Looking back on that meeting I thought of it as a shotgun wedding," Jack Barringer recalled, "but by now it's become an endless honeymoon."

No matter, the deed was done. It was 5:15 on the afternoon of December 11, 1981. Gathering for the occasion were members of two of the proudest and most prestigious Club Tables of the Union League. They were about to be joined into one, but not because they wanted it to happen. They had to!

The order had come from the exalted House Committee. The trigger finger belonged to its chairman.

Both tables received the order, as did many of the other club tables, whose average daily attendance was not up to what the committee thought it should be. In substance, it commanded, "Hitch up with another Table." In terms more gentle, of course.

"The House Committee has scanned the attendance records of the various Club Tables," Groundhog President Don Copeland had explained to the Table members a year before today's meeting, "and the daily numbers varied."

"Some, such as us," he continued, "fill up on some days and then have a flock of empty seats on other days. Our daily average is down, sort of below the poverty level. Except on Wednesdays when you have to get here early if you want a seat."

"So," he concluded, "We have to scout around and find a compatible Club Table and combine with it. It's not going to be easy but we have no other choice."

It wasn't easy.

Club Tables are fraternal groups, usually brought together by common interests or because a few of your friends dine at that table. Perhaps you're downright comfortable and relaxed in the company of the other members of that particular table.

The problems that were now faced by the Groundhogs were the same problems facing the Crickets. The two Tables had no overlapping interests. It's possible they had heard of each other only once or twice. The tables were in different dining areas, the Crickets in the South and the Groundhogs in the North Marble Room.

Even the circumstances of their birth were completely unalike.

The Groundhog Table had a classic baptism

Back in 1911, when the vast space between the original Union League facing Broad Street and the 15th Street building was filled by a brand new structure (not only with the huge new dining rooms, but Lincoln Hall and other new features), the abundant space allowed for additional Club Tables. Before 1911, the single first-floor dining room was a rather cramped room on the north side of the Broad Street building.

The spacious new dining areas beckoned the formation of new Club Tables.

Toward the close of 1911, three real estate brokers, William Glen, William C. Benkert, and Edgar C. Cross got the urge to form a Club Table in the new room. They toyed with one name and then another but since dealing in land was the core of their business, the name "Groundhog" seemed appropriate.

They really hadn't decided on a name until they received permission to form the new Table on February 2, 1912. That sealed it!

The fourth and fifth members, William H. Wanamaker and Walter A. Baily, worked as a team to promote the Groundhog Table. Their efforts contributed significantly to its rapid growth.

Like most Club Tables, men of similar callings are often attracted to a Table where others of their craft are gathered. In its early days, real estate men predominated the Groundhog Table, but then came the paint manufacturers and some contractors, with an interesting mix of lawyers, accountants and those in the service professions found in equal numbers at most other Club Tables. A political touch was added by the presence of State Senator Evans Kephart and Bill Righter, the railroad lobbyist, along with Senator Hugh Scott and former Governor and Cabinet member, Harold Stassen.

The Cricket Table's origin was opposite from the Groundhog's.

In the Depression year of 1938, the Union League Bowling Team began meeting regularly at one of the dining room tables. It also entertained bowlers from other teams, in and out of the League.

Team members were Charles A. Johnson, Clarence F. Hand, D.W. Gross, George S. Hagstoz, Ralph Anderson, Dale B. Fitler, O. Charles, Droderson, I. HeH. Yocum Jr. and William Sherwood.

On the bitterly cold night of December 2, 1938, this group, while lingering around the table, awaiting a let-up in the falling snow, decided to formalize their friendship by forming the Cricket Table. Although, to this day, no one knows how the group decided on the name.

In 1970, the Pickwick Table, founded 20 years earlier, merged with the Cricket Table, and so ended its existence as a unit. So, too, did a tradition that the Table began: having its Christmas dinner in the Library Lounge. This had not been done before nor at any time since - by any Club Table.

The Pickwick added such names as Ramsey Wetherill, Roose Wallace, Art Claffey, and John Kokokos to the membership list at the Cricket Table. In fact, with 64 members at the time of the union with the Groundhogs, the Crickets was the second-largest table in the Union League.

It startles some people to realize that Club Tables, hearty and robust and flourishing for almost a century, weren't given status or official recognition by the Union League management until 1985. At that time, a recognized committee was formed. An office was opened and staffed. Records and other information are kept up-to-date concerning the 23 Club Tables now active.

