February 18, 2011
               Reporter: Rich Shearer          Editor: Ron Brown            Photographer: Tom Black                 President: Thomas Peeks, 2010 - 2011          

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Are you listening!?

 

From somebody named Andre Gide, as originally quoted in the Milwaukee Courier, and brought to us by Ken Kosich:

 

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said, but, since no one was listening, everything must be said again."

 

VISITING ROTARIANS

 

John Sherry - Lafayette Past President

Bill Eames - Ditto (but they don't like to talk about it)

Alicia Cragholm - Lafayette

Waite Stephenson - one of our semi-regulars from Moraga

Simone Raeth - Yes, she's Thomas' daughter, but she is also a

Proud papa indeed!

member of the Acalanes Interact Club, so that makes her a Visiting Rotarian, too.

 

By the way, according to proud Papa Raeth, Simone and the other Acalanes Interacters have been collecting and organizing medicines and medical supplies to send off to clinics and the like in other countries where the need for them is high.  Way to go, Acalanes Interact!

 

GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS

 

John O'Day

 

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GOODIES

Smile Tay, you got off easy!

 

Tay Wheeler remembered Mindy's birthday, and even remembered what they did even though the event was several weeks ago.  That "lovely dinner and lovely evening" cost Tay "some money" by way of contributions.

 

Joe Bettencourt celebrated his anniversary by attending a charity crab feed and donating $50 to the Lamorinda Sunrise crab pot.

 

Glenda Fillinger had a birthday.  Paul took her to dinner.  President Peeks took Paul to the cleaners to the tune of $20.

 

Gary is a cheerful giver

Gary Fulcher also remembered to make sure there was an appropriate celebration of his blushing bride's birthday.  His cleaning bill was $60.

 

Tamara Raeth had a lovely birthday, or so Thomas claimed.  The $20 levied against him should cover the costs of the cracker-jack investigation to verify his claim. 

 

Lest it be said that the Fourth Estate is heartless and cruel - well, it is.  But there are limits.  Not one but two of the aforementioned members committed the cardinal sin of mentioning the ages of their respective Better Halves.  We point this out in order to further point out that The Lamorindan is not ratting said members out by name.  Such reportorial discretion may or may not pass the first part of the Four Way Test, but it sure as shootin' passes the other three parts. 

 

 

WHITE SMOKE HAS BEEN SPOTTED

 

Some members are uncertain as to how the leadership of Lamorinda Sunrise is chosen.  Here's the skinny.  Every year, sometime between Halloween and Easter (the date is chosen by a mystical process that I am not at liberty to disclose), the past presidents of LSR gather in a secret corner of Paul Bettelheim's

It's the real Mark Roberts, all the way!

living room and conduct a very special ritual in which every member is considered in light of the criteria for Club leadership long ago handed down by Paul Harris himself.  When all of the pertinent questions have been asked (Does he have a pulse?  Will she stop laughing in time to give us a serious answer? Do we have any blackmail material on him?) and the list of contenders has been reduced to a precious few, the real magic happens.  I can't tell you everything about the final process, but the words "rock," "paper" and "scissors" feature prominently.

 

Then, and only then, the past presidents dispatch Tay Wheeler to sneak up on the unsuspecting designee, invite him or her to lunch, and not let him or her know where we have hidden his or her kids, parents, siblings, car keys and/or credit cards until he or she agrees to stand in front of the club every week taking our abuse and dishing out random fines.

 

This week, Tay was pleased to announce that this process (which, to be fair, makes at least as much sense as the way we select Academy Award winners or the President of the United States) has resulted in yet another sacrificial lamb . . . er, I mean, brilliant choice to serve as the Lamorinda Sunrise Club President for 2012-13.  Said honoree is none other than Mark Roberts.  Hearty

Sorry Alex, you are not off the hook!

congratulations go out to the Club for our good fortune in having such a great leader lined up to follow Alex Arnold, and for having Alex lined up to follow current President Thomas Peeks, and for having Thomas available to follow . . . you get the idea.

 

All kidding aside for a moment - being the Club President is a fair amount of work, and the staff of the Lamorindan warmly thanks any and all who are and have been willing to step up to the proverbial plate.  By the same token, just about every past president of LSR and any other Club will tell you that being Club President was their best year in Rotary.  Along with the work goes a tremendous amount of fun and satisfaction.  We at The Lamorindan strongly encourage all members - every one of you - to strive for club leadership and to serve as Club President.  Doing so will do more to expand your understanding and enjoyment of Rotary than anything else you can do. 

