THE LAMORINDAN 7-24-09

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Bob Heinen was of two minds as to which of two pithy quotes to use as the Thought for the Day, so he gave us both. First, from Paul Harvey: "Golf is a game in which you yell 'fore.' you shoot six, and you write down five." Second, from Ann Landers: "The Lord gave us two ends, one to sit on and one to think with. Success will depend on the one you use the most."

VISITING ROTARIANS

Frank Rockwood - Orinda
Palmer Rydell - La Kwinta (spelled phonetically according to Tay Wheeler's idiosyncratic pronunciation)

GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS

Chuck Bove - Geez, make him a Member already!
Kelly Watkins - Significant Other of Dominic Porrino and raffle ticket salesperson
Kara Wheeler - I won't say it, I won't say it, I won't say it . . . .
A.J. Brencic - Scion of the Brencic clan

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GOODIES

Cal Lee had a birthday. So did Agatha Sue. Cal tried to plead poverty. King John has been around far too long to be taken in by such monkeyshines. $40, Cal.

Tay Wheeler and blushing bride Mindy celebrated their 38th anniversary. Tay was asked what their secret was. Daughter Kara piped up with what was probably the true and correct answer, but out of respect for my elders and betters, at least Rotary-wise, and out of respect for the healthy emolument Tay tossed my way to encourage my silence, I ain't sayin' what Kara said. I can report, however, that $40 found its way from Tay's pocket to the Club's coffers.

Chuck Bove isn't even a Member yet, but he stood up and took his medicine for celebrating his 5th anniversary to the tune of $20. Look at the bright side, Chuck - at least you didn't get a bill before you were inducted the way Hays Englehart did.

And even our guests got into the act, as Palmer Rydell announced the birth of his first grandchild, Nathan Robert. Palmer gave what he described as a "small donation" in honor of the event. We gave him some huzzahs and congratulations.

STEVE WARE HAS LAMORINDA SUNRISE SHIRTS FOR NEW MEMBERS WHO DO NOT HAVE ONE

Re-read the headline for this item. It tells you everything you need to know. If you still don't get it, talk to Steve.

HINT TO KING JOHN: THIS IS NOT EXACTLY THE TREND YOU WANT TO START

John Fazel - you remember him, he's the guy that rings the bell now - made a sad announcement today. We have lost two Members, Rod Ford-Smith and Steve Hanna. We will miss you both, guys.

Brad Davis, in his guise as Elder Statesman and the guy who knows how to put things in perspective, reminded John that this means we are on track to have no Members left at the end of his Reign of Error. Of course, at one point, Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani were on track to win their respective parties' presidential nominations, too, which I think says something about predictions based on too few data points, but I could be wrong.

WORK PROJECT COMING UP

King John has far too much faith in this Club's hand-eye coordination skills. He proved that by announcing that we will be doing a hands-on project that involves hammers, nails, ladders, power tools, painting and barn-building. This mayhem . . . I mean, this great project will take place Saturday, August 15 at the Rush Ranch near Suisun, from about 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. To paraphrase our very own Buddy Burke, "All y'all c'mon out an' help if you can."

Special note to our newer Members: Hands-on projects like this are the best thing Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary does. They are feel-good activities (especially once the Ben-Gay takes effect) that make you feel like you really have done some good in the world. They are also the best and fastest way to really make a bond with other Members and with the Club in general. So please make a special effort to come out for what will be a very rewarding day.

Special note to our more senior Members: You already know that hands-on projects are the glue that keeps the Club together. They are also the best way to get to know the newer Members and to make them feel like a full-fledged part of the Lamorinda Sunrise family. So please make a special effort to come out for what will be very rewarding day.

A SHREDDING SUCCESS

For some time now, Buddy Burke has been trying to locate a shredder (a high-zoot one, not the kind you use at home) for Las Trampas to use to set up its clients in the shredding business. (Las Trampas is a center for developmentally disadvantaged adults, and shredding documents commercially is exactly the kind of task that many of these folks can do that can earn funds for the Center and for themselves.) Well, one has been located via the good offices of Kathe Nelson, Walt's beloved. Many, many thanks, Kathe. This will pay dividends far down the road for people who can always use a hand. And thanks to Thomas Raeth for stepping up to volunteer to transport the shredder to Las Trampas. Finally, a big "Good On Ya" to Buddy, who never lets anything like this slip through the cracks.

THEY'RE CALLED "HOGS," NOT "PIGS"

This isn't 1950, and Hays Englehart is no Marlon Brando (for which all concerned are grateful), but that doesn't mean that he, and Gary Fulcher, and Krysten Laine, and Buddy Burke, and Tay Wheeler, and others of the Club, don't like to pull on the leathers, slip a leg over their two-wheeled motorized steeds, and fling themselves down the highway. And on August 8, they will do exactly that on what should be a half-day or so jaunt around the Bay Area. Sounds like big fun. Hays even said that they have some spare bikes if you have a license but no ride. Hays also let it slip that there is a move afoot to try to make this an annual event and one that raises do-good funds somehow. Let Hays know if you are interested and have not received the details.

