Published: July 09, 2008 07:25 am            

‘Jerry’s Club’ Reunion

A celebration of a 30-year friendship

The initial “Old Jerry’s Coffee Drinking and Lunch Buddies Reunion” was such fun it’s going to be held twice a year.

A group of coffee drinkers at the former Jerry’s Restaurant on U.S. 27 in Somerset met last week at Ruckel’s Restaurant in Eubank. They spent two hours reminiscing about 30 years – from 1972 to 2002 – they spent telling tall stories, listening to fish grow and sipping cups of “Joe.”

Birthday boys got a cake with candles and often impromptu entertainment. A generous collection for flowers was symbolic of the mourning for those who passed. They are all friends, close friends.

Ralph Farmer, a former Somerset convenience store operator, organized the recent gathering at Eubank. They met in Eubank apparently because Mayor Frey Todd still boasts a measure of political clout.

Todd is such a legend in Eubank that there is gathering support to place a statue of the mayor in the little park at the intersection of Main Street and Ky. 70 in the southern part of the city. According to a local wag, a sculpturer is working on the statue, but up to now has been unable to capture the essence of the man.

“I’d like to thank everyone for showing up today,” said Todd, welcoming the group. “This is the best looking crowd we’ve had here in Eubank in years,” Todd intoned in his best “chicken in every pot” political posture. He has been labeled by a newspaper reporter as “Mayor for Life,” the only mayor Eubank ever had. And that’s a fact. He really is the only mayor the town ever had.

Mayor Todd is a realist. He admitted privately to a reporter that “some of these coffee drinkers are looking pretty old.” Asked to be more specific, the mayor, fearful of losing a vote, declined to name names. However, an investigative journalist sent a spy to the session who reported faint hints of several face-lifts and even a belly-tuck or two. But, as Mayor Todd so delicately pointed out, a lot of the fellows have “just let themselves go.”

The gathering, from beginning to end, was a jocular affair. The Eubank mayor put the blue lights on former Kentucky State Police Commander Ray Brittain about a speeding ticket Brittain gave him more than a quarter of a century ago while Brittain was still a state trooper.

“I hated to write him a ticket,” Brittain recalls. “We were coffee-drinking buddies, but Frey was moving along pretty good and after I stopped him I didn’t have a choice.”

The friendly banter has continued until this day. As recently as last Christmas, Brittain got an “official” package in his mailbox from the city of Eubank. “It was a traffic ticket. Every charge on it was checked and an enclosed note suggested that if I pass through the city limits of Eubank I better have a chauffeur,” Brittain chuckled.

Upon receipt of the ticket, Brittain fired off a letter threatening to charge Mayor Todd with impersonating an officer. “I even suggested he might be investigated for impersonating a mayor,” the former state police officer laughingly told a reporter.

And so it goes. And it’s likely to continue between the two dear, dear friends so long as they shall live.

This writer, unable to be at the coffee-drinking fest because he was impersonating a hard-working reporter, was not let off the hook. This reporter has learned through the years that looking busy is a lot less stressful that being busy.

John Bolzé, Commonwealth Journal advertising manager, attended the event and passed along this reporter’s regrets that he couldn’t be there among his friends.

“I don’t believe he’s got any friends here,” offered Jack Detherage, one of the county’s solid citizens.

“A couple of people raised their hands (as if they were your friends), but they jerked ‘em down pretty quickly,” reported Brittain. Detherage said Brittain started to raise his hand in a gesture of good will toward this writer, but decided against it since he was so heavily outnumbered.

Carthel Beshears said everybody had a really good time. Because of newspaper reports when it happened, many people remember that Beshears reportedly caught a 50-pound catfish out of a swimming pool at a motel in Bowling Green. He made the big catch while on a farm tour sponsored by First and Farmers National Bank and headed by Elsworth Allen, then the agriculture representative for the bank. Allen, who also attended the coffee-drinking reunion, was there when Beshears hooked the monster catfish in the swimming pool. However, Allen refuses to confirm how much the fish weighed, pointing out that a catfish doesn’t have any scales on it.

And so it went. The entire funfest -- about two hours remembering old times -- was such a pleasure they decided to do it every six months.

Among those in attendance were Cy Waddle, Carthel Beshears, John Ashbrook, Clemont Bolton, Roy V. Garner, Ray Caldwell, Elsworth Allen, C.V. Weddle Jr., Jack Detherage, Bob Rowe, Ray Brittain, Tom Prater, Bill Gilmore, Frey Todd and Ralph Farmer.

Not present were Jim Roberts, Jim Deal, W.E. Allen Jr., Johnny Ward, Denton Oakes, Kenny Beshear and S.L. Sears. There are other members of the coffee-drinking club who could not be contacted, Farmer noted.

Farmer said 74 members of the coffee-drinking group have died since the men began gathering at Jerry’s in 1972.

Those who have passed include: Guy Cowan, John Gossett, Louie Phelps, Earl Neeley, Floyd Carmichael, Raymond Garrison, Tip Fleming, Eugene Horne, Jim Fount Bolton, Gene Shelton, Charlie Bob Sharpe, James Hart and Doretta Bullock (manager at Jerry’s).

Also, Jack Een, Richard Lewis, Gilmore Phelps, Paul Haney, McKinley Bolin, Phillip Garner, Jimmy Jones, Police Chief James G. “Bud” Hines, Arlie Bowman, Theo Phillips, Ken Smith, Lannie Tarter, Eugene Norfleet, George Mitchell and Vertrees Jones (former city police chief).

Also, Rex Sharpe, Luther Hargis, Oda Tarter, Sam Jones, Lloyd Copenhaven, Curtis Markham (night manager at Jerry’s), Lena Bringegar (head cook at Jerry’s), Jim Haney, Andy York, Joe Simpson, Dennis Ard, Jack Mercer, Varner Holt and Jimmy Dykes.

Also, Carl Bodie, Barry Coleman, Eddie Glover, Frank Linville, Amos Chaney, Harold Dagley, Roger Pike, Lee McDonald, Dalbert Sherman, Robert Poindexter, Irvin Cook, Aldon (Hoss) Wiggington, Sammy Sears, Samuel Cox, Lowell Wilson, Rudolph Simposn and Cathy Waters.

Also, Van Roe Cook (manager at Jerry’s), Jim (Shakey) McClure, Oscar Dick, Richard Denham, Bob Daulton, Andy Decker, Robert Stogsdill, Ramond Canada, Carl Casada, Weldon Barker, Sam Catron and Edith Price.

        

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