THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY
Go Giants...WIN!!! (Group think). Hays Englehart also had a thought
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| Hays & Christina paying attention |
for the day which he didn't think to bring to the meeting. Cost him $20. But Hays, the inveterate follow-through man, was to get his money's worth, so he emailed the following quote from Ronald Reagan, which Hays strongly suggested should be published. So, here it is: "Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself: I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless the government is limited. There are clear cause and effect here that are as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."
VISITING ROTARIANS - October 22
Karl Diekman - this year's District Governor, and his wife Romi.
Debbie Roessler - Moraga, and the Asst. DG herding cats in this part of the District
Larry Duson and Larry Blodgett of the Lafayette Club.
GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS - October 22 - 30
Susan Weaver - Shaker and mover for the new Lafayette Library (more below)
Glenda Fillinger - Paul's much better half
Tina Bettencourt - Cheering on hubby Joe
Christina Carson - Regina Englehart's goddaughter from Petoskey, Michigan, on her way to the Peace Corps in January
BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GOODIES October 30
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| Happy Birthday, Tay |
Tay Wheeler celebrated his 60th birthday in Maui. He figured a dollar per year would be just about right.
Bob Riegg claimed to wander into a Rotary Meeting 17 years ago by mistake and wasn't thrown out. He offered $17 and then outbid himself up to $20.
Skip McCowan honored his son's 22nd birthday with a $100 contribution to Ryan's Rotary Foundation.
John Fazel, the 13,000 mile traveler for the past two months, ended up in the Woodshed (a restaurant) in New Hampshire for determined some sort of anniversary or birthday celebration. John shrugged off Prez Peek's suggestion of $25 with a $100 contribution to the Endowment.
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| Who picked this father/daughter activity? |
Gillett Johnson caught the fever of the contribution flow by announcing that he and his daughter had a pretty good day at the Saratoga Springs racetrack and therefore deemed it appropriate that he, too, contribute $100 to the Rotary Foundation.
Our Rotary Foundation cup truly runneth over!
HAPPENINGS AT THE OCTOBER 22 MEETING
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| Prez Thomas, on good behavior |
President Peeks made some announcements about upcoming stuff that he deemed suitable for the District Governor's hearing. That included Brad Davis recruiting for the Umpteenth Annual Garden Park Apartments Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza and something about the upcoming TGITLFOTM possibly being at Captain's Winery. Those were apparently deemed suitably harmless for outside consumption.
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| Lafayette Library & Learning Center |
But the main thing that occurred was a singularly appropriate presentation of a very special Paul Harris Fellowship award. It wasn't to a member of Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary. It wasn't to a relative of such a member. In fact, it wasn't to a Rotarian at all.
Instead, Paul Fillinger, Cal Lee, and Governor Diekman, on behalf of The Rotary Club of Lamorinda Sunrise, et al., presented a Paul
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| Susan got the job done! |
Harris Fellowship to Susan Weaver who more than any other single person, made the new Lafayette Library a reality. This is not to say that many others didn't contribute money and labor to making this facility great, just that Ms. Weaver was out there leading the charge. In any such project, there is that one indispensable person without whom all the money and all the hard work by the community will be for naught. Susan was that person.
She is now a Paul Harris Fellow, which means that she not only has given Lafayette a precious gift, but is also now a part of the efforts of The Rotary Foundation and Rotary International to improve the lives of the people of the world in ways big and small and in every corner of the globe. Thank you, Susan. The Lamorinda community is the richer for your good work, and we are honored to count you among our growing list of Paul Harris Fellows.
OTHER HAPPENINGS October 30
Not to be outdone by the Paul Harris award movement, John Fazel was invited front and center to receive his new Paul Harris Award that was garnered while he was on the road. Cal Lee presented it to him, remarking that he was one of the few Charter Members of
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| Smiling John, fit & feisty |
LSR who is still alive. John does look remarkably well preserved. He did several make-ups while on the road and participated in banner exchanges along the way, two of which he presented today. John also, coincidentally, attended a Rotary meeting in Petoskey, Michigan, Christina's home town!
Brad Davis thanked the folks who participated in thesixth annual pumpkin- carving event at the
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| Brad wins the job again! |
Garden Park Apartments Thursday night. LSR participants included Arianne, Pat Flaharty and Mike Edwards. Award Certificates were given to each child. This year there was greater participation on the part of the parents. A hearty thanks to Brad for his important local outreach effort on the part of the club. He offered to relinquish his leadership of the event but was unanimously proclaimed the only Rotarian in the Club who was capable of carrying on!