 

MOTORAMA UPDATE

Krysten shows the way

 

Krysten Laine proudly announced that we have scored our first paying sponsor for Motorama: Big O Tires here in Lafayette is kicking in $3,500 cash money!  How did this come about?  Big O is next to Urban Suburban, which, as you know, is owned and operated by Krysten and hubby Rene.  Krysten thought Big O Head Honcho Ed Anderson was a good prospect but was not comfortable approaching him herself. 

 

What to do?  She contacted the Sponsorship Committee in the person of Dennis Kurimai (there are other members, but Dennis handled this one), who approached Ed and sold him on the benefits of being a Motorama sponsor. 

 

Now, the Sponsorship Committee needs all other Club Members to do what Krysten did - search your Rolodexes, your Outlook contacts lists, your memory banks, your business card collection, your whatever, and come up with the contact info for prospective sponsors.  Then, contact Dennis or Rich Shearer with the info.  The Sponsorship Committee will take it from there.  If you want to be part of the pitch, that can be arranged.  If you want to make the introduction and then scram, that can be arranged.   If you want to give us the info but don't want the contact to know who fingered them, that can be arranged, too. 

 

In the very near future, Sponsorship Committee members will be contacting you to pry contact info out of you.  It would be helpful if you can go through your info and be prepared when we call.  Of course, if you prefer that we hound you mercilessly and make your life miserable until you break down in a sobbing heap and hand us a tear-streaked piece of crumpled paper with the information scrawled on it, we can do that, but it does seem just a tad inefficient. 

 

IN TONIGHT'S NEWS, GENERALISSIMO FRANCISCO FRANCO IS STILL DEAD

 

Our Thought for the Day went like this:

 

Rich has his "pay attention" face on

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said, but, since no one was listening, everything must be said again."

 

Apparently, this is way too true, as some Members claimed not to have heard it the first time, so President Peeks had it recited a second time.  It is not clear if everyone got the message the second time, either.

 

ARIANNE IN ACTION

 

Arianne is in action, all right.  That action kept her from us this morning.  We'll catch up next week.

 

HOME TEAM ALERT

Home Team is hot on the recruiting trail

 

Hays Englehart reminded us all that the next Home Team date is March 5, and we will need Lamorinda Sunrisers to help out, of course.  Hays also noted that six Members of other Clubs have volunteered to come along.  While we all paused to chuckle over the possibility of getting other Rotarians to do all our project work for us, in reality that would be a little tacky, so please sign up to help out. 

 

AND YOU THOUGHT ALL HE DID WAS CRACK WISE

 

Rotarians are all asked to contribute to The Rotary Foundation, the 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that is the financial adjunct to Rotary International.  Hence the slogan "Every Rotarian, Every Year."  Rotary likes to recognize Rotarians who make significant contributions to The Rotary Foundation.  One way is to recognize those who donate a total of $1,000 with a Paul Harris Fellowship.  Paul Harris Fellows are also recognized for each subsequent $1,000 in total donations.

Cal renders Rich speechless

 

Today, Cal Lee, who has the thankless and surprisingly challenging task of keeping track of all LSR Members' Paul Harris donations (you'd be amazed at how hard it can be to make sure that the Club records and The Rotary Foundation's records agree), today called Rich Shearer forward to receive his Paul Harris +1 award.  For once, Rich did not have some smart-aleck remark or pithy saying at the ready.  Apparently, even he has a certain amount of respect for the good work Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation are able to accomplish together.

 

TGITLFOTM ALERT

Nancy steps right up

 

Nancy Baglietto may be one of our most recent additions, but she is certainly jumping into the Lamorinda Sunrise pool with both feet.  This coming Friday, February 25, she is hosting the February TGITLFOTM ("Thank God It's The Last Friday Of The Month") soiree.  As always, bring something to nosh on and/or to drink to share. 5:30 p.m. or so until 7 or 7:30-ish. 

 

Now all we have to do is get Nancy to tell us where she lives . . .

 

And don't forget these upcoming TGITLFOTM dates and locales:

 

Friday March 25 - at Chuck Yeager's

Friday, April 29 - at Tom Black's

Friday May 27 - at Mark Roberts'

 

PRESIDENT PEEKS THINKS THE UNTHINKABLE AND DOES THE UNDOABLE

Nobody messes with Thomas

 

Bill Eames, he of the Other Lafayette Club, rose to note/complain that Cal Lee made a Paul Harris pin presentation whilst being devoid of any Rotary pin, and expressed the opinion that such a gaffe should not go unpunished.  President Peeks agreed, and asked Cal for $20 in pin money.  Normally, that would be that.  But Thomas the Not Timid not only dared to tread into unfamiliar territory, he enthusiastically lunged into it, fining Bill another $20, apparently for violating the Fink Rules.  Now since Mr. Eames is, technically, not a Lamorinda Sunrise Member, it is theoretically not within the purview of a Lamorinda Sunrise President to fine him. 

