Friday, January 07, 2000

Blue Ash couple counts on gang of old friends

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BY JOHN JOHNSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        On the first day of 2000, like every New Year's Day, Ken and Marilyn Eppert enjoyed the company of friends. These were the same friends the Epperts have been seeing at monthly get-togethers for 32 years. The same friends with whom they've painted walls, played cards, nailed roof shingles, camped out and attended bridal showers, weddings and funerals.

Everyone has a story worth telling. At least, that's the theory. To test it, Tempo is throwing darts at the phone book. When a dart hits a name, a reporter dials the phone number and asks if someone in the home will be interviewed. Stories appear on Fridays.

        In other words, pretty darn good friends.

        “We're really like a big family,” says Ken, a 68-year-old retired tool-and-die maker.

        The group of 35 doesn't have a formal name, but they jokingly refer to themselves as the GYA Alumni. GYA stands for Grace Young Adults, which was the name of a singles group at Grace Methodist Church in Dayton, Ohio.

        Back in the late '60s, GYA members were getting married at a furious pace — about 20 weddings within three years. They wanted to keep the group together, so they formed the GYA Alumni.

        This was about the time that Ken, a widower with two boys, met Marilyn. They began dating. She invited him to GYA Alumni activities, and he fit right in.

        “It didn't take me long to know I wanted this lady to be my wife,” Ken says. Indeed, they married in June 1968, four months after they met.

        All their married life, the Epperts, who live in Blue Ash and now have four grown children, have reserved at least one day a month — and New Year's Day — for a get-together with the GYA Alumni.

        “If you don't set aside time, you don't see people,” says Marilyn, a 65-year-old secretary. “You get so busy, and you don't call, you don't plan anything. So we do it every month. Whoever can come, comes.'

        A few GYA Alumni never married, but they still come. And a few of the married couples divorced. They still come, too. Separately, of course.

        “We don't take sides,” Marilyn notes.

        But they take their friendships seriously.

        Through the years, the group, which is no longer affiliated with the church that spawned it, has been to the theater and to house parties and picnics and potlucks. When their children were young they camped together.

        If anybody in the group gets sick, they can expect flowers. If anybody in the group needs a helping hand, they can expect dozens of them.

        The group has held three roof parties, including one 10 years ago at the Epperts'. Old shingles were yanked and new ones nailed in. “Even the gals got up there and helped,” Ken says.

        They don't do that anymore. “We all decided we shouldn't be climbing up and down ladders and hanging on roofs,” Marilyn says, laughing.

        Members range in age from mid-50s to late-70s, but most are in their 60s; they're spread around Dayton and Cincinnati's northern suburbs.

        Marilyn is speaking for the entire group when she says the monthly gatherings will continue “as long as we can go up and down the highway.”

        More than a year ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She didn't let that keep her away.

        “I did try to keep going because you need things to keep your mind occupied and you need something to look forward to, and you need to be around friends and family,” she says.

        She finished chemotherapy and radiation treatments in July. She's doing fine.

        When she was sick, the Epperts continued to take their turn as hosts. “I didn't have to lift a finger,” Marilyn says. “Everyone pitched in” by bringing food and cleaning up.

        They gathered Saturday at Dave and Sue Krichbaum's Miamisburg home for card and board games, good food and conversation. It was a fine way to begin a new year: in the company of old, dear friends.

       

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