Wherefore eat thou, ROMEOs?

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Wherefore eat thou, ROMEOs? Bath retirees’ group shares good meals and good times to benefit good causes

By: Seth Koenig, Times Record Staff Published: Monday, May 18, 2009 2:08 PM EDT BATH

— Occupying two tables at The Kennebec Tavern around lunchtime Thursday was a crowd of gray- and whitehaired men. They joked boisterously, enjoying food and drink, and passing around a simple white envelope. The crowd was hard to miss. But since these meetings began taking place — shortly after Herb Kresser retired to Bath in 2000 — the local ROMEO club and their community service work has largely flown under the radar. “This group is made up of extremely interesting and dedicated people who do a lot of volunteering,” said Ray Swain, taking one table’s conversation in a serious direction for a moment. “These guys are the backbone of our community.” “And none of us can remember what we said five minutes ago,” offered Mike Knudsen from across the table, signifying the end of the serious moment. ROMEO is an acronym for “Retired Old Men Eating Out,” supposedly coined some years ago by former high school principal John Caulfield, who founded the original Cambridge, Mass., club with old friends from his Irish workingclass neighborhood near Harvard University.

John Conover, David Calhoun, Dick Hanna and Mike Knudsen, from left, share food, drink and laughs Thursday at The Kennebec Tavern during the monthly meeting of thelocal ROMEO club. The club takes its name from anacronym that stands for Retired Old Men Eating Out.

After settling in Bath, Kresser’s next-doorneighbor lost his wife, while another friend recently went through a divorce. Kresser and another mutual pal decided the four of them should go out to eat and forget about their troubles for a while. That’s where all of this started, he said. “Other people heard about it and said, ‘Hey, can we come next time?’” Kresser recalled. “Bit by bit it grew, and we started thinking, ‘Hey, we need a name for this thing.’ I had remembered a chapter on the ROMEOs from Tom Brokaw’s book ‘The Greatest Generation.’” It was through Brokaw’s book that Kresser learned about Caulfield and his friends in Cambridge, and decided to borrow the moniker for the Bath club as well. “The average age of the 16 of us is 77,” said Kresser. “There are no two of us who had the same area of expertise in big business, but we’re all from big businesses.” Members of the club take turns hosting the monthly meetings, by choosing a local restaurant and making the reservations there. The responsibility of the rest of the members is to show up and enjoy the food and banter. And pass around the simple, white envelope. “What’s unique about us is we always pass the envelope after dinner,” explained Kresser about the club’s monthly donation collection. “The last two years we gave $600 each year to two organizations, the Bath food bank and a fund that provides fuel for the needy.” Two years ago, the first year the group made its big donations, the awards were given in the memory of Jim Rice, who had been a ROMEO club member prior to his death. Last year, the donations were given in memory of Peter Vandervoort. “Hopefully,” said Kresser with a pause, the donations won’t be in the memory of anybody this year. “But you never can tell with this group,” added Mark Smith with a chuckle from across the table.