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300 Dinners Create a Lifetime of Memories

7June | July | August 2016

I f you want to have a friend, be a friend. If you want to have lots of friends, start a dinner club.

Gary and Carmen Roberson spent years moving around, compliments of corporate America. Building a new life in a different location time after time can be wearisome. To ease their moves, they developed a three-step system:

Step #1: Buy a house.Step #2: Find a good church.Step #3: Start a dinner club.

Their final move in 1986 landed them in Columbia. While Gary settled into his new position with a software company, Carmen organized their home. Step one completed—buy a house. Check.

Next they looked for a church home. They found a good fit and immediately plugged into Sunday school and the men’s and women’s ministries. Step two accomplished—find a good church. Check.

Lastly, they began to pray and consider which ten couples they should ask to join them in a dinner club. With ten couples, they reasoned, even if only half the club was able to come each month, the dinner would still be an enjoyable size. With their list in hand, Carmen made the calls.

“We’re putting together a dinner club,” she said. “Would you be interested?”

Ten invitations went out. Ten yes’s came in. Step three—start a dinner club. Check.

In the fall of 1988, as the summer air cooled, the Roberson’s hosted the inaugural feast of their new club. Some members greeted each other as longtime buddies. Others welcomed

acquaintances as newfound friends. Almost 30 years and 300 dinners later, the roots of fellowship have gone deep. The group has formed lasting friendships and precious memories.

Six couples have been with the club since that first dinner: Bill and Gail Calhoun, Mike and Sue Duffy, Hugh and Judy McElderry, Chuck and Jennifer Roth, Gary and Carmen Roberson, and John and Margie Simmons. Due to different circumstances, four of the original ten couples had to drop out. The dinner club invited four new couples to take their seats: Frank and Sally Bussey, Bill and Pam Miller, Charles and Nancy Mauney, and Lee and Fran Pitts.

Over the years the group has met in various homes and locations. Once they even met in the Saluda River. They’ve enjoyed simple meals, staged elaborate events, and laughed ’til they cried. Life’s experiences have drawn them together to celebrate and thrown them into each other’s arms to grieve. They’ve walked through almost every stage of life together.

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By Jean WilundJean Wilund is a Bible teacher, writer, and president of the Lexington Word Weavers critique group. She and her husband live in Lexington. Their three children live scattered around the country. Connect with Jean on her blog at www.JeanWilund.com.

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In the beginning their goals were simple: form friendships, encourage each other in the Lord, and eat great food. Simple didn’t last long. Inspiration struck. Why not add a little crazy to their gatherings? Ideas sprang up, such as a Happy Days party, complete with a jukebox blasting ’50s and ’60s music. They pushed the furniture to the walls and danced into the night. The spirit of friendly competition took over, resulting in many remarkable evenings. Some highlights stand out.

Pam and Bill Miller remember the time when Chuck and Jennifer Roth hosted dinner club at Finley Park during the Summer Concert Series, complete with a formal buffet and candelabras. “We won a prize of some sort that night, but I can’t remember what it was for,” Pam said. Carmen remembered it was for The Best Spread.

Not every evening involved fine fashion. When Gary and Carmen hosted a Tacky Party, Carmen donned a sloppy robe and curlers. She remembers the evening with joy, but it took an incriminating photograph to resurrect the suppressed memory of her outfit.

She can’t forget the infamous canoe trip on the Saluda River, though. While paddling to a riverside restaurant that evening, one couple capsized. The others laughed before extending mercy and rescuing them.

Fortunately, the night the group enjoyed a dinner cruise on the popular Spirit of Lake Murray, no one fell overboard. Settling upon an adventure on dry land, Margie and her husband sent the club on a scavenger hunt throughout Columbia, ending with dinner in their home.

No one can forget the evening they all solved a murder. A local Columbia hotel threw a New Year’s Eve Murder Mystery Dinner. The group solved the

mystery, spent the night at the hotel, and started their year together with a New Year’s Day Brunch.

Not all their evenings have centered on high adventure. Many summers, Mike and Sue Duffy hosted relaxing oyster roasts at their lake home. During the holidays, Sue often serenaded them with Christmas carols on the piano. For Valentine’s Day one year the group renewed their wedding vows in a formal ceremony—followed by dinner, of course. Once they rented a picnic shelter at Dreher Island and invited their grandchildren. The club currently boasts 51of them.

The group has gathered most often to eat and laugh, but other times they have come together to grieve the loss of a loved one. Since the club’s inception, three members have lost their spouses. Margie and John Simmons felt the pain first. Everyone gathered around them as John battled terminal cancer. Since the day he went home to be with the Lord, the group has continued to stick by Margie.

“Usually when you become a widow, you lose your friends,” Margie says. “All of sudden you’re not accepted anymore. You’re still friends, but you’re not a couple. But the dinner club’s continued to accept us, and that’s unusual.”

By us, Margie means Nancy Mauney, Mike Duffy, and herself. Nancy lost her husband Charlie next. She attended dinner club a little more than a week later. She wanted and needed to be with her friends. They wanted and needed to be with her as well. Nancy no longer lives in Columbia, but she remains a faithful member, teaming up and co-hosting dinner club with Margie.

Mike Duffy lost his wife Sue to cancer two years ago. The dinner club rallied around him. Most recently, after Reach Out, Columbia, the magazine

where Sue served as editor for many years, suffered significant damages in the Flood of 2015, Carmen jumped to action. She saw an opportunity to honor Sue, encourage Mike, and help the magazine recover by turning their annual Super Bowl dinner club into a fundraiser in Sue’s memory.

Glorifying the Lord and helping each other has always been the heartbeat of the dinner club. “We really are a support and encouragement to each other,” Carmen said. “Makes me want to cry, actually, just thinking about it.”

Carmen and Gary are thankful they haven’t had to pack up and start over again, but if they did, forming another dinner club would remain Step #3. Or perhaps Step #4, right after buying a house, finding a good church, and inviting their Columbia dinner club to visit. ROC

The Columbia Dinner Club offers these tips for star ting your own club.v Invite 20 individuals or ten couples you enjoy, including people who don’t know each other. If you like them, they’ll probably like each other.

v If anyone drops out, invite new members.

v Assign each couple, or team of two, a month to act as hosts. They choose the date, menu, and, if desired, an activity.

v When the club meets in a home, members sign up to bring food for different courses.

v Be creative. The most unforgettable memories happen when creativity is at its highest.

v Pray for each other, encourage one another, and laugh. And always eat good food.