Sunday, May 02, 1999

No Namers make best of life in no-man land

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BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        NEWPORT — Sure, men are great to have around. But independence has its rewards, even when it comes after a long, happy marriage.

        The members of the No Namers Club can eat whenever they want. Do laundry at midnight. Leave the dishes — all two or three of them — in the sink for a couple days.

        And when they get together, look out. These ladies are partial to raunchy jokes.

        Some of them will try to deny this. You can count on Mary Ann Ritter to 'fess up.

        “They're usually fairly dirty,” she says.

        “We tell cute jokes, not dirty,” insists Marian Brooker.

        “Cute, dirty jokes,” Ms. Ritter says.

        Everyone laughs. This is typical of the No Namers. They tease, they console, they share stories and poems. Mostly, they laugh at themselves and each other.

        “A lot of these girls like a lot of attention,” says Ms. Ritter, of Fort Wright.

        The group is so named because its members didn't like “Widows Club” and couldn't think of anything else.

        Widows Club sounds like a support group for sad people. These women, most of them, are past the grief of their first weeks alone.

        They had good marriages. They took care of their husbands at the end. Now they have grandkids to spoil and friends with whom to see the countryside. They like their freedom.

        “When you're married, you kind of do what your husband wants a lot,” says Ms. Ritter, 69.

        The No Namers began in 1986 and grew by word of mouth. Most are from Campbell County. Many have been friends for years. Their ages range from 64 to 87.

        Every month, they meet for lunch at a restaurant. I sat in on last week's gathering at The Syndicate.

        Usually, the women don't mention their widowhood directly. But they're constantly sharing tips and information.

        For instance, there's the problem with plumbers. And painters and mechanics and air-conditioning men.

        “Oh, they'll take a woman,” says Gert Sprotts, 79, of Fort Thomas.

        The No Namers remember reading, some years ago, about retired men forming a company to help women like them. They would be trustworthy and inexpensive — or so they promised.

        “Terrible,” says Ms. Sprotts, pursing her lips.

        “That was a bunch of baloney,” Ms. Ritter says.

        Another reality about being alone: It's not much fun, anymore, to hang out with couples.

        A new member of the group, Virginia Carmichael, shares her story: She lost her husband not long ago, and a daughter unexpectedly lost hers. Now the two women are living together in Highland Heights.

        Ms. Carmichael misses Florida, where she and her husband had lots of friends. But she's not ready to go back among all those happy couples, she says.

        The others nod. They know how it is.

        “You feel like a fifth wheel,” Ms. Carmichael says.

        For an evening out, the No Namers try to arrive at restaurants around 5 p.m. That way, they avoid two situations: driving at night and seeing so many people holding hands.

        They miss the arm of a man. Some would settle for even less: the approx imation of a man.

        “If you just had a body sitting over there in a chair,” jokes Bonnie Mauget of Fort Thomas.

        “You go out and then you go home and you have no one to talk to,” Ms. Ritter says.

        Not that they would want to get married again. No way.

        Ms. Brooker, 80, dated a few times after she lost her husband.

        “If they're widowers, they're looking for someone to cook and clean and take care of them,” she says. “We had wonderful husbands, and I'm not going to start over with that.”

        Besides, independence has its rewards.

        Baseball games? Sports on TV? Forget about it.

        “How many women, when you come down to it, like baseball or football?” says Ms. Mauget, 77. “We had enough of that when we were younger.”

        “Sometimes I don't make my bed unless I feel like it,” Ms. Ritter says.

        All in all, it's not so bad. Especially when you have good friends and a steady supply of jokes.

        This one, the No Namers decide, is tame enough to share:

        Clinton and Gore go out to lunch. Clinton asks the waitress to bring him a quickie. When she's gone, the vice president whispers, “Bill, that's pronounced "quiche.'”

        Laughter all around.

        That's the No Namers for you.

        Karen Samples is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. Her column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or by e-mail at: ksamples@enquirer.com