Elliot Wilner reads to his granddaughter, Yael Fritschie, who is not yet a member of either the New Yorker or bicycle group. Photo courtesy of Elliot Wilner
There was a time when 83-year-old Bob Kanchuger spent most Friday mornings on a 30-mile bike ride with friends. The group of retirees would pedal toward a local destination – Bethesda, Md., to Old Town Alexandria, Va., was a favorite trek — where they would have coffee and spirited debates on everything from foreign policy to economic inequality before making the return trip.
“One of the things that kept people coming together is that we would have a defined day of riding and we would make sure we had an interesting place to stop and have coffee and discussions,” said Kanchuger, a resident of Potomac, Md., and an attorney who retired from the World Bank Group.
While outdoor exercise was a definite benefit, it wasn’t the best part for all of the group members. “The most enjoyable part was the discussion at our midway point,” said Dr. Elliot C. Wilner, a retired neurologist who lives in Bethesda.
Kanchuger wanted to preserve the stimulating discussions even after the bike rides were no longer possible. “It was likely that biking would come to an end because of our age and physical health,” said Kanchuger. “Several of us subscribed to the New Yorker and enjoyed discussing the articles, and that was an activity that would meet some of our social needs of retirement.”
So Kanchuger approached Wilner with the idea of forming a New Yorker magazine discussion group. They invited a few like-minded friends from the biking group. The men meet on the first Wednesday afternoon of each month for two hours of insightful conversation. Group members choose three to four stories from the magazine to read and analyze. Each article discussion is led by a group member who prepares ideas for analysis ahead of time and emails them to the group.
“I’ve gained and reinvigorated friendships,” said Wilner. “I enjoy the intellectually stimulating discussions with bright, educated, well-informed people.”
FOR THE SEPTEMBER MEETING, Wilner suggested two of James Surowiecki’s columns. “Because they present both sides of an important issue,” Wilner said. “Corporate America has, over the past 40 years or so, evolved a business model that has been almost totally devoted to the personal enrichment of executives and shareholders, with very little concern for the welfare of workers or the nation; and yet there is another, more socially conscious business model that has been shown to be successful but is not widely emulated,” said Wilner.
The men are united, in part, by their affinity for mental rigor. “We all enjoy the intellectual stimulation, but the camaraderie is one of the best aspects,” said Peter Kimm of Potomac, a retired engineer and executive director of the U.S. Asia Environmental Partnership at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “We like each other. We’re a diverse group of people – retired doctors, lawyers, engineers … with a ride range of interests. Everybody in the group is successful.”
Light snacks, coffee and spirited debates characterize most of the meetings.
“We don’t agree on everything,” said 80-year-old Victor Kimm, Peter Kimm’s brother, of McLean, Va., an engineer and retired senior executive for the Environmental Protection Agency. “We’ve seen people who’ve had very different views, but there is a mutual respect. We have different ways of looking at an issue and moving on. I think it has something to do with the age of the group members.”
Victor Kimm, who is also the executive director of SHARE, a non-profit organization in McLean that helps meet the emergency needs of those with limited financial resources, says the men have explored articles ranging from the growing inequity of income in the United States to stories about the group of Chilean miners trapped underground for more than two months.
“There is a certain rigor or discipline in having a monthly meeting where you read and prepare in advance,” he said. “You have to stick with it.”
The bond between the men, however, extends beyond erudition.
“We all greatly value the friendships of this group,” said Ian MacDonald, a resident of Chevy Chase, Md., a former journalist who retired from the International Monetary Fund and who grew up in Great Britain and graduated from the University of Oxford. “And we’ve been there for each other during difficult times.”