THE LAMORINDAN 7-3-09

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Mark Roberts was on the theme of new beginnings, not being aware that new President John Fazel would skip out on his own inaugural meeting. So, first from the Roman philosopher Seneca: "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." And then from Maria Robinson who was not a Roman philosopher: "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

VISITING ROTARIANS

Sandy Mitchell - Lafayette Club's current President (and able to attend both the International Convention and our first meeting of the new Rotary year, which is more than John Fazel could manage)
John Sherry - Lafayette Immediate Past Prez
Bill Eames - Lafayette
Mike Heller - Lafayette (and do we detect a pattern? An invasion?)
Chuck Bove - Orinda

GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS

Holly Burke, nee Landers - putting the "Holly" in Buddy/Holly
Dante Belmont

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GOODIES

No birthday or anniversaries, but Sharon Ongerth-Rossi announced she, her husband and her dog are walking the AIDS Walk later this summer. You can sponsor her, or her husband, or her dog, in this worthy endeavor. So endeavor to contact Sharon.

GETTING OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT

What better way for John Fazel to start his year as our Imperial Potentate than to not even be on this continent? It really is hard to imagine a better way for John to start than to have Hays Englehart preside over the assembled multitude. Hays did a fine job, considering it appeared that nobody took their Ritalin this morning. And just to show that it is endemic, and that Past-Pres Pat whatzisname isn't the only who suffered from this particular piece of Presidential misfeasance, Hays, too, had to be reminded to do the raffle before the program began. But Hays otherwise did a fine job of walking the fine line between having no control whatsoever and having to hide behind the podium for dear life.

May John be half so successful.

INCOMING . . . .

Mike Heller, he of the other Club that meets in Lafayette, rose to announce that his wife, like our very own Steve Ware, has moved her business, Lafayette Florist, from the Forge. Since Steve paid $20 for Mike's announcement, he might as well get his money's worth. By the time we have our next meeting, Ware Designs (only the finest jewelry store for many miles around) will be in its new location at 3645-A Mt. Diablo Blvd, which is between Trader Joe's and the Post Office (in part of the space where Chris Lane and Contra Costa Stationers used to be), which means the same shopping center where Ed Stokes and Diablo Foods have been holding forth for lo these many years.

Good luck with the new location Steve. We hope it brings many new customers to Ware Designs.

TGITLFOTMs ARE ON BRAD DAVIS' MIND (WHICH BEATS THE HELL OUT OF WHAT IS USUALLY ON HIS MIND)

Apparently, Brad Davis is in charge of lining up TGITLFOTM hosts this year. It also appears that he has some dirt or other on Paul Bettelheim, as PB volunteered to host this month's shindig. As for the rest of the year, it really was pathetic to see Brad begging so, which probably explains the rush to volunteer to host this ongoing, highly-successful series of end-of-the-month soirees.

AND SPEAKING OF INCREDIBLY FUN TGITLFOTM/DEMOTION COMBOS WITH TREMENDOUS FOOD AND LOADS OF FUN . . . .

President du Jour thanked everyone and anyone with anything to do with making last week's TGITLFOTM/Demotion of No-Longer-President Pat Flaharty such a roaring success. From Dave Waal hosting at his lovely home, to Dave Isenberg choreographing a spectacular meal to the Red Badgers, and Paul Fillinger making sure that a fun time was had by all, to everyone who attended and got right into the spirit of things, to Rich Shearer for not being able to attend, Hays had a good word for everyone.

Hey, wait a minute . . . .

PLEASE KEEP THE RUBBER SIDE DOWN

Gary Fulcher announced that a group of Lamorinda Sunrise motorcyclists and motor-scooterists will be getting together on August 8 for a roughly 100 mile group ride. This sounds like a lot of fun, so contact Gary for more info and/or to sign up.

LET'S KEEP THE MOMENTUM MOMENTUMIZING

Twelve is a great number. It's the number of months in a year. It's the number of days of Christmas in that interminable X-mas carol. And it's the number of new members who joined Lamorinda Sunrise in the past twelve months.

Walt Nelson is half of the team (Hays Englehart being the other half) that played such a large role in making this happen. They are staying on the job this coming year and they want to see twelve more new members inducted. But they need our help. Walt and Hays can and will do a great job of turning prospects into members, but they need us to identify the prospects. So that's where you come in - hand out those "I Get It" free breakfast cards. Talk to your friends, people you do business with, family members (except for you, Bettelheim). Tell them about us. Get them to come to a meeting. Hays and Walt will take it from there.

The members who had been in the Club for three years or less were asked to stand up. Seeing the energy and interest that these comparatively recent Members represents sums up both why recruitment is such an important on-going need and the great things that happen to the Club when we all chip in and bring in strong candidates for membership. We have Hays and Walt to do the hard part. We have the easy part - bring in someone who would make a good Rotarian.

DISTRICT CONFERENCE ALERT

Earl Kilmer, this year's District Governor, sent out a broadcast e-mail to what appears to be half of the civilized world touting the happenings at the District level this coming year. Queen for a Day Hays thought this was pretty cool, especially the part about the District Conference at Lake Tahoe from Oct. 1 to Oct. 4. Hays suggested that maybe a decent sized contingent of us would like to go. Rich Shearer let it be known that he is already signed up, which led to Brad Davis backing out, which led to Hays taking up a collection to send Rich to Los Angeles for the weekend instead in an effort to drum up more enthusiasm for the District Conference. Rich, being the kind-hearted, greater-good kind of guy, immediately threatened everyone with restraining orders, deposition subpoenas and other hissy-fit shenanigans. Regardless of how this all turns out (and Judge Judy has been approached about binding arbitration), the District Conference really is going to be at beautiful Lake Tahoe (south shore, I believe) at a wonderful time of year, so why not sign up already? I mean, how bad can Rich make it?

