“Friends for life” has taken on a new meaning when people have known each other for 80 years or more.

But for members of the “Romeo Club,” it’s no big deal when they talk about taking naps as kids, living through the Cuban Missile Crisis, who fought in the Korean War or Vietnam, and whether they remembered their first kiss or the sports they played at Woodland High School.

Recently, the group of “old school friends and their wives” held a “reunion luncheon” for the “Retired Old Men Eating Out” Club at the Burger Saloon, inducting three new associate members and two honorary members.

The group typically gets together for lunch each month to remember the “good times” as well as talk about the “aches and pains” of getting old. But once a year everyone gets together to share their memories in greater depth.

Neal Peart and Dave Wallace, who are charter members, explained the group have been friends since kindergarten with all graduating from Woodland High School in 1956.

Nearly everyone is 87 years old with everyone starting kindergarten in 1944-45, going to “Baby School” in the first and second grades, attending Beamer School from third through eighth grade, and spending four years at Woodland High.

Members of the group attending this past Friday included Wallace and his wife Louise, Peart and wife Judith, Mike King and wife Jan, Herbert Schuler, Armand Jaques, Scott Owens, Donnis Stoner, wife of the late Giles Stoner, Linda Eermise, wife of the late Somerton Eermisse, Hope Tapia, wife of the late Fresca Tapia and Barbara Bodkin. The only person absent was Gaylene Gregg.

Three newly named “associate members” were Stoner, Tapia and Eermise; and two “honorary members” Gaylene Gregg, wife of the late Bryon Gregg and Bodkin, wife of the late Doug Bodkin.