THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 14, 1994 TAG: 9407140626
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: HOME AWAY FROM HOME
There is home, then there is a second home, a place to be with
friends. For some it's church, for others a barber shop or a bar. For
some it's a reading club, even if no one talks about reading.
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
There is home, then there is a second home, a place to be with friends. For some it's church, for others a barber shop or a bar. For some it's a reading club, even if no one talks about reading. Book Club has just one firm rule: no books allowed.
So when several members of the club arrived recently at Meg Campbell's beach house toting books, they were greeted with hoots of laughter.
``It's a prop,'' confessed Sally Miller, tossing her oversized volume on a coffee table.
The club began as the Lunch Bunch in 1978, when Campbell, Jan Fine, Sally Shook and three other women decided to meet one day each month at lunch time. In the beginning they brought their babies. As their children grew and some of the members went back to work, they changed their meetings to weeknights.
They intended to be a conventional book club. They wanted to read a book a month and discuss it.
For their first meeting they read ``The Women's Room'' by Marilyn French.
``We got into such a ferocious fight over that book we vowed never to read the same book again,'' laughed Campbell, unscrewing the top of a jug of white wine and pouring it into heavy wine goblets. ``The next month we decided to each read a different book and give book reports.
``That didn't work either, so we dropped the idea of reading books altogether.''
They were left with a book club short on books but long on friendships.
Over the years members have been added and a few have drifted away. There are 16 active Book Club members now, although only about eight or 10 come to each meeting. Together these friends in their 40s and 50s have weathered divorces, deaths, illness, problems with children and with aging parents. They also have shared plenty of good times.
``I moved to Chapel Hill 2 1/2 years ago when I got remarried,'' said Shook, who was spending the night at Campbell's house. ``Now I drive up every month, and I try to combine it with another reason to be here.''
The reason this month was the wedding two days later of her daughter. Next month she'll be back for her son's birthday.
Throughout the evening, multiple conversations took place and the cacophony reached a fevered pitch. The topics ranged from one member's recent trip to China, to the O.J. Simpson case, to the four-way Virginia Senate race and the merits of estrogen replacement therapy.
Snippets of conversations revealed widely diverse subjects.
``I felt like Gulliver, I felt so big,'' Joann Ackerman said of her trip to China.
Miller talked about her son's summer job as a carpenter's assistant.
``He spent his entire first paycheck on new tools,'' she said.
Jan Fine confessed that the best time to telephone her husband about buying something expensive is at 10:30 when he's opening his mail at work.
``He says, yes, un hum, to everything.''
There was some discussion of Simpson's guilt or innocence. ``Does anyone think O.J. didn't do it?'' Campbell asked over the din.
After about three hours the group decided where to meet next month (Mary Clarke Janis' house: ``I haven't had Book Club in ages,'' she confessed) and began to say their goodbyes.
``We're a very loose-knit organization,'' Campbell said. ``And that's part of the charm of Book Club. We all belong to so many organizations, it's nice to have a place to go every month where we can just be with friends and solve the problems of the world.''
As she retrieved her unopened book, Miller smiled.
``Did you hear anyone talk about recipes, gossip or clothes?'' she asked. ``You see, we're not what people like to think of as a typical women's group.'' MEMO: Do you have a place to be with friends or know about one? Contact Rob
Morris by mail, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va., 23509, phone,
446-2346, or e-mail, robm(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photo by PAUL AIKEN
Sally Miller, standing, and Mary Clarke Janis, holding book, chat
with Jan Fine at a recent Book Club meeting. The book, Miller said,
is just a prop.
Staff photo by PAUL AIKEN
``We're a very loose-knit organization,'' says Meg Campbell, left.
``And that's part of the charm of Book Club.'' With her are Joann
Ackerman; Sally Miller, standing, and Molly Holt, right.
by CNB