Every Friday morning, men from around Exeter, New Hampshire get together at Water Street cafe.

You're running out of space here.

Well, it happens.

It happens from time to time.

Today is a special day, so everyone is showing up.

I heard about them.

I see you on TV all the time.

This is the bunch.

And now it's time to meet them.

We've got people who are artists.

People who are musicians.

People with PhDs.

Several guys went to the academy and some taught there and did other things there.

Scientists.

Well, we've got a real variety of people here.

What do you call the group?

Is there a name?

They're known around the seacoast area as the Exeter Men's Walking Group.

The cafe is a fueling station before they head out on the streets and local walking trails.

Within an hour, Well, even less maybe a half an hour walking distance from where we are right now.

There are so many beautiful natural sites and historic sites that we're able to take advantage of without even getting in a car.

And maybe the best thing we do is get out of a car.

We bump into interesting, nice people.

And the other thing is we bump into a lot of nice people, usually a lot.

But there's one nice gentleman who owns the local bookstore.

And what I see when we go by Dan will sometimes say, oh, I see the Senate is in session.

Kevin and I started walking when we retired from teaching, and then it kind of just went from there.

Some guy said, hey, can I join you?

You know, I said, oh yeah, okay.

First thing you know, you had a group, then you had to have t shirts.

Well, I tried to talk them, you know, into tattoos.

Tattoos when you get over 70 don't look so good.

They get all wrinkly.

Well, what was that originally your idea or was it, Actually, my my daughter gave me a shirt and everybody liked it.

And they said, we want shirts too.

and said, let's get shirts for everybody.

And the blue You can see forever.

Absolutely.

It's really good.

All right.

This is a lovely walk along this town.

A lot of times what we'll do is we'll find out where there's construction going on in town, and we walk to the construction site and we tell people what they're doing right, and what they're doing wrong.

They think we're from OSHA.

They're easy to spot around town They stick together sometimes in small groups, and they're willing to stop and say hi.

You know, the other nice thing too, we talked about bumping into people for, for a lot of us, especially being teachers, we'll bump into former students or colleagues and the other fellows that bump into neighbors they haven't seen for a while.

These people are smiling at us here.

Yeah.

We look like celebrities.

What did you teach?

I taught music.

No kidding.

Band director.

Was in the Air Force for five years, and I flew.

Flew airplanes in Vietnam and all that stuff.

And then I got out and taught music.

What's your instrument?

It was primarily trumpet when I was growing up.

And then French horn.

And I played piano, too, and I sang.

I was trumpet, and then when I got older, I bought a tuba.

Oh, wow.

I love it.

I used to go down on the leech field Sunday mornings and sit on a kitchen chair and play by blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

I play Laura Red Sails in the Sunset.

You know, the first Sunday somebody called the cops.

He lost his mind over there.

Yeah, well, after they saw what it was, they never brought me again.

Who's this big guy?

Careers kept these guys busy for most of their lives.

Retirement brought them together.

When work ended, they had time and the desire to stay active and connected.

Getting together is just what you naturally do, right?

You gravitate.

Yeah.

That's.

Well, yeah, it's.

I think it's important.

I mean, one reason that Kevin and I started the group was, first of all, we liked each other and wanted to walk outside and and do that kind of thing.

But we also realized that guys don't get together as much as women do.

You know, when women get older, they're always in their groups and going out for coffee.

Oh, yeah.

Book clubs.

Yeah.

And book clubs.

And and guys don't do that, you know.

And I said, hey, let's you know.

And then it just kind of evolved.

People kept joining and said, yeah, this is great.

I like the diversity of the many different careers, from all the group.

Yeah.

It's very.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're always striking up a good conversation.

What day do you normally like?

Fridays.

Every Friday and have for 20 years and only one day did nobody walk out of 20 years.

Somebody has walked every day for 20 years.

What happened that day?

It was pouring rain and we just said yeah.

We're like the Cal Ripken of walking.

My morning with these guys began as strangers, but it didn't take long to get to know them.

It's been fun.

And given our shared love of music, it seems right to end our walk together with an old classic.

(Singing) Oh My Darling Clementine