Elmer Smith: Male bonding at that certain age

GET A GROUP of guys together and the conversation often turns to golf swings or ball scores.

It's what we do. Or it is until we become men of a certain age and no longer swing or score the way we once did.

At that point, if the conversation turns from our real or imagined conquests, guys learn that there's more to us than the notches on our belts.

Or not.

Either way, there seems to be something therapeutic in these new conversations. And, maybe its me, but I seem to be hearing about more men convening in small groups to talk about their lives.

I know about a group of old gang members in West Philly who get together for cabarets and picnics. They rehash the old war stories. But, increasingly, they're talking about holding their marriages together or relating to their adult children.

It can take awhile for men to get past the posturing and start to deal with each other's issues. The group I met with yesterday at McClain's barbershop, in Germantown, seems to have a fix on it.

They've been at it for 30 years, going back to when the conversations were about their marriages and divorces (they've been through a bunch of them) to soul searchers about the inevitable approach of death.

"We had to spend about two weeks on that one," said Tom McKinney, an artist who has gotten through three divorces and the death of his father with the help of a small and oddly matched group of men.

"I've been with the group since 1980. My earliest memory was a guy I know who called and told me he had had an affair. He was a real straight arrow.

"All I could think to say was don't do it again. But we all talked about it. We found out that a lot of guys were hurting."

But they weren't hurting enough for the group to get traction at first. Taylor Oughton, who convened the first meeting, soon found that frank talk wasn't for everybody.

"I thought I could just get a group of buddies together," said the former combat Marine. "I called some guys and said, 'Let's talk about what it means to be a man in today's society.' "

Lee Curran rolled his eyes as he recalled those early meetings.

"We had 75 guys show up for the first meeting," he said. "The next week, we were down to 40, and by the third week, there were just four of us."

"We lasted about four or five months," McKinney said.

Turns out, there is a peculiar dynamic that works for groups like these.

"The group can't be larger than 12 men," McKinney said. "What is said here has to stay here, and you've got to be honest.

They have helped each other cope with dreaded diseases, failed marriages, lost loved ones, economic downturns, sexual dysfunction and mortality.

"We can't always help," said Peter Petraglia. "We're not psychologists."

Leroy McClain looked around the room at a group of men who have grown old together.

"A lot of what we deal with now is our health issues," he said. "But we're dealing with it."

They make it up as they go along. Some weeks the discussion is serious, some weeks not so much. Sometimes they just get together for lunch.

Organization is the enemy. A group of men I've been meeting with for more than 20 years has never had an officer, never paid dues and never taken roll. Some guys show up once or twice a year.

They don't always want answers. Some just need to be heard.

"We've had 40 or 50 guys come through and leave," Curran said. "Something wouldn't allow them to share.

"Sometimes their wives discouraged them because they think we're women-bashers."

And some stay just long enough to learn how to talk through their issues with their most intimate friends and relatives.

But more and more men of a certain age are finding that there's nothing unmanly about trying to work things out together in small groups.

Send email to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: www.philly.com/ElmerSmith