Most of us have experienced walking into a room where we do not know anyone. We have all felt that slightly uneasy, yet anticipatory feeling before we reach out to introduce ourselves. I had that feeling six years ago when I attended my first meeting of the Current Events Forum at Curtis Library in Brunswick. Since that time, I have become a devoted member of this group: I cannot imagine my life without these weekly discussions with my friends. Why? Because we talk about one of my favorite topics – politics and public policy. But beyond that, while our discussions can be lively and sometimes pointed, we do not take ourselves too seriously, and we have become friends.

The Current Events Forum, which began in 2012, is a program of Midcoast Senor College sponsored by Thornton Oaks Retirement Community; it operates through a partnership with Curtis Memorial Library. It was the brainchild of Sandy and Richard Neiman, both past officers of the Senior College, who saw such a group in action in Florida and wanted to start one in Brunswick. The format of the Forum is simple: each week a different group member chooses the day’s topics and moderates the proceedings, and we talk about current events, including local, state, national, and international issues. Attendance is free and meetings are open to all; however, we are a generally older crowd. About 20 people attend regularly and newcomers are always welcome.

The list of topics we talk about is long, but to give you an idea, we discuss the current political doings in Washington, the state of health care and health insurance coverage, Maine’s high property taxes, end-of-life issues, racial and ethnic issues, all election campaigns and their dramatic twists and turns, oil, the Middle East and climate change, the relationship of Congress, the Presidency and the courts that expresses our country’s commitment to the separation of powers, public schools vs. charter schools, the state of education in Maine and the country, Brexit and the EU, China, the trade war – the issues are endless.

The Current Events Forum has only one hard-and-fast rule: we must be civil to each other. When I first joined the group in 2014, this issue was not that evident: our political life was relatively calm. But since the advent of Donald Trump and the issue of real and “fake” news, the intensity of our discussions has ratcheted up. Time was that there was no mention of whether a news source was accurate or not; today, group members will call out, “What’s your source?” when someone states a position as fact. A group member, who is also a techie, now brings her ipad to meetings. When there is a need to check facts, her thumbs move swiftly over her keyboard and she comes up with a judgement of fact or not. Another group member calls her our Madame Defarge of A Tale of Two Cities, except she works on her keyboard instead of knitting. Are we civil to each other? Yes, but sometimes when one of our conservative members

expresses an opinion that is ‘way beyond the moderate-to-liberal spectrum of the rest of the group, some of us have been known to groan in dismay.

Our members are an eclectic bunch. One member worked for the Brunswick Chamber of Commerce, another worked for the State of Maine in public policy, and a third was a nurse. Other members were lawyers, an architect, and worked in manufacturing. There are retired businesspeople, two retired doctors and a half dozen former educators and educational administrators. A number of members served in the US military, which brings a personal element to our discussions of old wars and current conflicts. But one of the special qualities of the group is that it does not revere one person’s former career over another: members bring their interest in current events and life experiences to the proceedings, they share anecdotes that relate to one issue or another and we have a rollicking good time.

The group has also instituted lunch after the weekly meetings where the ground rules are a bit different. No one said this should be so, but discussions at lunch are generally non-political. We get to know each other on a different level over our soup and sandwiches, we tell jokes and stories of our past lives, and yes, we share information about navigating our health care system, the best doctors for knee replacements and cataract operations and the general vicissitudes of older age.

Does this sound attractive to you? If so, please do come sit with us and talk, and talk, and talk. Our meetings are on Thursdays in the Morrill Reading Room at Curtis Memorial Library. They begin at 12:15 pm, last for one hour, and then it’s off to lunch.

Susan Michael is a resident of Brunswick and a member of the board of Midcoast Senior College. She can be reached at susan.elizabeth.michael@gmail.com.