How did the Union League's Club Tables get started?

"It could be argued," former longtime manager of the League, Dan Layman, told, "If Tommy Ober didn't have that deep down love of nature and didn't constantly chatter about the glories of the outdoors and plant life at lunch each day, Club Tables might never have gotten off the ground."

Ober enjoyed taking walks through the various outlying woodlands that were wrapped around the city back in 1884: Fairmount Park, the green banks of the Wissahickon, even far-off Darby Creek. He lived nature and he talked about it constantly.

The year was 1884 and the Center City area of Philadelphia was being tightened with a belt of rowhouses, 3600 of them being constructed each year. The city was almost beyond controlling its growth. Horse-drawn trolleys dragged along 204 miles of track connecting the newly erected homes to the ever-rising new factories that dotted areas all around the city.

“Getting out in pastures and enjoying the fresh air and the green lands was a rather sensible thing to do," Ober's grandson commented in later years, "with the city drowning in dust and smoke all the livelong day."

It turned out that way. One spring lunchtime, Tom Ober got up to leave the table. It was a crisp, sunny day in the early spring. "Anyone like to take a nature walk?" he asked.

To his surprise, five of his table chums said, "Yes." Two more asked to join. Off they walked to the Schuylkill banks.

Without being aware of it, Ober had just fathered the first Club Table. As the days went by, other members joined in, until nature was the prime interest of the table. Members referred to themselves as the Kettle Table. No one ever found out why. It's still a mystery.

The Kettle Club was neither a secret nor noisy and, in spite of holding and proclaiming "The First Annual Kettle Dinner" in 1885, it remained unique. Yet slowly, and for no known reason, the Kettle Club faded slowly into oblivion.

Eight years later, a new Club Table popped into being and lives on until this moment - The Lincoln Club.

Shortly before he was appointed to the Librarian of Congress, future League President John Russell Young, formed the new Club Table and, like the Kettle, it was born of a common interest. This time it was research on the life and times of Abraham Lincoln.

However, in 1886, another Club Table came into being and continues, like the Lincoln, until this day: The Kindergarten Club.

Some young men who were playing billiards began cutting up and annoying other players. They were scolded for "acting like spoiled kids" by older members and by the management. Consequently, they named themselves "The Kindergarten Club" and traditionally carry out this theme when, at their annual dinner, new Table members appear in kiddies wear.

During the next 16 years, new Club Tables sprung into existence. Some stayed briefly, then disappeared. One, ordinarily calling itself the "Standup Club" changed its name to the "Oyster Bar Club.” Then, like most of the others, vanished, leaving no record that it ever came.

In fact, when the extensively researched Chronicles of the Union League of Philadelphia was published in 1902, no mention of Club Tables appeared on its pages.

Until 1911, Club Tables met in the rather inadequate first-floor dining room on the north side of the first floor.

On December 2 of that year, when the new center building of the Union League was finished, seven Club Tables existed. But the large, bright North and South dining rooms were about to change all that. By 1962 the number rose to 34 Club Tables to which more than 1,000 or over 1/3rd of the Union League members belonged.

The Club Table system is looked upon by many as unique and recent. But it should be recalled that while the Clubs spring out of the League, the League at its birth was brought forth from the Union Club - a Club that remained intact until 1906 when its last member died.

But the technique for uniting two Club Tables into one, such as was now about to take place between the Crickets and the Groundhogs, had no precedent to which the Table members could refer for guidance. No histories. No pattern.

The first job was to find a Table with which to mate.

Evans Kephart of the Groundhogs was the first to make a suggestion. Keppy, a former State Senator was widely known and highly respected so that his opinion carried considerable weight. He mentioned that he knew a chap named Cliff Thaw at the Crickets Table. He was asked to make the approach.

Meanwhile, the Groundhogs appointed a committee to stand by in order to negotiate and follow through if a favorable response was received from the other Tables approached.

Charles Kahn, then President of the Crickets, presented the plan to the Crickets and the suggestion was received, naturally, with a "let's get to know them better before we act." Kahn was at that time, the early months of 1981, attempting to interest some of the fallen-away Pickwick members in returning to the Crickets Table.

Kahn sent a gracious letter to a dozen members of the former Pickwick Table welcoming them to attend the monthly birthday luncheon and the Christmas Party held in conjunction with the Table's annual December meeting. The result was disheartening. This dearth of interest on the part of the Pickwicks made the Groundhog approach even more interesting since both occurred within weeks of each other.

