m. Last Thursday I played over in St. Joseph. Tuesday nights we go to an ice cream parlor in LaPorte, Ind. I’ve been pretty regular there for the last three years since I retired” as a pipefitter welder for Local 172 in South Bend.

“I finally got up enough courage to play in front of people,” Davis said. “I probably got my first guitar when I was about 13 years old. Up until ’71 I played a little here and there, but then my son was born and after that I worked two jobs. I worked in the trades from ’77 to 1992. I didn’t play at all” because nights Max ran a diesel repair shop with his brother.

“I bought this Martin (guitar) in 2004,” Davis said. “I’m having more fun than I thought I would. Back in 1966, when we moved to southern Michigan, Gibson was still in Kalamazoo.

“I think it was the winter of 2003” when his wife encouraged him to resume music so he would have something to do in retirement.