Whiter haired now, but opinionated as ever

Published 9:00 am Saturday, October 1, 2005

Camaraderie and debate bring the Old Geezers to Pegasus.

For kids, living next door to another kid is usually enough to become friends.

Adults sometimes need a bit more incentive.

Enter the Old Geezers Club, which draws longtime friends and new faces for an amiable coffee hour spiked with lively conversation that ranges from personal anecdotes to left-wing politics.

“It’s like a free-floating crap game,” said Jack Greenawalt, a retired educator who started the gatherings a few years ago.

Every Monday from 9-10 a.m., the “geezers” – older gentlemen representing a variety of backgrounds and interests – gather at Pegasus Coffee House.

How they found their way to the club is a story in itself.

Bob Camp­bell, who founded the Great Cross Sound rowing race in 1979, had been a Pegasus regular for 25 years. He brought in two new members with whom he had old ties.

During World War II, Campbell was a Navy pilot on an aircraft carrier, then in the summer of 1947, he befriended a co-worker counting sockeye salmon as they were transferred from sailboats to barges, bound for a cannery on Bristol Bay in Naknek, Alaska.

The “other young man” was George Bussell, who went on to be Bainbridge High School principal and president of the Bainbridge Island Historical Society.

In 1960, Bussell taught chemistry on Mercer Island and ran a night school for adults. He posted a flyer about the school with his name and number.

Campbell saw the flyer at the post office and picked up the phone. “Is this the George Bussell from Naknek?” he asked. It was.

It was also coincidence by which Campbell noticed a letter to the editor in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from a “Jesse Mittleman, Bainbridge Island.” On a lark, Campbell looked up the writer in the phone book and asked, “Are you the Jesse Mittleman from Bowling Green University in 1939?” Sure enough, Mittleman was.

Today, Mittleman is better known on the island as a premiere 1940s-style Lindy dancer, although he came from a journalistic background similar to Marty Smith.

A newspaper man for many years, Smith worked mostly for the Sacramento Bee, where he was a managing editor and a political columnist.

One of the most memorable Old Geezers meeting was not because of the conversation, but rather the Nisqually tremblor in 2001.

“We all looked at each other and said, ‘It’s an earthquake!’” Smith recalled. “Another guy and I went under the table with a third of the place, and another two-thirds ran out.”

Smith met Jay Schwartzman on the island through their wives. A social worker in California for 18 years, Schwartzman inspected mental institutions for adherence to health and safety regulations.

For Schwartzman, the club is a good place to vent.

“We keep up with each other’s lives,” Greenawalt added.

“And no cute grandchild stories,” Mittleman said with a smile, knowing Greenawalt moved to Bainbridge to be closer to his grandchildren.

“It’s nice to get a telephone call when you’re sick,” Schwartzman said.

This forward-thinking bunch of geezers – ranging from 64 to 85-3/4 years old – invites wives, daughters and guests to sit in if they like.

“It’s limited only by the size of the table,” Schwartzman said.