 

Now as you likely know, President Teddy Roosevelt boldly ignored trivial details like international law and helped Panama secede from Columbia, and all he asked for in return was the Panama Canal.  In reaching out across the proverbial waters to separate Bill Eames from his 20 bucks without letting minor niceties stand in the way, President Peeks was every bit as bold and resolute as was President Roosevelt when he reached out across the real waters (with a heavy cruiser or two, if memory serves) to separate Columbia from Panama.

 

Now that's Leadership, Thomas.  The kind that District 5160 is looking for in future District Governors.  And for a small gratuity, we can make sure the District never hears about this . . . .

 

BLUE, BLUE, MY BADGE IS BLUE

Blue is better, and cheaper too!

 

Joe Bettencourt was called forward to explain why he was not wearing his badge.  He claimed that it wasn't in the badge box.  "A likely story," we all thought.  But it turned out to be true - he had no red badge to wear because it was his day to be presented with his Blue Badge.  So not only was he not fined for being sans badge, he was rewarded with a brand-spanking-new one. 

 

PROGRAM

Jerry knows whereof he speaks

 

Jerry Kent knows a thing or two about fire.  He spent a career with the East Bay Regional Park District, watching it go from six parks of roughly 6,000 acres to 65 parks covering about 108,000 acres.  In that time, he learned a great deal about how fire can devastate an area, especially an area where man surrounds himself with nature or, more dangerous, converts the native hill vegetation to more resemble the High Sierra.

 

Mr. Kent started by acknowledging what we all know: We live in a wonderful area.  The weather is good, and the scenery is terrific.  But fire is an ongoing danger.

 

Most of us remember the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire and the stunning devastation it wrought - at least one of our Members lived in one of the approximately 3,000 homes that were destroyed, and another was one of the mutual aid firemen who responded and watched in horror and helplessness as home after home was lost despite the fire fighters' herculean best efforts.  Twenty-five people died in that fire.

 

But that was not the only major fire in the Oakland-Berkeley Hills, said Mr. Kent.  In the 20th Century, there were at least eight such events, in 1905, 1923, 1937, 1940, 1946, 1955, 1970, and 1991.  And while anyone who was here in 1991 will never forget the Oakland Hills Fire, a majority of the people living in the affected area now did not live there then.  Thus it is important, says Mr. Kent, to revisit what happened and what has been learned about protecting ourselves to the greatest extent possible from a future fire.

 

Mr. Kent next showed a collection of film clips from the Oakland Hills Fire and its immediate aftermath.  We saw news reports from the Saturday fire that fire fighters had fought and had thought was put out near Grizzly Peak Blvd.  We saw Ground Zero about an hour before the main fire was reignited that Sunday from a smoldering ember.  We saw the fire about an hour after it was first reported. 

 

And then we saw Dante's Inferno.  The walls of flame.  The narrow streets.  The frightened people.  But most of all, we saw the wind, the howling, 40 mph, bone-dry Diablo Wind roaring in from the northeast, feeding the flames and carrying embers before them.  This Northern California version of Southern California's more famous Santa Ana Winds literally fanned the flames, sometimes

It was a tough, no win situation

igniting houses that were several blocks away from the flames' front lines.  We heard some of the radio communications from beleaguered fire fighters who simply did not have the people or the tools to control the fire due to the combination of lots of dry fuel, hot dry winds, twisty roads, houses and vegetation cheek-by-jowl, and residents trying to escape. 

 

Mr. Kent also played taped interviews with some firefighters, both the front-line fighters and the unit commanders, in the wake of the fire.  Perhaps the most surprising thing about these interviews was the degree to which each fire fighter second-guessed his or her actions.  All of them seemed heartsick that they could not have done more, could not have saved more homes, could not have prevented any loss of life.  One fire fighter likened the experience to "dancing with the Devil."  Another comforted himself with the idea that he and his fellow firefighters had given residents "some extra seconds to get away." 

 

On to today.  The Lamorinda area is not the same from a fire danger perspective as the Oakland Hills of 1991.  But Lamorinda is not even close to different enough that we can be complacent.  The fact of the matter is that much of our area is the kind of housing-plus-trees environment that can lead to a very dangerous fire event.  It wasn't always that way in the Lamorinda area: Mr. Kent showed photos from the 1930s that showed what now is downtown Lafayette, downtown Orinda and downtown Moraga to be mostly open grassland with some oak trees, with the grasses mainly kept down by cattle grazing.  Fire in this ecosystem is not nearly the catastrophic event that 1991 in the Oakland Hills was. 

