Small town romeos

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Small town romeos

For 30 years, a group of older gentlemen — though they might scoff at the term  — has been meeting in Hillsdale most weekday mornings, over coffee, to chat and shoot the breeze.

The group is invitation-only, but the requirements for membership aren’t strict. They include being retired (semi-retired will work, too), probably older than 60, and having a sense of humor — preferably wisecracking and a little crusty, but buoyant all the while. If a senior citizen wants to be asked into the group, he must be willing and able to make fun of himself and any flaws, perceived or real, that he has. He must have a keen perception of and a knack for comedy — or at least an appreciation for a good dig.

They call themselves The Romeos, as in “Retired Old Men Eating Out,” and they meet, about 10 of them, four days a week, Tuesday through Friday, for one hour in the morning at Jilly Beans. They even have a nameplate to mark the table — the one in the back by the sofa — around which they take their usual seats to “solve world problems,” as Thomas Evans, a particularly salty member with a voice like Sean Connery’s, put it.

“The whole idea of this group is to insult each other,” said Curtis Carver, the youngest member of the crew. He was invited into the select society by his neighbor, Jim Hayne, a lawyer who works around the corner from Jilly Beans, whom Carver jokingly calls “a shark and bottom-dweller.”

Don Scoville, 75 years old and the group’s only Hillsdale native, said they meet at the “house of knowledge.”

And perhaps he’s right. The Romeos found Carver his current wife.

“He was wandering directionless,” Evans said.

“This gal shows up and she reveals that she’s an avid camper,” Scoville said.

Carver was sold.

When Charlie Walker, the so-called “defrocked lawyer” of the group, entered the coffee shop wearing an evergreen sweater and corduroy pants, The Romeos erupted with smart remarks:

“What’s he wearing?”

“Oh, he’s dressed up.”

“I thought he was wearing his Christopher Robin uniform.”

Walker blamed the outfit on his wife, saying she wouldn’t let him leave the house until he wore it.

The minutes tick by, the soothing melody of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” filling the room. The gray-haired men talk about life, time spent in the service — and on bar stools — and Hillsdale’s quirks. And most of all, they take shots at each other. Each member’s occupation, former or current, is constantly under fire.

Referring to Thomas Evans, the member with the most sardonic personality, Carver jested, “He, by the way, which hasn’t been mentioned, is a former rocket scientist and now a slumlord.”

“Hillsdale’s premiere slumlord,” chimed in Norm Whiston, the only Democrat of the group, a contemplative man with sharp wit.

There seems to be a running joke about Evans’ employment history among The Romeos — and how diverse it was.

They know things like that about each other, where each one worked and when, though most of them changed jobs multiple times over the years.

Whiston, a “river rat” as The Romeos like to say, from downtown Detroit, reflected on his experience coming to Hillsdale and how it seemed to him a strange town at first; how the men were possessive of their wives.

“Whoa, whoa. Mine owns me,” Carver responded, smiling.

“Yeah, but you were exposed to the outside world,” Whiston said — a philosophical statement, bound to generate a reaction from other members.

“He’s been reading books again, I can tell,” Evans said.

“Naw, I’ve been on my tractor again,” Whiston replied.

“There’s nothing to do on the tractor except sit,” Evans said.

“No, think,” Whiston said.

And so it goes in this small community of Carver, Hayne, Evans, Whiston, Walker, and later in the hour, Don Halton, Marion Sawdey, and Joe Levack.

None of the original members of the 30-year-old coffee klatch are around anymore but one, Dennis Fadden, who was on vacation that Thursday.

The group recently lost two of the original members, Jordan (Jud) Marché and Don Ehle. Of them, the Romeos have only good things to say. They were “true gentlemen,” according to Carver and Whiston.

Joe Levack has been attending the small gathering for four to five years.

“It’s a good fellowship of men,” he said. “Men today don’t have real fellowship groups, like women do. It affords an opportunity to discuss, and to complain, with people on a fairly good intellectual level. I enjoy their company, that’s all.”

Whiston has been coming for a while, too. Marché invited him, before he passed away. Whiston said he’ll be coming as long as he’s capable.

The thought of empty weekday mornings saddens him.

“I’d really miss this group,” he said.“They’re kind of my immediate circle of friends.”

And this time, he’s completely serious.

 

msweeney1@hillsdale.edu