The Way it was Then - Part #6

 

April 13, 1983

They’re Still the “Girls.”

The Girls’ Club.

Sounds like something from a junior high class, doesn’t it?

Maybe it’s peculiar to women, since I seldom hear of men who think of themselves as “boys” (except for the famous “night out with the…”)

But The Girls’ Club is a pleasant memory of mine that dates back to my early teen years, when Mom and a group of her women friends started meeting at one another’s homes for “Club” once a month.

There were eight of them… and their gatherings were strictly for them. Men and children pursued other interests and got out of the way so they could have their social time.

Club night wasn’t anything fancy. Just snacks, maybe a special dessert, a drink or two and coffee. No one really fussed over it.

What they ate didn’t really matter.

It was the chance to get together, away from the pressures of home, husband, kids, work, all the mundane things that went on for twenty-nine or thirty other days of the month.

That one day belonged to them.

My mother was an ardent member of The Girls’ Club. So was her sister, my aunt Mary. All the other women were dear friends, all from the same town, all in the same basic age category … a kind of early support group, before the term was even used.

After Mom died, the group didn’t meet for a long time.

Understandably there was a void there with Mom gone that they would have to overcome before they could get on with their own lives.

But something else may have happened too.

As they grew older, perhaps the pressures lessened somewhat. As their children gained independence, as their husbands’ careers became steadier and more predictable, as they gradually moved from the bottom of their own professions to positions of stability, perhaps they didn‘t need each other as much.

Whatever the reason, the Girls’ Club didn’t meet for many years until two years ago, when one of them remembered the warmth of an evening together and called the others with the “I’ll have Club this Thursday” that usually kicked off the reminder that this was the week.

Something jogged Jean’s memory last week.

Jean Thoms was probably my mother’s closest friend and she is now one of mine. When I talked with her last weekend, she happily announced that she was “having Club” at her house on Thursday.

She said how pleased the girls had been when she called with her invitation. One, she said, cried with happiness at the idea of seeing everyone again.

I was flattered that she had entertained the idea of inviting me to the get-together, but I hastened to agree with her decision not to.

After all, no kids were ever included in the Club nights in the old days.

And my presence, looking for all the world like my mother did when they were all my age, might possibly have made the evening more of a trip down memory lane than it should have been.

So, I sat this Thursday’s Club night out, some twenty miles from the girls, sort of like I had twenty-five years ago when I stayed in my room and listened to the laughter coming from the kitchen.

I sat it out with most of them not even aware that I knew they were together.

They also didn’t know I was remembering the other night so long ago … the way Mom hurried through her workday with a lighter heart than usual because “the girls” were coming over … the way the house had a spit and polish shine on it that was definitely unusual, because “the girls” were coming over … the way Dad and I were on our own for supper so Mom could get ready to go to Rita’s, or Mina’s or Sis’s or Lois’s or Mary Emma’s or Jean’s or Mary’s … the way they thought of each other at the right times, always there to lend a hand when they were needed or to call just when a friendly word counted for a lot.

It was always a big night for Mom … that once a month treat of theirs.

No doubt this meeting was the same for those who stayed behind.