In retirees' Man Cave, a return to the hobbies of youth The ladies are everywhere at the Atria Woodbridge senior living community in Irvine: It is the ladies who fill the dining hall, the ladies who while away the afternoon chatting and doing crossword puzzles in the sitting room, and the ladies whose photos are on display next to the needlepoint and paintings in the resident art gallery. Such is life in a place where women outnumber men at least three to one. But in a room on the second floor - where model airplanes dangle from the ceiling, work tables line the walls and a sign reading "Boys Will Be Boys" hangs outside the door - Al Ladine has created one spot where the guys run the show. Welcome to the Man Cave. "There are too many people sitting around and doing nothing," Ladine said. We're trying to get them a little more active, give them a little bit to look forward to each day. The 83-year-old engineering physicist, who once designed missile defense systems, fills his days with something much simpler, but just as fulfilling. With the help of the community's staff, he has built a laboratory for senior citizens to put their minds and hands to work. It's a crew that has its fair share of limitations: Some are hard of hearing, or lack the dexterity for precision work. Ladine, who has macular degeneration, is among those whose eyesight has faded. But in the Man Cave, there are no deadlines and every project is a team effort. "When they're working and busy, they forget about their problems, and I think that's healthy," Ladine said. We take one step forward and three steps back, but we still keep moving forward. The ladies are welcomed into the Man Cave, of course, but it is much more a gathering place for the men. Jessica Houck, an activities director at Atria, said that because the men are so greatly outnumbered, they have a harder time making friends and keeping up a social life, The facility has 124 residents, who range in age from 64 to 105, though the average age is about 83. Most are widowed. "It's hard to meet the ladies," said 92-year-old Robert Boddy, a cave regular who retired from owning a wholesale nursery four months ago. They have a world of their own. One project the Man Cave regulars have undertaken is an intricate model railroad based on 1870s Virginia City, an idea Boddy got from "Roughing It" by Mark Twain. Bernard Kaplowitz, a retired dentist, is making a model dental office for the town. Ruth Suttner, one of the ladies who help the men paint their projects, just finished the detail work on a bridge. Ruth is the No. 1 artist assigned on the project," Boddy said. Suttner, 92, laughed coyly. "Well, I enjoy doing it," she said. Some days, she's the only women among a half-dozen men. "The women feel, I think, that this is the Man Cave, so there's no place for them," she said. We do have skills we can bring to this, and Al's smart enough to realize this. Indeed, Ladine said there are a few more jobs coming up that could use a lady's touch. Yet Suttner realizes the cave means much more to the men. "It fills a need, it really does," she said. It's stimulating. For some, it satisfies a need to still be useful. Marty Fier started volunteering in the cave after his mother became an Atria resident. When she moved elsewhere, he kept coming. "Men, just like women, they need a social place, a place to go have fun" said Fier, 61, who has become Ladine's right-hand man. This is a place you will not find anyplace else. Kaplowitz, 85, kept to himself when he first arrived a year ago, reading in his room and watching television. But Houck got him to sit with Ladine's group at lunch one day.