TGITLFOTM COMING UP

Next week is the last week of the month. That means that next week will see another of our fantabulous TGITLFOTM get-togethers. (For the uninitiated, it stands for "Thank God It's The Last Friday Of The Month" and they are a blast.) Brad Davis rose to announce that next week's shindig will be at Paul Bettelheim's house. It was not 100% clear that Paul or Bryn know about it, but Paul wasn't here this week to defend himself, and they'll figure it out . . . .

Seriously, it'll be a great time. And please send Paul an RSVP e-mail so he can plan how big an invasion to expect.

PLEASE FILL THIS OUT - IT'S IMPORTANT

Krysten Laine has stepped into the breach as our first-ever Development Director. Anyone familiar with such a title knows that what she hopes to develop is money, specifically money to finance our do-good projects and to continue to grow our Endowment Fund.

She announced that she is putting together a survey for us designed to find out what we, as a Club, want to do to raise money and what we don't want to do. Expect to see it in your e-mail in-box soon. And when you get it, please answer the questions and return the survey to Krysten. This goes to the very core of how we go forward, so please give this serious consideration and a prompt response. Thanks in advance.

DOMINIC PORRINO, WE HARDLY KNEW YE

Well, that used to be true, but not any more, as Dominic gave his New Member Talk today.

Dominic was born in San Leandro and lived there through junior high. Then, off to Santa Rosa for high school. He apparently discovered a fondness for semi-organized blood-letting at that point, as he played lacrosse (which involves pounding each other with sticks) and rugby (which involves pounding each other with whatever part of your body you value least). From there, on to UC Santa Barbara (Psych major), and thence to law school.

Dom hated his first firm. He also hated doing construction litigation. By chance, he got a family law case - and he loved it. So that's what he does now.

He was dragged to his first Rotary meeting by Krysten Laine. Then Hays Englehart got his Membership hooks into Dominic, and before you could say "Jack Robinson," here he was.

We also know that Dominic has a brother, two sisters and two half-sisters because he voluntarily told us so. We also know his shirt size is Medium because Steve Ware interrupted him so that he, Steve, could give him, Dominic, one of those Lamorinda Sunrise polo shirts that Steve wants to get out of his garage.

Thanks, Dominic, and welcome to the fold.

PROGRAM

Imagine, if you will, a pristine 11 acre spread of the finest freshly-mown grass. Birds chirp in the surrounding trees, Spring is in the air, and your cares are miles away. Only the uppermost of the upper crust is in attendance - well, and you, too. It is bucolic, even idyllic.

Suddenly, the air explodes with the thunder of hooves galloping at you at full tilt, topped by riders armed with weapons that look like croquet mallets with reeeeaaaaally long handles, and those mallets are whirling like the most whirling of Dervishes. Eight of these fearsome apparitions are coming straight for you, and just before your life starts flashing before your eyes, you see a small, more-or-less white ball in front of the herd, and one of the riders dervishly whirls his mallet, smacking the ball in a different direction. The eight horse-and-rider combinations turn as one, now chasing after the ball and, praise be to Buddha, away from you. You gaze in wonderment at the agility and skill of horse and rider even as you wonder if you are the only spectator bathed in flop-sweat.

This is a world well-known to Greg Wolf, Lafayette's Senior Planner and volunteer coach for the Stanford Polo Team. Greg grew up in Cooperstown, NY, and like every kid who grew up in the hometown of the Baseball Hall of Fame, he grew up with a passion for . . . . polo? He was an alternate on the Cornell University team that won the national collegiate championship his junior year and a major player on the Cornell team that was only defeated in overtime of the championship game his senior year. Pretty good for a guy who started off as the one "non-rider" on the team his freshman year.
Polo, of course, dates back a bit further than Greg's college days; all the way to ancient Persia, to be precise. In its early days, it may have involved whacking the severed head of a defeated foe, but that practice is rare these days. The game spread through the Near East and to the Indian subcontinent, where there was always a plentiful supply of enemies' heads to play with. The British adopted the game and proceeded to spread it even further, but only after substituting a proper ball for an irregularly-shaped cranium. Nowadays, the single hottest hot-bed for polo is Argentina, where horsemanship has long been highly valued and raised to something of an art form. (Hey, those cattle in the Pampas didn't just herd themselves, you know.)

