January 28, 2011
Reporter: Rich Shearer          Editor: Ron Brown         Photographer: Tom Black 

 
President: Thomas Peeks, 2010 - 2011          

 
 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Our own Dave is definitely the "Doer"

 

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."  Words to live by from Dave Isenberg's boss.

 

VISITING ROTARIANS

 

Jack Peers - Technically he is not currently a Rotarian, but he is a Past President of LSR, so he gets special consideration.  No, that does not mean Jack is "special."

Leander Hauri - Livermore Valley

 

GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS

 

Agatha Sue Lee - the ever-gracious wife of the ever-gracious Cal.

 

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GOODIES

 

Bob Heinen said his birthday was a "bad day," with nothing special happening.  President Peeks made it $20 more special.

 

Mark Roberts had a more interesting birthday, having dinner at Il Fornaio.  President Peeks made his birthday $20 more special as well.

Taking Anniversary celebration to new heights Gillett

 

Gillett Johnson marked his four year anniversary of LSR membership by forking up $20 per year to a Foundation.  One assumes it is either (a) the Rotary Foundation or (b) the LSR Endowment Fund.  He probably said which, but the quality of reportage in this periodical is worth exactly what you pay for it.

 

WE ARE DARK NEXT WEEK

 

There will be no meeting on February 4.  If you show up, you will be left to wonder where everyone is.  The Inter-Club Meeting is next week's official Club meeting.

 

MOTORAMA UPDATE

Krysten Laine 3-12-10
Petal to the metal as usual

 

"We are off and running!"  Thus spake Krysten Laine, she who is in charge of making Dervishes whirl among her myriad other functions. Last year proved we can put on great event.  This year, the focus is on making this a great and profit-generating event.  One of the things we are doing to make that happen is having an evening-before Seriously Fun Gala Event.  No weenie roast this, but rather a $100/ticket event with good food, an auction of good stuff (no, the auction part is not going to be anywhere near the size of the late, lamented No-Longer-a-Crab-Feed Dinner & Auction) and big-time fun.  Oh, an Executive Decision has been made: the auction is replacing the Raffle idea - too many complications, etc. (The Raffle may become a stand-alone event later in the calendar year, which means President Peeks has succeeded in accomplishing the most important Presidential duty - pushing off all complicated issues to the next administration.)

 

Dennis, the sponsor/donor man!

Dennis "I Never did JUG in High School (ask him what that means)" Kuramai rose next to talk about Sponsorship.  This is how we are going to make this an Actual Money-Making Event, which is an important thing because this is how we finance our do-good activities during the year. 

 

Dennis and his Merrie Band O' Volunteers are ready, willing and able to make the pitch and close the deal with any and all possible sponsors/donors.  But they need everyone's help in supplying possible leads, including contact info.  If you know, for a random example, one of the Senior Partners of a major San Francisco law firm such as, say, Gordon & Rees, give us that info.  If you want to be part of the pitch, we can do that.  If you want to introduce the contact to Dennis & Co. and then get out of the line of fire, that's fine.  If we can use your name but you want to be out of the country when the pitch is made, that's fine.  If you do not want your name used at all, that's fine, too.  (The Committee will be discreet.  Really.)  But please, forward contact ideas with as much contact info as you can.  Seriously, this is where the money is going to come from, which in turn makes it possible to be a positive impact in the community and world.

 

Oh, and the Wine Barrel is happening again.  Dave Waal is taking the Chief Nagger reins from Skip McCowan, so expect to hear from him.  Bring a $20+ bottle.  Make sure there is tag taped to it so Dave can keep track of who has brought in their bottle and who is driving him nuts by waiting until the last possible moment. 

 

Note: Ten bottles of "Two Buck Chuck" does not satisfy your requirement.  Bring those to a TGITLFOTM.

 

WE REALLY ARE DARK NEXT FRIDAY

 

We weren't kidding above.  There is no meeting this coming Friday.  Don't show up on the 4th.  Show up on the 11th?  Yes.  Show up on the 4th?  No.

 

ARIANNE IN ACTION

 

Arianne had finals.  Ugh.  She also made some of her favorite appetizers for the Wares.  Yum.  Other than that, not a lot going on.  Hey, she had finals . . . .

 

STUFF THAT WILL ALREADY HAVE HAPPENED BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS

 

The InterClub Meeting.  Well, it may or may not have happened, but your chance to get a ticket probably will have.  Wednesday lunchtime at Rossmoor (although we are the hosts).  If your name is Ichabod and you just woke up and reeeeaaaaally want to go, contact Mark Roberts.  You may get lucky, but you may not.

