rev newsletter head 7-17
September 4, 2009  
Reporter: Cal Lee        Editor:  Ron Brown          Photographer: Paul Fillinger
President: John Fazel, 2009 - 2010          

THE LAID-BACK BRAD AND WHAT HE HAS WROUGHT
 
brad 9-4Brad Davis's thought was that "education" is the ability to listen to almost anything and not lose your temper.  Is he a role model for this philosophy?  Maybe when he's at the Garden Park Apartments.
 
Speaking of those Apartments, Prez Fazel praised Rich Shearer and Dominic Porrino for their bike repairs there.  Rich passed the credit on to Brad.  It seems that the laid-back approach has resulted in over 30% of the kids making honor roll, and one woman being clean & sober for 5 years, running a marathon, and getting her certificate for alcohol counseling.  There's a method even to Brad's madness.
 
NEW EXCHANGE STUDENT REPORT        
 
Aymerich will be giving these reports the whoooooole school year.  He's already developed some skill.  We didn't learn all that aymerrich 9-4much about the opening of his academic year, except that he moved from Drama I to Drama II.  By the time he gets through all these LSR reports here, he should be in Drama X.  He did comment that Friday evening was "interesting", including a debate with Venera about the differences between Europe and the US.  Saturday was strictly American  - the Giants with Gillett.  That night, he met three exchange students and people from school.  On Monday he went to school and met girls, to kick off a "normal" school week.  Stay tuned.
 
Editor Ron Brown and scribe Shearer were asked how to spell Aymerich.  It seems an h was dropped somewhere.
 
B&A AND OTHER OCCASIONS        
 
The only actual birthday or anniversary observed was David Waal's wife Laura who became a year older.  Both Dans in the club, Garfin & Herbert, had birthdays, and neither showed up.  So in desperation, other events were highlighted: Dominic donateddom 8-14 half his winnings from the raffle 3 weeks ago, Joe Bettencourt kicked in the only $20 that he had left after visiting the track recently, and Dave Watson celebrated 20 years out of school with his twin brother.  Brad lauded Dominic as a hot new member, and a cheer was raised for having yet another barrister in the club.   Dominic practically become an Eagle scout by completing the 9 required activities for his Blue Badge.  But the Blue Badge was nowhere to be found.  This of course was deemed Dominic's fault, to his cost.
 
WHAT'S HAPPENIN'
 
Well, Art & Wine Festival, 9/19-20.  Mike Edwards offered the signup sheet again.  It seems we haven't pulled away from the other Lafayette club quite yet.
 
Board meeting, Fazel office, Tuesday at 7:00.  In the a.m.
 
District Conference, 10/1-10/4, Tahoe.  Registration is free and on line.
 
But by far the most importantly, dictionary distribution this very george 9-4morning.  This called for a PDG Chaffey exhortation.  He thinks the dictionary project is pretty cool.  It's grown from 30,000 dictionaries distributed by our humble district during his governorship (the rain clouds could easily have turned them all into pulp, but didn't), to 3 million now, not quite all from our district.  (In fact, the Prez chimed in that he saw a dictionary booth in England.)  George quoted from some of the 3rd grade letters of appreciation; you had to be there.  He also passed out a script for use at the dictionary delivery this morning, which he called "a help, not a handcuff."   Of course, no one dares to deviate from it in George's presence.  Everyone was so fired up that they almost charged out to the schools before the speaker program, but General Thomas Raeth kept them in line.
 
MISADVENTURES WITH REAGAN
 
Larry Swindell was introduced by Buddy Burke, who informed us that Larry was with the Dallas Star-Telegram and the Philadelphia Enquirer for 45 years, was deemed the world's foremost authority on baseball, has written 5 historical biographies on movies, and if that wasn't enough to delight Rich Shearer, both he and his wife Pat hail from UCLA.
 