An interesting morsel in Kahn's letter was his instructions on where to send the $60 Table dues. Harold Smith, now an honorary member, was back then, in January 1981, the Crickets Treasurer. He lived on his farm in the outskirts of the small, remote village of Hawley, a place located on the upper tip of Lake Wallenpaupak in northeastern Pennsylvania.

As the months rolled by, the committees from the two Tables met and ironed out the differences that needed to be disposed of so that the eventual merger would be smooth and permanent.

Six months later, in July 1981, the House Committee Chairman acknowledged enthusiastically the progress of the combined Tables committees and pointed out that there were still three major decisions to be made. In a letter to the late Jack McQuade - prepared, as the Chairman, by Don Copeland - he asked the name of the new Table, then stated that the size will be 10 seats and that the table of the combined Tables would be in the North Marble Rooms.

"I know," he wrote, "there are many individual preferences, but I believe you will see the Crickets quickly realize the obvious benefits of the North Marble Room in the area of service."

There seemed no uproar from the Crickets concerning the geographical relocation of their Table. But the name was a bit different.

Some of the combined Table Committee made suggestions. The one that attracted the most attention was "The Dickens Table." It did add a bit of an intellectual touch, perhaps, but it disappeared after a few Committee meetings and the Crickets-Groundhog name settled into being. Only the matter of which name should come first in the combined title remained unsettled.

However, other more pressing matters required a decision. Time was running out if the first combined meeting was to take place, as planned, in the forthcoming December.

Unresolved matters included not only the name, but which Table should provide the first President of the combined Table? Should the Christmas Party be held at noon, Groundhog style, or on the second Friday of December at night - a dinner, not a luncheon - Cricket style? Should wives be invited?

And smaller matters:

• Should drinks be capped at two per member (in the Crickets tradition)?

• Should the new Table continue the warm Cricket tradition of having the monthly birthday party in the Olde Café?

Then minor matters having little to do with policy or practice arose:

• "The Crickets lazy Susan, which was made by hand by one of our members, is too small for the combined Table. Could we bring over the one from Groundhog Table?" The answer was "Yes.”

• Do we use the Cricket symbol or the Groundhog moniker on the new Table? And,"Do we display Herman, the stuffed groundhog, on February 2nd?" Such matters were quickly settled at the first meeting of the Committee of Six - formed to resolve any future differences, at its first meeting on October 20, 1981.

(Fred Haab, Bob Griffiths and Jack McQuade - Groundhog members, and Cliff Thaw, Clarence Keiser and John Rorer - Cricket members, composed the Committee.  Don Copeland and Charles Kahn had worked closely during the past many months toward wrapping up the merger. The Committee was appointed to carry on and take care of any loose ends.)

Dues were raised to $75 annually and checks were to be sent to Hawley, of course. A new membership booklet with the combined Table members was to be prepared by Bob Witmer.

"Should the sending of flowers to sick or deceased Table members be continued?" Yes. "Christmas luncheon or dinner?" A dinner in the evening will take place. "Christmas gifts to some League employees?" Yes, continue the practice, the Committee decided; but the new officers of the new Table will decide to whom and what amounts. (The fact that the Tables had different waitresses during the past year must be considered.) These were among the last-minute decisions that had to be settled to complete the cleanup before the first combined meeting.

It was November 10, 1981, when Charlie Kahn sent out that final letter to all members of the about-to-be-combined Tables. A year of behind-the-scenes work had been accomplished. All elements that might possibly have incurred animosity had been carefully removed. A new slate of officers for 1982 - two offices to be filled by each Table - had been prepared. Copeland and McQuade from the Groundhogs, and Witmar and Thaw from the Crickets, would be voted on at the forthcoming meeting.

Now, at 5:15 on the afternoon of December 11, 1981, Donald F. Copeland, the first President of the combined Tables - now the Cricket-Groundhog Table - banged the gavel and opened the meeting. Some of the members were still straggling in from the hallway on the third floor of the Union League.

There was a surprising lack of uneasiness. It was not an atmosphere of strangeness; it was as though everyone had known each other for quite a while - friendly, cooperative, smiling men meeting on a warm, fraternal basis.

The year of work spearheaded by Don Copeland and Charlie Kahn, along with their creation, the Committee of Six, had come to a head.