 

Mind your own business says Ernie

Also, TGITLFOTM will have happened . . . NOT.  In a move that raised eyebrows throughout the room, Ernie Furtado refused to host this evening's scheduled festivities.  C'mon, Ernie, just because you and the family are moving this weekend is no excuse.  If we had it at the old house, you would not have had to clean up. 

 

YOUR CLUB SERVICE DIRECTOR IS HARD AT WORK

 

Nothing new there - all Club Service Directors work hard.  But Mark Roberts has been outdoing himself and other CSD's of late.  Not only did he put on a great Ecumenical Non-Denominational We-Offend-No-One-And-Everyone Holiday Party, and not only has he

First class Wheedler is Mark

successfully wheedled a record number of Lamorinda Sunrisers to go to the InterClub luncheon (the price may have helped there), he has also been lining up TGITLFOTM hosts.  (For the newer members, "TGITLFOTM" stand for Thank God It's The Last Friday Of The Month and is pronounced "tuh-GIT-uhl-foe-tum.)  These are held - wait for it - on the last Friday of every . . . well, most months and are a great LSR tradition that allows Members to get to know each other better.

 

So mark these dates on your calendar:

 

Friday, Feb. 25 - at Nancy Baglietto's home

Friday March 25 - at Chuck Yeager's

Friday, April 29 - at Tom Black's

Friday May 27 - at Mark Roberts'

 

See you there!  And thanks for all your good work, Mark.

 

DON'T MAKE ME HAVE TO TELL YOU AGAIN

 

There still is no meeting next week, Friday, February 4.  If you show up, permanent blue dye will be sprayed on you and the rest of us will point and laugh derisively at you the next 57 times we see you.  You have been warned.

 

WE'RE DOING BOOK REVIEWS NOW

 

Brad Davis read Laura Hillenbrand's latest, "Unbroken."  Brad says: check it out.

 

WE"RE DOING JOKES, TOO

 

From Dave Waal, an exercise regimen for people over 50.

 

How many pounds was that?

Start with a one pound potato bag in each hand, held straight out to the side.  When can comfortably hold that position for a minute, go up to five pound bags.  When you are comfortable with that, graduate to ten pound bags.  Work up through 25 pound bags and, finally, 50 pound bags.  Once you've mastered that, try putting a potato in each bag.

 

PROGRAM

 

You can't stop me!

Every President has to deal with it at least once - the meeting that, for one reason or another, has no Program.  Various Past Presidents have dealt with this issue in various ways.  Early closing bells, hand shadows on the screen, impromptu JokeFests - at one time or the other, all these strategies have been employed.

 

But the stratagem employed today by the ever-prepared President Thomas outdid them all.  As the last meeting of the month is usually an Expose Yourself program, he did three mini-Expose Yourselves by way of reading three Mystery Rotarian sheets and permitting the authors of said sheets attempt to explain themselves. 

 

The first mysterious Lamorinda Sunriser:

 

(1) climbed Mt. St, Helens before it blew its top;

(2) actually toured Europe on $5 per day with a woman who was mistaken for Elizabeth Taylor; and

(3) was busted for unlawful possession of a mind-altering substance.

Really! I'm not making this up

 

Many guesses ensued, but it turned out to be . . .  Drum roll, please . . . Paul Fillinger.  The first item was pretty much self-explanatory.  The second happened back in the days when the book on how to see Europe on $5 per day was popular and the concept was doable.  As for the Elizabeth Taylor look-alike, if you haven't already figured out that it was other than the ever-wonderful Queen Glenda, then a pox upon you.

 

Now for Mystery Item No. 3.  It turns out that the mind-altering substance was alcohol.  The bust was because Paul and one or two confederates were transporting the hooch to a frat house (color me shocked!) for the evening's festivities.  Their route carried them from the hooch dispensary to the frat house by way of a corner of the Oregon State campus, which had an official policy frowning n the possession of distilled spirits and barley-based beverages on campus.  Hence the bust, and hence the resounding unanswered question: Why is there no Paul Fillinger Memorial Rehab Center in Corvallis? 

 

Mystery Rotarian Number 2:

 

(1) Almost participated in the 1972 Olympics in a sport you never heard of;

(2) Took his first college computer class from Arthur Ashe (yes, that Arthur Ashe); and

(3) Spent time in a country where the most admired American is Ronald Reagan (and not fair guessing Texas).