PAY THEM A VISIT IF YOU CAN

Gillett Johnson told us about his visit last Tuesday evening to the newest Club in District 5160, the brand-spanking new Diablo View Club, which meets Tuesdays (natch) at 5:30 in Walnut Creek at the Pyramid Brewery. We are a sponsoring club, and Gillett reports that George Chaffey and Pat Flaharty were thanked profusely for their supportive efforts. Diablo View has 25 members already, and they are already planning their first projects. They are positioning themselves as a "New Generations" (read: Not Old) Club, making a special effort to attract Members in their 30's, the folks who are the future of Rotary. So go visit and/or make up at the newest Club in the neighborhood, show some support, and let 'em know that they are welcome.

GO CHECK OUT THE CALENDAR SECTION OF THE WEBSITE

Yes, we have a website. It's a darn good one, and it just got even better. Chuck Yeager, for whom the website is a labor of ongoing love and indigestion, announced that the Calendar section is new and improved. It always was chock-full of information about coming Club events and other things of interest. But now, there is even more info, and the format is more intuitive and interactive. Instead of the former "list" format, there is now a "calendar" format - what a concept! - and if you click on an item, you get all kinds of information. Like details about where and when. And contact people. And links to maps. Play with it, take it for a test drive.

And remember, the viable excuses for not knowing what is happening when and where are getting fewer and fewer and fewer.

Thanks, Chuck for all you have done and continue to do to make it harder and harder for us to play dumb.

PROGRAM

Today's program had it all: comedy; tragedy; angst; strife; rising above the limitations of one's childhood; women scorned; and courtroom drama. Yes, today, Ron Arons told us all about "The Jews of Sing-Sing." And no, I am not making this up.

Ron has quite a background in high-tech, with a resume full of positions of responsibility with Texas Instruments, Ashton-Tate, Sybase, and others. But that isn't why he was here.  Ron lost both of his parents 18 to 20 years ago. This drove him into a significant depression. To make a poignant story, to which I can do no justice, he turned to researching his family tree as part of his efforts to climb out of his malaise.

His father had already done a bunch of work on his family (which Ron confessed was not of particular interest to him when, as a teenager, he had been shown the fruits of these efforts by his father), but nothing had been done on his mother's side. So he rolled up his sleeves and dug in.

Thus began a tale of investigative prowess that cannot adequately be recounted here. Ron scoured census and other data all over the country (his mother's family had lived in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th Century) and over a number of years a truly interesting story emerged.

At first it was disjointed clues. For example various government records listed three different birthplaces for Isaac Spiers, Ron's great-grandfather, New York and two places in England. The records also showed that Isaac Spiers also apparently went by the name Joseph Spears. Of course name changes in immigrants is not that unusual a phenomenon - more than one person had a different official name when they left Ellis Island than they had when they arrived and often not by choice. But add in the changing birthplaces and the changing birth dates - not to mention a different address for him and his wife - and ol' Isaac was beginning to look like a real man of mystery.

Then came the breakthrough - the 1900 census showed that Isaac Spiers was an inmate at New York's famous "up the river" "Big House," Sing-Sing. What landed Mr. Spiers/Spears in such dire straights? Further research, including digging through old newspaper microfilms, provided that answer: In 1897, Isaac Spiers was convicted of bigamy. It seems that Mr. Spiers was a trolley conductor and thus had an easy time getting around (in more ways than one), The newspapers reported in the florid prose of the day how Isaac, Ron's great-grandmother and the Other Woman, all confronted one another in court. Isaac tried to deny knowing his wife, but her father stood up with his two year old grandson - who just happened to be the spitting image of Isaac (and was later to be Ron's grandfather) - which caused him to break down. If the contemporary reports are to be believed, Isaac was dragged off between two policemen, not because he was a threat or resisting, but because he was a total emotional wreck. The media's lurid attraction to the scene was not hurt by their being able to truthfully describe Isaac Spiers as "the son of a well-known rabbi."

Ron, being an articulate fellow, wrote this up as a book. He then shopped it around. The various publishers, in their lack of wisdom, decided that they didn't need any more memoirs just now, but thanks just the same. This led Ron to expand his sights. Since his great-grandfather was sent to Sing-Sing, surely other Jews had been, too. And they were - 6,000 between the years 1880 and 1950 - although this seems like a very big number their actual percentage of the jail population was much lower than in the general population. Even so Ron calculated there are tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of descendants of Jewish denizens of Sing-Sing. Hence his now-published magnum opus, "The Jews of Sing-Sing."

We were then shown photos of Sing-Sing. It was first built in 1825 on top of a rock quarry using stones from the quarry. Hence the name which in some Indian language or other means "stone upon stone." Rehabilitation efforts in the Good Old Days sometimes took the form of whipping, beating, an early version of water-boarding, gags, and, eventually, "Old Smokey," New York's electric chair, which was used 614 times.

Ron closed by showing us some photos of some of the various Jewish criminals who did time in the Big House. There were the noteworthy and the mundane, the famous and the virtually anonymous, but none of them seemed to like the accommodations.

Thank you, Mr. Arons, for the fascinating glimpse into both your family's history and into a little slice of Americana that we, fortunately, do not get to see very often.

CALENDAR