A flight above the spirited banter of men winding down a tough day, perhaps catching up on the political gaffe du jour or wondering aloud whether last year’s Red Sox collapse or this year’s gradual fade into oblivion is easier to stomach, a little-known bit of Nashua history comes alive.

In a room where members play cards, hold meetings and conduct business, faces of young men stare straight ahead through the thick glass that has preserved their likenesses for generations.

“This is how we started,” Ray LeBoeuf told a visitor, gesturing toward the series of weathered wooden frames displayed along the walls. Each held a large black-and-white photograph of a hockey team, their bulky uniforms bearing a large “N.”

“They played their home games at Sandy Pond,” LeBoeuf continued. “They’d come here after games, have a few beers. … ’Course, it was a lot smaller then.”

“Here” would be Nashua’s storied Club National, the robust, civic-minded social club born as a post-game hangout for The Nationals, Nashua’s entry in an early 20th century independent circuit called the New England Hockey League.

Most of the photos are of teams in the 1920s, apparently the heyday of a league almost fully dependent, at least in Nashua, on Mother Nature. The Nats’ home ice was today’s Sandy Pond, then referred to as Balcom Ice Pond, except when the Nats were playing. Then it became the Pine Street Arena.

At first a rustic, wood-frame former dwelling, the clubhouse, around which the current edition of Club National is built, nearly abutted the pond, making it a convenient post-game shelter for players and fans alike.

As I leaned in to see each photo, studying details and trying to make out some of the names scrawled here and there, something else suddenly caught my eye: A long, handwritten list of names and numbers, mostly dollar amounts, recorded on several continuous sheets of paper.

A membership list? Dues owed? Scoring for an endless cribbage game?

My query set LeBoeuf in motion.

“Those are all the places we donated to this year,” he answered, naming entries on the list without looking.

I, however, perused the list closely, finding almost
every social service agency, nonprofit and advocacy group for children, the elderly, handicapped or disabled I could think of, plus a bunch I’d never known about.

“There’s something like 50 up there,” LeBoeuf said, adding that more causes Club National aided over the last year weren’t yet on the list.

Examples are a donation to the trust to help the family of slain Greenland Police Chief Michael Maloney and a last-minute pledge to help victims of recent tornadoes and other storms in central and western Massachusetts.

But how come, I finally asked – still looking the list up and down – if you guys do all these things and help out so many causes every year, why don’t we see Club National in the headlines or hear about it on the street more often?

“That’s not why we do it,” LeBoeuf said. “Seeing a write-up or picture in the paper is great, but we don’t go looking for that kind of thing. We like being behind the scenes.”

It needs to be said that Club National is far from the only organization or social club that prioritizes philanthropy and boosts community and regional causes on a regular basis. And I can’t say I recall, at least in the last 20 or so years, being besieged by service club members lobbying for ink or screen shots.

I bet if you added up every dollar that service, social and fraternal clubs in Nashua alone donate each year to one cause or another, you’d be looking at seven figures. Some of the gift-giving is heralded; most, safe to say, is not. By and large, the acts themselves are reward enough for these community-minded and humanitarian men and women.

What’s particularly compelling about “the Nats” is how the membership –
currently just north of 1,000 – and their directors seem to weave fundraising
and philanthropy into pretty much everything they do.

Go in for a beer and pretzels, you’ll probably play some Lucky 7, the so-called “pull tabs” or Nevada Tickets. Thirty percent of what’s taken in goes to charity. Good chunks of proceeds from in-house games, regular events such as meat bingo and even friendly card games, cribbage matches and such are often tossed into the kitty.

One of the club’s proudest events is the annual Nashua Children’s Association Golf Tournament. Every June for the last 13 years, more than 150 linksmen hit the course, and by day’s end find they’d outdone themselves once again.

But this year, every dollar of the $15,700 total had special meaning: Each was raised in memory of lifetime member and tourney founder Hector Boissonneault.

Not only was Boissonneault tireless when it came to organizing fundraisers and finding the worthiest targets for donations, he was the man who personified “behind the scenes.”

“We really like the low profile. That attitude came from Hector,” said Tom Dahl, the club’s house chairman and a third-generation member. “He was the driving force behind the tournament’s success.”

“Definitely a low-key guy,” added club President Steve Galipeau. “He did so much; never looked for kudos.”

That golf seems to be a common thread among “Nats” is evidenced in another tournament founded several years ago in memory of Jay Kurta, a “very good friend” and “exceptional, generous” longtime member “we want to keep in our minds and in the minds of others,” according to a brief bio on the club’s website.

Held each October, proceeds go to the Stanley “Jay” Kurta Charitable Trust, which presents a scholarship each year to a college-bound relative of a club member.

Kurta, a banker and FDIC investigator, was 51 when he died in January 2008.

Boissonneault’s passing was more recent, and though he was older, just as unexpected. It hit
LeBoeuf hard.

“We go back 50 years together here,” he said. “Hector was my best friend. He’d just had a birthday, and suddenly he was gone.”

Boissonneault died on April 22, two weeks after turning 77.

I thought I knew a lot about Club National before my recent visit. While certainly not my first, it was definitely the most educational.

I had no idea, for instance, the club stepped in for a few seasons when the city’s Legion baseball circuit struggled financially. There’s also Camp Doucet, which I knew of, but I had no idea the club – especially Boissonneault – were among its top supporters.

Sometimes getting a little more detail took some effort; then I remembered: “We like low-key.”

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Saturdays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6443 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow Shalhoup on Twitter (@Telegraph_DeanS).