Never heard of Team Hand Ball

 

This turned out to be none other than Bob Heinen.  His almost-Olympic story involves Handball.  Not the one-on-one game of bashing a small ball against a wall and, with any luck, into delicate portions of the opponent's anatomy.  No, this is Team Hand Ball (as we Americans call it), which can be played indoors or out and involves teams (duh).  The object of the game is to get the ball into the goal, which, not surprisingly, is defended by the other.  Dribbling, throwing, and running around until you drop and revisit your most recent meal are all involved.  Since this is a sport that very few in this country play but was added to the Olympics for 1972, and since the USA is morally obligated to enter every single Olympic event, even ones that we have never heard of or participated in, getting a Team Hand Ball team together fell to the military.  So then-Army guy Bob learned the sport and taught it to any able-bodied Army person who couldn't get away.  He says he would not have played on the Olympic team (and this reporter suspects false modesty) but would have been a coach but for having been reassigned at the critical moment to Southeast Asia, where, as you will recall, we were involved in some unpleasantness at the time. 

 

In item 2, then-Lt. Ashe was teaching at UCLA.  He sometimes took time off to play a little tennis with a fellow UCLA instructor at the time, Sgt. Stan Smith. 

 

And where is Ronald Reagan held in such high esteem?  Libya.  But, you may asking, isn't that where a certain Col Qadafi/Khadaffy/Your Spelling Goes Here holds court and never has a nice thing to say about American leaders?  You would be right.  And it turns out that that is exactly the reason why Reagan is so popular (albeit quietly, one suspects); Reagan, by ordering that air strike on ol' Moammar, effectively stuck it to The Man.  Apparently, there are a number of Libyans who took solace in this.

 

Mystery Rotarian Number 3 is guilty of the following crimes and misdemeanors:

 

(1)  His/her father was in both the Army and the Navy in WW II without ever leaving the US;

(2)  Almost clonked actress Jessica Lange with a shovel;

(3)  Shook hands with the great-grandson of Sitting Bull.

More non-stop blarney to be sure

 

Such general life malfeasance could only be the product of Rich Shearer, although nobody guessed, thereby proving the effectiveness of wearing a suit to fool people as to one's actual station in life.

 

Rich shook hands with Sitting Bull's descendant this past summer at the Little Big Horn battlefield, where Mr. Bull (not his real name) was a guest speaker on that particular day.

 

Jessica Lange happened to stop in for a frozen treat at the Haagen-Dazs that Rich managed at the time.  Rich was out front planting ground cover at the behest of his boss in a postage-stamp sized area with full-sized pick and shovel (sort of like hunting house flies armed only with a Sherman tank).  Rich walked into the store with said implements tucked under his arm as Ms. Lange was getting read to leave.  This almost resulted in the shovel smacking Jessica in solar plexus region.  Fortunately, she was more agile than Rich was observant, and she and her ice cream headed off into afternoon.

 

Rich's father joined the Army when he got out of high school in 1943.  He wanted to fly.  (What we now know as the Air Force was then the Army Air Corps.)  The Army, in its infinite wisdom, wanted its pilots to be officers and wanted its officers to have some college.  By the time Dear Ol' Dad got to the actual training process, the Army had decided that it no longer needed pilots.  Or co-pilots.  Or anyone else who flew in or had anything to do with airplanes.  The Army gave these folks a choice: stay in the Army, remain an officer, but serve in another capacity (can you say "Infantry?"); or, resign their commissions and see if the Navy needed pilots, but with no guarantees (God forbid that the Army and the Navy actually communicate with each other) and the risk of being drafted back in to the Army as a private.

 

Rich's dad chose the latter, and into the Navy he went.  They still wanted pilots, and started training him.  He got as far as soloing in an old Seaman, at which point the A-Bomb made his service unnecessary.  (In a slightly ironic twist, Rich's dad ended up working at Lawrence Livermore Lab, where his job was blowing up thermonuclear bombs.)

 

And so, Lamorinda Sunrisers know a little more about the peccadillos of three of their fellow Members, and President Thomas dodged the inevitable "where's the speaker?" bullet.


 

CALENDAR

 

Wednesday, February 2, Interclub meeting, Rossmoor 1:30 a.m.

Friday, February 4, Pitch dark inside and outside at Postino

Friday, February 11, Motorama website, in all its glory

TGITLFOTM Schedules - See above in glorious red
 

Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Links

Lamorinda Sunrise Web Site

Lamorindan Archives


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