“It’s been around since 1978,” said Leland Gersbach of Holland, a self-appointed spokesman for the group. “It started with a few of us right after we got too old to be part of the Temple Jaycees.”

The Temple Jaycees was a chapter of the national service organization called the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. Gersbach said once members turned 35 (later it changed to 39), they were culled from the group. The Temple Jaycee chapter of the 1970s disbanded in 1991. It was rechartered in September 2006 with Scott Morrow of Temple as president.

“We were too old to be in the Jaycees, but we still wanted to see each other once a week,” Gersbach said. “But we didn’t want to do anything but eat.”

That’s about how founding member David Petty of Temple recalls the start of the club.

“As Jaycees we worked hard raising money for various groups and projects,” Petty said. “And when we weren’t in the club anymore, we wanted to do something where we weren’t always busy and worried about raising money. We didn’t want to do anything.”

So they don’t - do anything, that is.

As emerging wrinkles and thinning hair disqualified them for the Jaycees, Gersbach, Petty and Mike Brockway of Temple started to meet at noon twice a week for lunch. They dubbed themselves the Do Nothing Club.

The group has grown more than six times its original size, but it still doesn’t do anything but eat and gab. These days their lunches take place at the old Jody’s Restaurant on Tuesdays and Where’s It At on Fridays.

The owner of Where’s It At, Jerry Jecmenek, said the Do Nothing Club usually sits in the back left-hand corner of the dining section, just before where the bar starts.

“They’re in here every Friday at noon. It’s like clockwork,” Jecmenek said. “They just come in and talk. They don’t stir up trouble. They don’t really do much of anything.”

Members of the club would tell Jecmenek that they disagree with his saying they don’t cause any trouble, but they don’t because that would be doing something.

“We’ve been asked to leave places,” said Paul Tipton of Belton, a longtime member of the Do Nothing Club.

Gersbach nodded his head in agreement, but he said it was too much work to go into detail.

“Let’s just say that we got a little loud,” Gersbach said, laughing. “We’ve had Mexican, Chinese, every kind of food there is, moving from place to place.”

The members of the Do Nothing Club are fairly easy to spot. They’re all working class gentlemen over the age of 50 who dress in nice shirts and slacks.

Members said their tendency to do nothing extends beyond their club and into their careers, but they said that’s a secret because their job titles give them good disguises as busy people.

Gersbach is the secretary for Precinct 1 of the Clearwater Underground Water Conservation District, and he is a certified public accountant, like fellow club members Brockway and Jerry Tyroch.

Mike Morrow owns Temple Granite Works, Lloyd Thomas works for Aldridge Thomas realtors, Tipton is employed at Scott and White Memorial Hospital and Petty is a consultant.

“Wait,” Gersbach said during a recent lunch at Where’s It At. “A consultant is a person who can’t hold a job anywhere else.”

That quip was one of dozens the friends shot back and forth.

“You got to have thick skin if you want to hang out with us,” Tipton said.

Member Ken Higdon, president of the Temple Chamber of Commerce, agreed.

“You have got to be able to dish it as well as take it,” Higdon said, reflecting on his 10-year history with the group. “Those guys are like sharks. If there’s blood in the water, and you don’t defend yourself, they’re going to keep attacking.”

Conversation at the luncheon more than proved Higdon’s point. Each man was comparing his job to everyone else’s.

When Gersbach said that members John Fulwiler and Jim Hightower were entrepreneurs, member Gary Garner scoffed.

“Yeah,” said Garner who works in the Temple Daily Telegram’s advertising office. “An entrepreneur is just a fancy word that says nobody else will hire you.”

Actually, both men own their own businesses, Fulwiler in real estate and Hightower in land development.

Gersbach went back to reciting his memorized list of members.

“There’s Bill Stokes, the head of wealth management at Extraco Bank,” Gersbach said, pointing at the gentleman sitting across from him.

Stokes said that contrary to his title, he has no wealth.

“Yeah,” Garner said. “He comes here and gets our wealth.”

“You caught me,” Stokes said, rolling his eyes. “I pick up your tips and put them in my pocket.”

The exchange sounded rehearsed, bringing to mind the grandpas who repeat the same old stories again and again.

After Garner quieted, the white-haired gentleman waged war with a ketchup bottle.

“Come on,” Garner said, beating the bottom of the bottle and squeezing its top. “Oh fine. It’s not going to work.”

Having got rid of the bottle that failed him, Garner reached for the one from the table behind him.

“Ahhh,” Garner said as his fries drowned in the red polysaturated stuff of ketchup. “That’s better.”

For a second, Garner looked as if he expected applause, but nobody had paid attention to his little victory.

The conversation had turned to the subject of what they called “good-natured ribbing.”

“This isn’t the place to be if you need support,” Tipton said.

“No we’re not,” Gersbach said. “We’re the first to call each other’s faults and the first to pull a leg out from under you.”

Tipton suggested they call their services “a brutal psychology.”

Brockway, Fulwiler and Hightower were unable to attend that lunch at Where’s It At.

“I guess they were too busy,” Garner said. “We’d rally together and kick them out, but we can’t because that’s against the rule. That would be doing something.”

Jim Shields of Morgan’s Point wasn’t there either, but he did make it to the next lunch at Jody’s on Aug. 7. He’s retired from Goodyear.

The other Do Nothing Club members said Shields’ retirement makes him their president. O.L. Petty, 85, David Petty’s father, the only other retired club member, lost out on the presidency because he hasn’t been in the club as long as Shields.

Shields bangs no authoritative gavel. His presidency is just something the men talk about - like an honorary degree.

Besides, because it is doing something, holding an office - like collecting dues, recruiting members and keeping attendance - is against the rules of the Do Nothing Club.

Shields said he’s been a member of the club for more than 10 years.

“I go because if I don’t go, they’ll talk about me,” Shields said. “If I do go, they still talk about me, but at least I’m there to stick up for myself.”

But that’s the standard joke answer of all the club’s members.

“Really, it’s the conversation that draws me to the group,” Shields said. “We discuss so many wonderful things - politics, education, sports - and we talk about the people we know.”

Gersbach and Tipton said they solve the world’s problems - from the daily struggles of the Temple Telegram to the Temple school district, but Shields said the group’s “solving sounds a lot like complaining.”

“Aye,” Fulwiler agreed. “It’s that kind of talk I like best - and the comradeship.”

Over the last 10, 20 and 30 years, the men said they’ve watched each other’s families grow, celebrating the good times and mourning the bad. Higdon and Shields said some of them have grown so close that they go to church together and take ski trips together.

“We’re a great, entertaining bunch of people,” Higdon said, “who do nothing.”