The J.O.Y. Coffee Group meets for a round of coffee at the Econo Lodge, 2222 W. Sixth St. The group has been meeting more than 60 years for weekday coffee get-togethers.

Jack Starkey enjoys a cup of coffee during a recent gathering of the J.O.Y. coffee group. The group members range in age from 70 to their mid-90s.

For more than 60 years, the coffee has been warm, the single cola cold and the conversation good.

Every weekday morning since the late 1940s, a group of men has met to drink in coffee and conversation at various locations around town. They’ve been at what is now the Econo Lodge on Sixth Street – formerly the Ramada – for 35 years, and they now call themselves the Just Older Youths (J.O.Y.) coffee club.

They are doctors, lawyers, career officers, bankers, former mayors, businessmen and more. Most everyone fought in World War II. By one account, they are all Republicans and – ahem – a lone independent.

Over the years, the members have come and gone. People have moved away, died, or been invited to join the group by one of the regulars.

These days, 17 members are on the roster – yes, they have an official directory – and still are raising their glasses Monday through Friday at their reserved round table in the Econo Lodge cafe. From 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., they talk news, politics and tell war stories. Anything goes.

“Well, this morning, we kicked Hillary and Obama around a little bit and John McCain’s wife, who is overdressed and overcoiffeured,” says Jim Blessing, 76. “And then … we had an interesting thing about how our churches left us, we didn’t leave the church, because we don’t appreciate drums, guitars and people running around with a microphone singing whatever, so we kicked that around.

“And I can’t remember what else, but it was lively.”

Beginning of J.O.Y.

Dr. Gene Manahan doesn’t drink coffee.

But that hasn’t kept him from being one of the group’s longest-running continuous members.

He’s enjoyed a Coke – now a Diet Coke – with the group nearly every weekday for the past 57 years after moving to town to work with Dr. Penny Jones. Shortly after Manahan arrived, Jones, invited his new partner out in the mornings before their office hours, which began at 11 a.m.

“I came to Lawrence to practice in 1951, and my partner, Dr. Jones, and I used to have coffee every morning with a couple of merchants downtown, and move from one place to the other as the stores closed,” Manahan says, citing the former Woolworth Company as one of those early meeting places. “So then we scoured around at various places where we might meet for coffee and we came on the Ramada Inn, and we joined up with another group that was there.

“The only ones in that group then were Archie Mills and Dick Treece, and so then the present group at the Ramada and now the Econo Lodge kind of grew from there.”

Treece, now 88, still comes most days. Mills, at 93, is the oldest member of the current group, which includes four men in their 90s – former CEO J.T. Russell (92), Owens Flower Shop owner Jim Owens (92) and war hero Roy Creek (90). Several members are in their 80s and a handful are in their 70s, with the youngest member at 70.

Despite the age range, there is one experience that all can relate with – war. From the beginning, war played a big part in the group’s talks, as it does today.

“Practically all of us have been in the second World War, and so we sort of each describe where we’ve been,” Manahan says. “Most of us fought in the second World War, some of them were in the second World War and then the Korean War, and one of them at least was in the Vietnam War. And one of them was a paratrooper who jumped at Normandy.”

The person who jumped at Normandy would be Creek, who helped capture a major bridge in Chef-du-Pont, France. The bridge is now named in honor of his regiment, the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, for which he was a commanding officer on D-Day.

Creek’s prowess is documented, but he’s not the only one with a good war story, says Owens, who joined the Air Force as a newlywed in the early 1940s.

“People tell hero stories now and something happened to them and who knows whether they’re telling the truth or not. It was 60 years ago – who’s to check on them?” he says, laughing. “You can tell a good story and you can look at the next guy and wonder whether he’s believing it or not.”

Then, he lowers his voice: “I don’t make anything up. Not I!”

Coffee and gab

“(John) McCain will be the next president of the United States,” announces Lanny Kimbrough, J.O.Y.’s youngest member at 70 and a die-hard Republican.

Another club member asks, “Who says?”

“Me,” Kimbrough says, cocking his thumb to his chest. “He’s going to beat Hillary (Clinton), who will win the Democratic side.”

Discussion ensues, and over the din of disagreement comes: “No matter who is going to win the presidency, it’s going to be the lesser of two evils.”

Members say most days it goes like this – politics, McCain, Clinton, Barack Obama. Lawrence City Commission also comes up, and experience only adds to the discussion of potholes and sales tax as the group includes former mayors Owens and John Weatherwax, and former mayor Nancy Hambleton’s husband, Bill. State politics are thrown around, too, with the proposed western Kansas coal plants sharing a space in the conversation.

But this time of year, the avid newspaper readers easily get daily fodder from the presidential race. Blessing, who says he’s the independent in the sea of Republicans, breaks it down.

“Obama is a great inspirational speaker – that’s where he falls. He’s just like the preachers that give you inspiration and the people who go around and give you inspiration, he doesn’t say anything except that. He’s all talk,” Blessing says. “Hillary is all promises that change from day to day. And poor old John, just a little too old.”

That gets them grumbling for obvious reasons: At 71, McCain would be a baby in this group. That doesn’t escape Dr. Jim Shields, 89, the group’s newest member.

“We’ve got to get some young bloods – some 80-year-olds,” he jokes.

As they laugh, their waitress, Renee Hall, leans in and plunks down a warm pot. She has been serving the J.O.Y. group for the better part of 35 years, keeping the coffee flowing and their table reserved.

“I’ve got them all trained. They behave now,” she says, with a laugh. “They’re all rowdy, but we love them.”