President Craig came back from his brief respite to celebrate the start of his second 50 years and preside over our October 11 Club meeting.  Jonathan Turner was also around to provide the entertainment, along with his Kiwanis All Star Shoe and Flip Flop Band.

      The first announcement was a reminder of the first Board meeting of the year to be held Tuesday, October 12 at 11:30 at Huckleberry's.  If you'd like to see how our Club leadership behaves outside of the Botanical Center, feel free to show up sometime.

      We received a reminder of our District Governor's visit to be held October 24 at the I Wireless Center.  Costumes are optional but welcome.

      Special recognition was given to the fact that for Americans, this was Columbus Day, which explained the absence of a number of our fellow Club members, and Canadian Thanksgiving Day for the rest of the group whose names might rhyme with Alicia.

      Dick Fislar gave his reminder of the January 19 joint Christmas party at Circa with Rotary while wearing his Bermuda shorts, short-sleeved polo shirt, and tennis shoes.

      We had an unusually high number of Happy and Sad Dollars, primarily attributable to the results of the Rock Island High School/Alleman High School football game Friday night, but a few also came in for Iowa State and Illinois fans.

      As one of the October birthday celebratees, Dale Grabau reflected on how he decided to wait until October 11 to give his birthday Happy Dollar since he thought that it was more prudent than giving the dollar before the birthday, if you know what I mean.  He also gave a second dollar but explained that by the time he got done explaining the reason for his first Happy Dollar, he had forgotten what the second Happy Dollar was supposed to represent.

      In another anecdote which accompanied Happy money, we heard Tom Ketelaar talk about his recent experience on a triathlon team and how his too-small wetsuit almost turned him into a Gumby character.

      In Fun and Fellowship, Dale Blocklinger won the preliminary prize and Mike Swartz managed to lose the grand prize he qualified for.

      The program consisted of President Craig Knobloch setting out his vision for the new year.  He began by giving some background on himself, starting with where he grew up, how far away he's lived from that first home since then, and his marriage and two sons.  Craig explained that he joined the Club in 2002.  Craig expressed his philosophy that everyone joins Kiwanis, and our Club in particular, for his or her own reason and that, similarly, members stay in the Club for their own reasons as well.  Craig asked all members to participate in some fashion as it best fits for the individual.