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| Is this Don's other life? |
While Don Reichert was proudly displaying a Dave Reichert for Congress sign (no relation, by the way) from Mercer Island, he was also reiterating his offer to match a Paul Harris contribution for any member who is within $150 of receiving the award. This appears to be an open-ended commitment, so step up to his generous offer and make Don happy!
Krysten Laine announced a kick-off meeting and dinner for next year's highly anticipated Motorama at her home on November 13th. More info to follow shortly.
ARIANNE DOES DOUBLE DUTY
Arianne Anez was active at both meetings. She shared the podium with Katie Rose Ware with a pointed quiz for everyone except the
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| Whirlwind week for Arainne |
District Governor on questions regarding the latest edition of The Rotarian. We managed about 70% in the process which should not make any of us very proud.
Arianne's following week included the movie "Jackass" and her expression tells us she thought the name of the movie was appropriate. She went to the Homecoming dance at Acalanes and also on a Spanish class field trip to the Pena Pachamama Bolivian restaurant in San Francisco. This was cool! Finally she helped to carve pumpkins at the Garden Park Apartments. A pretty good week, all-in-all.
KEN THOMAS TELLS ALL!
In one of the more intriguing red-badge, five-minute talks, Ken covered a whole lot of ground, capped by a truly amazing pilot-down-and-recovery experience in Vietnam (more later).
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| Hey guys, you would have reacted too! |
Ken's story begins quietly enough with his birth in 1948 at a Kaiser Permanente facility in Vallejo. His family bought a lot in Orinda and moved there when he entered the third grade (after lengthy discussions with his father about repeating said grade in order to catch up with a superior school system). He attended Miramonte High School where he quickly learned not to call his father at work. This lesson was learned by repeated sessions with the Dean of Boys at the school, where Ken learned that a note to his father would be sufficient for his Dad to deal with whatever complaint about Ken was being alleged this time.
Ken figured out that his best course of action following high school was the U.S. Air Force where he became a helicopter gunship pilot serving in Vietnam (more about that later).
After the service Ken contacted an old football coach, Jack Nadel, who had a business marketing inexpensive commercial products such as calendars and pencils. Ken did well selling these products to major customers, such as Walmart. His career advanced by opening an operation for them in San Diego. However the business was subsequently closed and Ken decided to get into a new line of business which he described as "organized crime"...also known as the insurance business. Having undergone several major surgeries as a result of injuries suffered in Vietnam (that story is coming) Ken opted for a more tranquil environment in Grand Junction, Colorado. He loved the area and Farmers Insurance, vowing it would take something like an atom bomb to cause him to leave. After attending a Miramonte High School reunion, and meeting again a former classmate Anne Simpson Gattis, he amended his atom bomb declaration to include "for the love of a good woman." He is now, once again, happily ensconced in Orinda.
This was the end of Ken's presentation. George Chaffey just happened to ask the innocent question "How did you get your injuries?" Ken gulped, took a deep breath, and told the rest of the story.
Ken was piloting a helicopter Cobra Gunship in Vietnam when he came upon a couple of enemy tanks. One of them got off an "Annie Oakley" type lucky shot that took out his co-pilot and the side of the helicopter. Ken laconically stated a helicopter doesn't fly very well in that condition, but luckily for him he got it down in a soft rice paddy. Ken didn't know it at the time but he had compression injuries to his spine which rendered his legs useless. So he pulled himself out of the copter and began moving away from it, with only the use of his arms. In short order five V.C.'s showed up with weapons and began firing at him. He fired his weapon backward at them, past his left ear, and still suffers deafness from the loud discharge. At this point Ken quietly pointed out he wasn't having a particularly good afternoon!
However, the U.S. Air Force came to the rescue in the nick of time. A jet fighter deposited a 500 pound bomb in very close proximity to Ken's position. Because he was in a rice paddy, the bomb traveled a good 25 feet or so into the ooze before detonating when it finally hit a hard surface. As Ken described it, about 2,000 years worth of frogs, human excrement and who knows what else headed skyward. It blew away the bad guys, tore the clothes off Ken, except for his boots, and deposited him about 15 feet up in the air in a tree. The helicopter that flew in to rescue him took his picture while he was naked as a jay bird, hanging in the tree.
Ken has nothing but good things to say for the Veteran's Administration who took great care of him. He is labeled permanently disabled, but you would never know it the way he handles himself. He joked that now we know why one of his hobbies is radio control tanks, but he assured everyone they are "little" ones. How many ways can we spell HERO?.
PROGRAM, OCTOBER 22
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| Govenor Karl and Romi |
It was our honor and pleasure to welcome District Governor Karl Diekman (and his wife Romi) to speak today.
