The History of the Castro Country Club...

The Castro Country Club (CCC) was started in or around 1983 as an alternative to the bar scene. The name, Castro Country Club, came about because there was once a small Astroturf-like putting green in the backyard, to give it that Country Club atmosphere. It was more for laughs then anything else.

There was also a membership fee that was charged to help raise money to keep the Country Club going and give the member a sense of exclusivity. At the time the member paid his fee, he would have his picture taken.

The member's name was then put on the picture, and the picture would be placed on the large wall in the entry hall. This was done so that anyone wanting to meet someone that he thought was cute or interesting could go to the wall and look that person's name up and then introduce himself.

When the AIDS epidemic hit, many of these members' pictures were eventually taken down and put into photo albums, which became the photo albums of the dead. At the height of the epidemic, the Country Club assisted members that had no health coverage by making them volunteers and putting them on the books and eventually their health care plan. This allowed those volunteers to get essential medical care.

As the volunteer base grew the atmosphere of the Club changed, yet again.

The development of AIDS medications prolonged peoples' lives; many in our community, as a result, became more health-concious. A lot of the members and volunteers became clean and sober and went to recovery meetings, and then would go to the Country Club after their meetings for fellowship and a cup of coffee. The manager at the time did not like that the conversations were always about the Twelve Steps, so he tried to intercede. He put a topics container on the bar and whenever the conversation would become a Twelve-Step topic, he would reach into the container and pull out a non-recovery-related topic card and hand it to the persons engaged in conversation and say, "Here, talk about this."

Of course this didn't work, and over time the Castro Country Club has come to be recognized as a "clean, sober and safe space" for socializing.

The creator of the Castro Country Club did pass away and left the care of the Club in the hands of Joe Healey. Joe ran the Club for several years and then passed it on to Baker Places. Today, Baker Places is working with the Community Advisory Board to make the Castro Country Club separate, self-sufficient organization.

The Community Advisory Board meets Wednesdays at 7 p.m. at the Castro Country Club to plan the day-to-day operations and plan the Castro Country Club's future in the community.