Well, it seems that Misadventures With Ronnie came about back in 1966 when Larry loved nothing more than to embarrass anyone who dared to take him on in a game of back-and-forth naming of a designated actor's pictures until one competitor ran out of flicks to name.  At the time, Larry was editor of Orange County Illustrated Magazine, which was like the New Yorker with no capitals.  He was also music critic for the Anaheim Bulletin, reviewing the LA Phil's monthly visits.  He unknowingly ingratiated himself with the Magazine's very rich and Republican chairman of the board, Allen Stoneman, by writing a rave review of Stoneman's daughter's piano performance.  Stoneman therefore asked him to a fancy lunch, where he had an opportunity to show off his baseball knowledge to the former very minor league announcer, "Dutch" Reagan. 
 
What came out of this was a Reagan candidacy for governor in larry swindell 9-4'66 and the presidency in '68.  Larry was made VP of the Orange County Reagan for Governor Committee, of course using the Magazine as a vehicle.  He actually was opposed to that, until a little $200,000 sweetener was offered.  The demanding duty of the Committee VP was to introduce Dutch at all three of his speaking engagements.  At one of them, they played the movie game using Reagan's own movies.  Larry won the game when Reagan was reduced to naming Treasure of the Sierra Madre on the theory that this counted because he was "supposed to be" in that movie.
 
After Reagan defeated SF Mayor George Christopher for the Republican nomination, he said he was taking Larry to Sacramento as his press secretary and  his lieutenant.  Well, the jig was up.  Larry had to admit that nobody ever asked what party he belonged to, and well,  he hadn't voted for Dutch.  Reagan said he still wanted to take him, to form a "coalition government".  However, for some reason that didn't work out.  Stoneman was appalled, saying Larry had turned down the White House.  Actually that probably wasn't true, since Richard Nixon came back to life and won in '68, thereby keeping Dutch out of the White House for 12 years.
 
Apparently newscaster Howard K. Smith, who knew Larry, had a meeting much later in the Oval Office, and mentioned to the president that they had a mutual friend.  The prez didn't remember Larry by name, but when Smith said "he could name more movies than anybody", Dutch replied, "the s.o.b. turned me down."
 
By way of segue into baseball, Larry was told that Richie rick 9-4Ashburn is in our club.  Only people of a certain age could appreciate that.  One wonders if Rickie Ashburn ever heard of Richie Ashburn.
 
It seems Larry is as much of a baseball authority, especially the old Pacific Coast League, as he is of the movies.  When asked to elaborate, looking at the clock, he said, "You can have me back."  Cheers around the room.    
 
VISITING ROTARIANS
 
Luis Salkan, Concord
John Moulthrop, Clayton Sunrise

 
GUESTS
 
Theresa Gehringer, School Board, 5 straight visits on Dictionary Day
Larry & Pat Swindell, speaker & spouse not always seeing eye to eye
Connie Linneman

 

 PROGRAM 
 
Friday, September 11 - Weekly meeting at Postino 7:00 a.m.
Program: BLAST OFF! IGNITION OF OUR ECONOMY, with Randy Williams of the Kieretsu Forum
 
Friday, September 18 - Weekly meeting at Postino 7:00 a.m.
Program: Foster Mentoring with county supervisor Susan Bonilla
 
Friday, September 25 - Weekly meeting at Postino 7:00 a.m.
Program: Don Reichert, "Around The World In 80 Years."
 
Saturday/Sunday September 19 & 20 - Lafayette Arts and Wine Festival. Be prepared to outwork the Lafayette noon club!
 
Thursday, October 1 to Sunday, October 4 - Annual District Conference for District 5160, Lake Tahoe. 
Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Links
Lamorinda Sunrise Web Site
Calendar Link
Picture Archive
Older Picture Archive
Lamorindan Archives


ADDITIONAL PHOTOS OF THIS AND OTHER LSR EVENTS MAY BE FOUND AT TOMBLACK.SMUGMUG.COM. SHOULD BE YOU SMITTEN BY A PARTICULAR IMAGE, PRINTS MAY BE ORDERED FROM THIS WEBSITE. (THE QUALITY IS EXCELLENT.).
Contact Us

Rotary Club of Lamorinda Sunrise
PO Box 1491
Lafayette, California 94549
www.lamorindasunrise.org
E-Mail Us