Governor Karl chose a unique way to share his vision and his passion with us. Instead of a straight narrative, he presented a series of photographs but not just any photographs. He presented photographs from his mind's eye by describing them to us in fully-realized detail, and invited us not only to imagine the photographs his words created but to create our own as well.
The montage included Governor Karl's first exposure to Rotary. It came when he was invited by the biggest shaker and mover in his town to be a guest at a Rotary meeting. When he got to the meeting, Governor Karl saw that the room included every civic and business leader in the community, all of whom were motivated by a desire to be part of an organization that allowed them to give back to that community and to the world at large. We were invited to picture who it was that reached out their hand to us to bring us into the Rotary world.
Another photo was of the same man who brought Governor Karl into Rotary acting as a mentor, the person who made sure that the new Member was put to work and made known to the established members. Again, we were invited to picture who it was who did that for us.
Of course, there was a photo of that first hands-on work project with the Club. The pride in being part of that project, of something larger than one's self, can't be pictured, of course, but it permeates every shape and color in it. Yet again, we were invited to picture our own first projects and to relive the warm feeling it gave us.
Other photos followed, including snapshots showing Governor Karl as a Club board member, and later as a Club President for three different Clubs as he moved around the country. He invited those of us who have had the privilege of serving on our Club's board as Club President to picture our own experiences, and for those who have not, to imagine how it will look and feel.
Perhaps the most moving photos were of Governor Karl overseas, distributing wheelchairs to the otherwise immobile and polio vaccines to children who otherwise would face a lifetime of crippling misery. Here he diverged momentarily to talk of this year's $7 dictionary project. No photos here - Governor Karl showed us a copy of the dictionary that every member of our Club has purchased and that will go to Zambia in 2011. But this part of the talk was totally photo-free, as Governor Karl asked us to imagine a photo of ourselves, flying to Zambia with him to distribute these dictionaries to children who so badly want to learn and so badly need these great teaching tools. He stressed that we can all be a part of this journey, as a contingent of District 5160 Rotarians, led by Governor Karl, will, in fact, travel to Zambia to see the very children and the very community that these precious books will help.
Governor Karl also shared his photos from times when he was able to recruit new members to one of his Clubs, to mentor them and guide them into becoming true Rotarians, and to watch them launch their own Rotary journeys. Here he asked us not only to imagine our own photos of such events, but also to go out and make them a reality.
We were also invited to come to the District Conference in Old Sacramento November 4-6. (More info on that is available on the District 5160 website - there is a link from our website.) The District Conference is a wonderful opportunity to make new friends, hear first-rate speakers, and learn about dozens, if not hundreds, of new ways we - as individual Rotarians and as a Club - can expand and improve our impact locally, regionally, and internationally.
Thank you, District Governor Karl Diekman, for your visit and for sharing your vision.
PROGRAM, OCTOBER 30
We welcomed Joe Bettencourt to the podium this morning for another member Expose Yourself. Joe came loaded with real pictures as a clever means of telling his story (and avoiding the LSR projector curse). He introduced himself with plaques bearing the words of the three things (well, at least two of the three) that drive his life:
Every Day Holds The Possibility Of A New Miracle
Life Is A Journey, Not A Destination
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| Place your order sir? |
I'll Have A Café Mocha - Vodka - Xantax -Latte To Go, Please
(This one he claims is just right to get him through one of our high octane meetings!)
Joe was born in Chico, CA in 1965 and grew up on an almond farm. He graduated from Chico High in 1983 and then went on to Chico State in 1984. He began a career in insurance in Northern California. He began dating Tina in 1998 and they were married in 1999. They put two families together, lived in Redding, and raised children with lots of outdoor loving care, indulging in water skiing in the summer and snow skiing in the winter. They have a new grandson who is a real joy. Their youngest son is 18 years old. Several family pictures were shown to good effect, especially the marriage picture of Joe's parents, who look remarkably like Tina and Joe.
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| It seemed like a good idea at the time! |
In the year 2000 they bought a restaurant and named it Café Amour, slogan: "You're gonna love it too!" It was a tough go since Joe and Tina both had other full-time jobs. Joe is not recommending this career path for anyone.
In 2004 they moved to Walnut Creek where Joe entered the interim health care business. His senior-services business provides home- care nursing, medical staffing, senior home-care and hospice services. Joe's entry into Rotary through sponsors Krysten Laine and Hays Englehart has led to the formation of the Lamorinda Sunrise Home Team Project. The "how to" rollout of this successful local service project for senior citizens will take place at the District Meeting this coming weekend in Sacramento. Other clubs can sign up, get a "How To" DVD and join the newly created www.rotaryhometeam.com website. Joe has demonstrated very early that he "Gets It" when it comes to the Rotary 4 Way Test!
