The Jolly Boys - Winners or Losers?
Why would anyone want to attend an event where the winners are actually losers? There is such a group made of former members of local media in Tucson, AZ that has been meeting for coffee Fridays at 9:00AM for over 50 years. Yes, a half century! Anywhere from 5 to 12 gray-haired or bald gentlemen attend. This all started as a sales meeting for a local TV station sales staff. It has since morphed into an eclectic group of men, and sometimes a woman or two, who are always welcome under the “official” name of the Jolly Boys. Taken from the old radio and TV show “The Great Gildersleeve”. Google it.
Today it is also known by many as The Coffee Group, The Old Broadcasters Group and by a few as The Old Farts Gang. Other than the common string of all but a few having a career of some nature in broadcasting, we are as much different as we are the same.
A special bond has been passed along through changes in the group. Some additions are newly retired, or invited in by other “members” (there’s no official membership requirement). Deletions have occurred over time. Some get too busy, a few lost interest, several have moved, and by the last count, 21 of the group have died. Sad, but not surprising for a group meeting for a half century plus.
We have survived in spite of extreme political differences. We range from overtly conservative to absolutely progressive. Our trick? Don’t talk politics. At all. Never! Instead, we choose to argue for several minutes over things like - was the gas station at Broadway and Main a Shell or Chevron? Important crap! We have music experts. Historians. Sports enthusiasts. Guys who can’t hear and guys who quietly sit and wonder why they are even there. Overbearing speakers are tolerated, most of the time. Above all, there is friendship and even love.
The Jolly Boys with the jolliest, Jim Arnold, second from right. And photobombing front and center with the hat, our very own Contributing Editor, Dave Slavin.
What turns winners into losers? The famous coin toss. We have all the coffees, teas and sodas put on one bill and individual breakfasts on separate bills. At the end of the gathering, we toss coins and go through a process of elimination to determine who pays for the drinks. Thus our winner(s) becomes the loser(s).
The two biggest challenges to our ritual is 1) training the servers how we need the billing. And there have easily been over a 100 different servers, and 2) seeing how many tosses it takes to determine the winner. Sometimes one toss, sometimes 7 or 8. We no longer have an official record (our statistician passed away), but some of the group “win” three weeks in a row. The test of true friendship is to see if they keep coming back.
As for the servers, we’ve been coming to the same place now for about 22 years. As with any restaurant, there has been massive turn over. But, veteran servers understand us and take good care of us. They even want to take care of us. We, in turn, also take very good care of them with tips and even life advice. We’ve heard a few times servers have tossed a coin to see who gets to take care of us. That feels good.
So if you have nothing to do Fridays at 9:00AM, start a group with a common core. Have some fun reminiscing and flipping your coins. You will all feel like winners.
