Community demonstrated with senior coffee groups

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Some have known each other for years, others have known each other for mere months but their commonality is the decades they have all lived through. Ranging in age from 70 to 93, a couple even represent the Greatest Generation. They are the Battle Ground version of Tuesdays with Morrie.

This reporter spent two hours with over two dozen seniors recently who gather at the Battle Ground McDonald’s on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. They begin trickling in just after 6 a.m. but 10:30 a.m. is when the group seems to grow to its largest number. Predominantly men and predominantly veterans, ladies are encouraged to join in the reminiscing and camaraderie and the coffee groups (as they refer to themselves) have developed a small fan base, as well.

It’s easy to see why. The wealth of history represented with this group of seniors is remarkable. There’s Fred Striker, a Marine veteran who also served 12 years on the school board representing North County. Nappy (Napoleon) Bragado, is a submarine veteran who served in both the Korean and Vietnam War out of USS Bowfin Base in Pearl Harbor. Bragado was 10 years old when Japanese Imperial forces invaded his home province of Ilocos Sur in the Phillipines. The oldest in the group at 93, Tudor (pronounced Two Door) Davis is one of the few surviving US Submarine Veterans of World War II. Davis served the Navy aboard the USS Halibut (SS-232).

Davis joined the coffee groups a year ago, invited by 87-year-old Richard Slayton.

“I didn’t know they were meeting here,” Davis said. “They’re a nice bunch of guys. When you get as old as I am, you don’t have many friends. It’s nice to know we still have a motley group within an age group that participated in a range of things that still want to be viable.”

In fact, most of them still drive, handle their own lawn care and housework and appreciate the convenience of technology. During my visit, I was shown multiple pictures of regular attenders who weren’t there courtesy of the latest cellular devices.  

Mary Pifer remembers the first get-togethers beginning over 50 years ago.

“These coffee groups started when a lot of these men were younger. They’d meet at the Battle Ground Inn and, somewhere along the line, wives started coming. But it all started as young men having coffee before work,” Pifer said.

She went on to calculate that her late husband was 25 years old when he started meeting with friends before their work day began. When the Battle Ground Inn closed, they moved on to Fatty Patty’s. When that changed ownership, they began patronizing McDonald’s. Mr. Pifer would be 77 now.

Pifer also talked about Kay Beasley, a retired Battle Ground area mail carrier. Described as a mentor, Beasley “still has a sharp memory and she still mows her lawn and cans at 87 (years old).”



At a time when the art of conversation and personal interaction are losing ground to texting and social media, these older adults support one another by making the effort to show up. Barbara Majors, the wife of Richard Slayton, joined the 8:30 a.m. group over four years ago when her first husband died. Married a little over a year ago, Majors and Slayton are still newlyweds.

For the first hour of my visit, I heard about Bob Moody. I needed to meet him but I probably wouldn’t, several of them said, because he was losing his battle with cancer and there’d been recent talk of hospice. Suddenly, excited murmuring broke out from table to table as a familiar car pulled into the parking lot and Bob stepped out of the driver’s seat. Along with his wife, Shirley, they walked into the restaurant and took a window seat across from their friends of 50 years, Ellis and Nila Toftdahl. The Toftdahls had driven from Sweet Home, Oregon to visit with their dear friends and even McDonald’s employees were choked up by Bob’s presence.

As Edith Palachios, McDonald’s shift manager, stepped away from his booth she wiped tears from her eyes.

“I’ve worked here almost 11 years. The regular morning customers have been coming for a couple years. I figured out we’re kind of like family and told them I don’t have much family here so they said ‘We’re your family,’” Palachios, originally from Mexico, said. “I know when something’s wrong. Bob is not feeling good and the news that they say, that makes me very sad right now.”

I approached Bob cautiously and was surprised to meet an enthusiastic, cheerful man who had a burning question for me: “Hey, when’s someone going to do a story about Jumpin’ Jill?” he wanted to know. A Battle Ground resident myself, I knew immediately who he was referring to and coyly skirted the issue.

Bob and his friends forged on, recounting the Vancouver Four Square Church the four of them met at, talking about the Moody’s 31 great-grandkids, schooling me on the 900 residents who lived in Battle Ground when they first moved to the area, the AgCo, the old pharmacy, the truck stop across the street, two-lane Main Street with no stop light and the one police officer lovingly referred to as One Bullet Barney.

Diagnosed with cancer a year ago and given a three to four week prognosis, Bob has beat the odds and been an inspiration to his friends. They all have a story and, together, there are volumes that may never be written. Those who take time out of the busyness of their day to pull up a chair are rewarded by a glimpse into the rich lives of these relevant seniors.

As for the coffee groups, they are a shining example of community, not in the trendy way advertisers throw the word around but the real deal; “a social group [with] a common cultural and historical heritage.”