There are two basic variations of polo: outdoor and arena. The outdoor version is played on the above-referenced 11 acre field, and pits teams of 4 against each other, usually for 4 to 6 periods called "chukkers," each chukker being 7 minutes long. Arena matches are played in indoor arenas (duh) that are smaller than outdoor fields but still plenty big, with teams of 3, usually for four chukkers. Arenas have a wall surrounding the field, sort of like an ice hockey rink, while the boundaries of an outdoor field are simply lined, sort of like a soccer field or football field. The outdoor game uses a ball roughly the size of a baseball and roughly the hardness of a cannon ball. The indoor game uses a ball that looks and feels like a small soccer ball, and is about the size of those oversized softballs that some gym teachers make you use when they want everyone, not just the last kid picked, to look like a dork on the field. The outdoor goal is 24 feet wide and goes from ground to sky. The arena goal is 10 feet wide and 8 feet high.

Not surprisingly, the horse plays a major role in a successful polo player. Or should I say, the horses, as no horse can go an entire match. A good polo pony has speed, stamina and agility. Generally speaking, thoroughbreds have the best combination of attributes for the game.

But it takes more than one horse to compete. One has to be able to change horses no less often than between every chukker, and usually more often than that. Four horses for a player is pretty much the minimum, and players having ten horses is not uncommon.

Polo also requires that everyone, right- and left-handers alike, play with reins in the left hand and mallets in the right. The reason becomes clear if you imagine two players from opposite teams charging head-on at the ball trying to make the play. If one such rider has the reins in the left hand and the other has them in the right . . . let's just say that the resulting head-on collision would not be pretty.

Greg also told us about "the Line" and its importance in the game. "The Line" is nothing more than the line on which the ball is traveling, and it can and does change many times per match. However, it effectively dictates the right-of-way, if you will. For example, if a rider is riding next to and parallel to the Line, it is a foul if an opposing player tried to cut him or her off by crossing the T. It just isn't done, old boy.

College teams do not travel with their horses. Instead, the home team provides horses for the visiting team. And lest you think that the visiting team thus gets glue factory candidates, there is a formula for dividing up the horses between the two teams that is both fairly complex and pretty much impossible to rig.

There is a handicap system for polo players. It is expressed on a scale from -2 to 10, and the unit of measure is called a "goal." If you have a pulse, you are a -2 goal player. Roughly 90% of all players are in the 0 goal to 2 goal range. If you have made it to here, you are pretty good at the game. If you are a 10-goal player, you are God, at least in polo circles. Greg says there have been about 160 10-goal players in the last 100 or so years. Obviously, a fair number of those are active now, as the championship match of the most recent Argentine Open featured a 40-goal team against a 39-goal team. Considering that there are only four players from each team on the field at a time . . . well, you do the math and draw your own conclusions.

There are about 40 college polo teams in the U.S., and also about 40 teams of high school aged players. In the west, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, UC Davis, Stanford, Cal Poly, USC, UC Santa Barbara and Westmont College are active participants.

Greg said that, at Stanford, it is harder to field a three-man men's team than it is to field a women's team; it is common for five or six women to want to play.

As for injuries, the most common is probably broken collarbones. Why is that? Imagine you are falling off a horse. What is your natural reaction? Stick out one or both arms to protect your head. That's a lot of stress to put on a collarbone, and it takes its toll.

Greg showed us several different polo mallets, explaining that one strikes the ball not with the end of the mallet, as in croquet, but rather with what looks like the side of the mallet, and the head is angled to maximize the chances of giving the ball a good whack. He showed us the difference between old-fashioned mallets made of a type of cane (it looks like bamboo, but has a solid cross-section, unlike bamboo's hollow cross-section) and new-fangled ones that make use of modern materials to create a mallet that lasts longer and probably costs a bunch more. Polo mallets are surprisingly springy, the idea being that, like a golf club, the spring combines with the swing to create additional head velocity just as it strikes the ball. Greg also showed superb diplomatic skills in getting the mallets away from Chuck Kenney before any serious damage was done.

Thank you, Greg, for the excellent introduction to polo. Your passion for the sport showed, and it made for a most interesting presentation.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Friday, July 31 - Weekly meeting at Postino, 7:00 a.m. Program: Expose Yourself - Rich Shearer. Pillows and/or No-Doz encouraged.

Friday, July 31 - TGITLFOTM at Paul Bettelheim's, 5:30 p.m. Bring something to drink and something edible to share.

Friday, August 7 - Weekly meeting at Postino, 7:00 a.m. Program: Ginny Daws, Mt. Everest Climber

Tuesday, August 11 - Monthly Board meeting, 7:00 a.m. Prudential California Realty, 51 Moraga Way (upstairs), Orinda. All Members welcome.

Friday, August 14 - Weekly meeting at Postino, 7:00 a.m. Program: Christie Hockel, keynote speaker, National Down Syndrome Congress.

Saturday, August 15 - Work Project, Rush Ranch, Suisun, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Contact John Fazel for more details.

Friday, August 21 - Weekly meeting at Postino, 7:00 a.m. Program: Paul Fillinger recounts his and Glenda's recent trip to China as part of an Alliance for Smiles cleft palate surgery team.

Thursday, October 1 to Sunday, October 4 - Annual District Conference for District 5160, Lake Tahoe.