Because of a major reconstruction and renovation project at Fort Worth’s Colonial Country Club, the group known as Country Club Friends was faced with extinction because our regular Tuesday meeting place, Colonial’s Terrace Room, would be the first to feel the iron ball of demolition. It was made known to me and my wife Wanda that there would be no room for us in the inn and that like the Arabs of old, Country Club Friends would have to fold their tent and silently steal away.
But when everything looked so dark – “Daniel in the den of lions! Noah in the Ark!” – behold I show you a miracle! Asked about the possibility of meeting in the Cork Room, Colonial’s new general manager Mike Rushing made it his business to find out what Country Club Friends was all about. He decided that the group, which includes some of Fort Worth’s foremost leaders and builders, many now retired, should not be disbanded. He believes, like Albert Schweitzer, that in the hopes of reaching the moon, many fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet. He gave the Cork Room a High Five!
Country Club Friends is a society of unlike-minded authors and letter writers expressing their views on Ponzi schemes of the day; a convocation of Democrats, Republicans, Tea Party, Liberals and Conservatives, where the liberalest and the conservativest meet and bury the hatchet; where you never learn anything from a person who agrees with you; where laughter is mixed with the serious stuff, and where there is no correct answer, only opinion. Our overriding mantra comes from Thomas Jefferson: “I never let a difference of opinion in politics, religion or philosophy be cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
There will be a new venue. Whereas the group has always started its weekly Tuesday meetings with coffee at 9 a.m., the New Deal will be once a month, i.e., the first Tuesday of each month commencing at 10 a.m., not with coffee but with champagne and Hawaiian leis to celebrate birthdays occurring in that month. Like always, there will be the theme song “You Are My Sunshine!”, the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, a Thought for the Day, a poem or two, a discussion of current events, and lunch.
So thanks to Colonial General Manager Mike Rushing and that great philosopher Yogi Berra. “It ain’t over till it’s over!”
Don Woodard Fort Worth .