INVERNESS, Fla. -- Dick DeWitt hadn't played shuffleboard since maybe, oh, 1943. Then he retired to this sleepy town in north central Florida. He's a shuffler now.
It happened one night. He and the wife, Vee, were walking through town. They saw the lights. They ambled over to the green concrete courts. They sat down on a bench and watched the members of the Inverness Shuffleboard Club play.
"The president came over and said, 'Want to play?' " recalled Mr. DeWitt, 68, a retired DuPont employee. "I said, 'Not tonight.' The next night I was there, and been there ever since. That was eight years ago."
On a typical balmy evening here on the Nature Coast, a stretch of Florida north of Tampa, the Inverness Shuffleboard Club is doing what it has been doing since its first meeting Nov. 12, 1965 -- thinking shuffleboard.
Bob Huffman, the club vice president, is sweeping the courts, the centerpiece of the town park. Dusk is fading. The overhead lights are coming up. And a full moon is rising over the top of a grand old oak, its spindly branches draped in moss.
"It's a good little game once you get the hang of it," says Helen Massey, a 73-year-old widow who follows a recently-shot disc as it slides down the court. "Ahhh, ain't that nice. Woooowww. Look at that shot. Don't ask me how I do it."
But a good shot can be short lived in this game.
"How sweet it is," says Mr. Huffman, who nudges an opponent's disc into the "kitchen," the lower area of the shuffleboard court that means a 10-point loss.
Club members play three times a week. In the warmer summer months, games start at 7 p.m. In the cooler winter season, beginning in November, members play in the afternoon.
It's a game of strategy where players try to place a disc, block an opponent's, sneak in behind it. "All the new players shoot very hard and wind up in the kitchen," said Mr. DeWitt. "Within a month, you learn to slow down."
The club formed after city fathers set aside a square block in the center of town for a park.
"That was quite a story," said Arthur Thurman, who, at 86, is a veteran club member. "The entire city block was supposed to become a park. And nothing was being done with it."
So in 1965 a group of would-be shufflers met and agreed, Why not add some courts? They solicited contributions from town businesses and built four courts for $1,525.
In 1972, with four additional courts built and the lights erected, the local newspaper described the courts as "the brightest spot in town."
As many as 100 town residents and wintering retirees played at the height of the club's popularity. Today, the club averages about 65 or 70 members.
Club members plunk down $5 for the privilege of playing a derivative of an English bar game that made its first appearance in this country in 1913. The motel owners in Daytona Beach, Fla., laid down a concrete court and there it was -- shuffleboard.
"The reason we charge $5 is because you get a pin and some literature and a name tag," said Mr. Thurman. "The second year and beyond it's only $4 [for chalk, erasers, and cue tips]. We try to keep it low so everybody can belong to the club."
Players meet for ice cream after an evening's play. They socialize at the spring party, an event with home-made food, home-grown entertainment and down-home spunk.
"No alcohol. We have quite a few folks here who are opposed to such as that. We're in the Bible belt here," said Mr. Thurman.
For a newcomer, the club is a good way to "get acquainted real quick, real fast," he said.
"You come into town and you don't know a soul," said Mr. Thurman, who moved here in 1978 from Toledo, Ohio. "We made a lot of friends."
But friendship is the least of it. Most of the club members are "snowbirds," retirees from Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Delaware, New Jersey, New York. Canada, too.
"They're old folks when they come down here. They have one foot in the grave when they come down here. All they need is give them a little push and they're gone," said Mr. Thurman. "We guarantee you five extra years. It actually prolongs your life."