THE LAMORINDAN 3/27

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

I'm sure we had one, but I didn't have The Magic Pen, so I didn't get it down. Editor's note: "If you believe everything you read in this publication, then Rich Shearer is fully vindicated in what he is perpetrating!"

GUESTS, VISITING ROTARIANS, AND SUCH

David Thompson - Joanne Luscher's son
Don Jenkins - Orinda (and not Joanne Luscher's son)
Larry Sly - Concord
Mark Roberts - soon-to-be ex-member-to-be

BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIES & MISCELLANEOUS GOOD NEWS

Twenty seven years of wedded bliss equals twenty seven portraits of George Washington. This example of the new-new-new math brought to you courtesy of Joanne Luscher's 27th anniversary. Ulrich's too, for that matter.

WE FUNDED A FIELD

The Monte Vista students who talked to us a while back received $1,000 from us: $250 from our Do-Good Fund, and another $750 from individual Members. Many thanks, and way to go, Lamorinda Sunrise.

GO SEE THEM IF YOU CAN

As a tie-in with the Peace Scholar sessions at UC Berkeley, this coming Wednesday's Berkeley Club meeting (12:15-1:30, H's Lordship's, Berkeley) will feature four - count 'em four - Past Rotary International Presidents. This is a Big Deal, and it is highly unlikely that you will ever have a chance like this again. They are: Cliff Dochterman; Rich King; Bill Boyd and Chuck Keller. Contact Prez Pat Flaharty or Past Prez Paul Fillinger right now if you want to go. And do go if at all possible. It will be worth your time.

HEEEEEEELP

We need someone to host the April TGITLFOTM. Talk to Ray Welles if you can help.

IT FEELS GOOD TO HELP

A Stanley School student thought he wasn't going to be able to go along on the annual 8th grade trip to Washington DC because his family couldn't afford it. Well, he was able to go because our Board saw fit to donate $400 to the cause and because some of our Members bought clothes and other needed supplies for him. So the student went.

Being able to do things like this really makes you proud to be a Lamorinda Sunrise Rotarian, doesn't it?

LAS TRAMPAS WORK PROJECT SLIGHTLY AMENDED BUT STILL ON

The April 4 project to install french drains at Las Trampas has morphed into an April 11 project to plants and other stuff that is equally needed but has less potential for disaster. Saturday, April 4, 8:31 a.m. to approximately 11:43 a.m. (hey, I just report it), according to Buddy Burke, Grand High Poobah of All Things To Do With Helping Las Trampas. So ask him if you have any questions.

Oh, and bring tools.

YES, YOU SHOULD GO TO THIS

The District Assembly is happening on April 11 at the Ygnacio Valley Road campus of CSU-East Bay. This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about what Rotary does, what the District can do to help us carry out projects, where our money goes and how to get it back to put to use on what we want to do. Talk to John Fazel if you are even remotely interested. (And it don't cost nuthin'. How often does that happen?}

FUND RAISING IDEA

Paul Fillinger has mentioned a few times that he has a fund raising idea: taking some of his award-winning photos of the Lafayette Reservoir (they have to have won some sort of award by now), put them in a calendar, and sell it. Interested in working with Paul on this project? Call him.

MYSTERY ROTARIAN(S)

We were mystified twice today. Mystery Rotarian No. 1: (1) survived an earthquake in Kathmandu; (2) met a naked Joe DiMaggio in a shower room (I swear I don't make this stuff up); and (3) can talk and spell backwards. It could only be Buddy Burke, who at age 4 was put up to following the Yankee Clipper into a swimming pool shower room to get an autograph - he got it, too. The earthquake story also involved rats in pillo cases and was kind of gross, so of course the hoi polloi loved it.

Mystery Rotarian No. 2: (1) grew up on a farm; (2) was voted most likely to become a race car driver by his high school class; and (3) has never been to Montana. Since that third thing eliminated Theodore Kosynski, it can only have been Hays Englehart, who quickly explained that he had nothing whatsoever against Montana, he just has never had occasion to go there. Hays also told us how he has been taking his super-cool, super-hot Corvette to a track driving school in a last-chance bid to have a happy childhood and not make liars out his high school classmates.

PROGRAM
At the end of every month, we are treated to Expose Yourself, that time when a Member of two tells all about themselves. Ken Kosage, the Mystery Man of Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary, will remain a mystery a while longer, as his presentation was done in by the Curse of Lamorinda Sunrise, which rose to prevent not one, but two distinct and separate projectors from being able to communicate with the computer on which all of Ken's secrets were stored.

That meant we had to turn to our Expose Yourselfer, Dave Watson.

Dave is an only child. He often claims to have a twin brother and an opera star sister, but the medication is slowly making inroads into those delusions.

Dave was a fixture at Orinda schools, as some of our members can attest. I mean he truly was a fixture, as he spent his entire elementary school career holding up bookshelves. The Orinda School District had to close down Wagner Ranch School for 20+ years to get him out of the building.

Dave found his calling in high school: the manly game of cribbage. He was offered cribbage scholarships by a number of schools, but he chose to go to Oregon in order to also pursue his lifelong fascination with the study of mildew formation. In his junior year, in a big cribbage game against USC, the Trojan cribbager was particularly aggressive in moving his pegs. The two broken ribs and deviated septum Dave suffered convinced him that he was not cut out for a professional cribbage career.

Instead, Dave went into automobiles. The fact that other people were often in the automobiles at the time he went into them was a minor inconvenience, but most of those records have been sealed or expunged..

He now fixes up old pick-up trucks and old cars. He has two main reasons for his love of vintage cars. First, his Dad loves them, too, and it's something they can do together. Second, Dave has no idea what the heck all those doo-hickeys are in any car built after about 1964.

[Ed. note: Dave was unable to make it to the meeting today, as something came up at the last minute. The above info was obtained using the same standards of investigative journalism that you have come to expect in The Lamorindan.]

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

4/10/09:   Annaline Scholz, Rotary Academic Scholar program    (with Orinda Rotarian Pete Giers)
4/11/09:   District Assembly, 8:00-2:00 or 9:00-1:00?
4/17/09:   Micheal Pope, Executive Director, Alzheimer Service of the East Bay (ASEB)
4/24/09:   Expose': Hear the fascinating story of Venera Maysuryants (oh yeah, and Tay Wheeler too)
5/8/09:   Domingo Blanco Rotary Peace Scholar, returns.
5/15/09:   Pascal Kaplan, Ph.D., holistic studies. How the internet supports service-inspired initiatives not otherwise imaginable.
6/5/09:   Benjamin Lawrence, UC Davis professor & Davis Rotarian, boring water holes in Africa