WASHINGTON — The Luncheon Society intrigued me by its very name. My grandmother attended women’s society “luncheons.”

So how could I refuse a Zoom invitation (“you might enjoy”) out of the ether to join a virtual conversation mixing yesteryear and tomorrow?

Speakers and guests are all over the map. Somehow Bob McBarton, the ebullient host, curates gatherings, inviting authors, journalists, historians, even generals and astronauts to a sophisticated show-and-tell.

In my short time as a guest, I’ve heard elegant poet Rose Styron, in her Martha’s Vineyard home, and author Amy Tan speak of Tan’s “obsession,” sketching and writing on birds. Tan’s new book is “The Backyard Bird Chronicles.” Constitutional law ace Laurence Tribe is on the spring docket.

Novelist Joyce Carol Oates in her Princeton study seemed as ethereal as I imagined. Perhaps a bit lonely, in a solitary writer’s life.

From his California home, McBarton says he prizes “long-form conversations” that last a meaty hour and a half. He encourages all 50 or so guests (whose bios go out to all) to stay awhile on Zoom. And they do, across time zones.

“You discover a ball of string that gets bigger as you go along,” McBarton adds. This avocation is apart from his career in financial technology.

Since the ’90s, he says, the purpose elevated from a circle of close school friends and gained altitude. “It’s a graduate course in American culture.”

Proving there is such a thing as a free lunch?

Actually, McBarton sends out titles of new books and urges us to buy them, the better to listen and discuss the work in the meeting. As a courtesy, he sends out book plates signed by the author afterward. Yearly dues are $40.

Other Luncheon luminaries are former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, naturalist Jane Goodall and journalism sages Marvin Kalb and Martin Baron; Kalb is now at work on his memoir’s third volume.

The late Christopher Hitchens, a Brit with a razor-sharp writer’s wit, made a lasting impression on the Society.

Living in an age of texts, soundbites and earplugs, amid political rancor and after the collective silence of the pandemic, an appetite for thoughtful dialogue is keen.

In fact, McBarton says, the pandemic changed the Society — for the better. In its original form, the Luncheon met in person in one of four cities: Boston, New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

(In San Francisco, Hitchens proved his seaworthiness, able to drink the rest under the table in a “pub crawl.”)

Logistics of setting up a place and time for guests around a real table were daunting. It was McBarton’s labor of love to organize in-person sessions.

I asked about the tradeoff between real-life and virtual gatherings, the turn the Society took during the pandemic.

“Technology had finally caught up to and globalized what we were trying to accomplish. I feel wonderful about (the tradeoff),” McBarton says.

“I have friends in the U.K. who … can now join us from London with a click of their iPad. I will plan some in-person gatherings this year along the lines of a great cocktail party to strengthen a sense of community.”

That, I think, is the key word.

Community is a shared hunger in a time that feels more uncertain, fragmented and fearful by the day. Clearly, the presidential election is a stress point for most Americans, as are the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

A favorite moment of McBarton’s happened when Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and columnist, asked Linda Ronstadt to sing her question.

Questions are the second course of the Luncheon. And people often leave edified.

History set the table for this. In London in the late 18th century, an elite men’s club met every fortnight to dine and converse.

The actor David Garrick, playwright Oliver Goldsmith and literary giant Dr. Samuel Johnson were leading members.

One Society regular, Shelby Coffey III, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, enjoys the “remarkably eclectic salon.” True to his field training, he prepares questions beforehand.

Says Kalb, “Host McBarton (is) egging everyone on to recapturing a special moment in recent American history. … If I miss one of these get-togethers, there is usually a good reason.”

— — —

The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.