 

But, Mr. Kent pointed out, all three towns have grown, and that growth, especially into the hills, has brought with it increasingly dense vegetation.  People seem to like to simulate living in the mountains, and so we have created mountain-like forests, only with many houses liberally sprinkled in.  In Lafayette, that means that everything north of Highway 24 and west of Acalanes High is a High Fire Danger area, as is everything west of the Reservoir.  In Orinda, pretty much everything north of 24 and west of Camino Pablo has that designation, along with some other areas.  Moraga's High Fire Danger area is confined to the Redwood Canyon area.  In all three towns, however, there are plenty of other areas  only a notch down on the danger scale.  Wildfire is a danger to pretty much all of us.

 

Hilly, densely vegetated terrain is one important factor in causing fire danger.  Another, of course, is the fact that this is a semi-arid region, with no appreciable rain eight or nine months out of the year.  But another factor is the wind.  There are two wind patterns that predominate here.  The most common pattern is for the wind to come from the west, off the ocean.  This is the wind that we all pray for every summer afternoon and the one that sometimes brings fog in through the gaps west of Orinda and Moraga.

 

The next most common wind pattern in the aforementioned Diablo Wind.  It comes from the northeast, and it is warm and dry.  It is far more dangerous, from a fire perspective, than the usual wind out of the west.  Diablo Winds tend to be strong in addition to being dry, and they bring with them a far greater danger that a fire will "spot," or blow embers ahead of it, igniting vegetation and homes before the actual flames get there, as happened in 1991. 

 

So what can we do to protect our homes and lives?  Says Mr. Kent, it boils down to two words: "Defensible space."  It's a very simple concept - keep the fuel that fire has to have away from your home.  The more separation between your home and flammable trees and brush, the better.  Minimizing the potential fuel sources is also why the East Bay Regional Park District routinely grazes much of its land - keeping the dried grasses low greatly reduces fire risk, and makes it far easier to combat the fires that do occur. 

 

How hard is this to accomplish?  Not very.  As Mr. Kent says: "Home and personal fire safety is not rocket science."  The key is the 100 feet around your home.  The idea is to create ember resistance so that when that nasty Diablo Wind launches a burning ember attack on your property, there is nothing there that is likely to cause an insurmountable problem.  This will also provide the greatest resistance if and when the flames make it to your property.  Less vegetation means less fuel, which means less flame, which means lower heat, which means a much lower chance of additional combustion and a much greater chance that water from, say, a fire hose will actually get the job done.  This doesn't mean removing every living thing within 100 feet of your home, but it does mean proper thinning out of vegetation, removing or replacing vegetation that can create the "ladder" for fire to climb into trees or into your house, and checking your house for danger spots, such as shake shingle roofs or exposed wood under eaves, to name but two, and fixing them.

 

Mr. Kent urged us to always remember that the most important part of protecting our homes and lives from fire is not what the Fire Department does when they arrive on the scene: It's what we have already done before the fire started.  If we have created defensible space, installed an appropriate roof, checked our homes for potential "fire traps" where embers can take hold and ignite the house and fixed them, it is far more likely that the house will survive. 

 

Here are two more related factors that Mr. Kent provided.  First, if your home is in danger of being in the path of a major fire, at some point you will be evacuated.  That means it's a good idea as soon as you realize you may be in the fire's path to pack the car, round up the kids and pets, and be ready to roll at a moment's notice.  Second, fire fighters now do triage.  In short, they will put their efforts where they are most likely to succeed.  That does not mean that they will never try to save your home if you have not created defensible space or still have a wood shake roof.  It does mean that if circumstances force them to choose which house to protect, they are more likely to try to save the one that has defensible space and a fire-resistant roof.  So plan ahead.  It just may be the difference between a close call and losing your home.

 

Here are resources for further research on your part.  The Diablo Fire Safety Council's website is http://diablofiresafe.org/index.html.  For weed and vegetation abatement requirements in the Contra Coast County Fire Protection District, check

http://www.cccfpd.org/images/WA2abst-logo-apr09_000.pdf

 

Thank you, Mr. Kent, for giving us tips on what we need to do to enhance our wildfire safety, and for reminding us why this issue is always so important. 

 

CALENDAR

 

Feb. 25, Postino 7 a.m. - 4 Way Speech Contestants will wow you!

Feb. 25, TGITLFOTM - 5:30 At the home of Nancy Baglietto

Mar.  5,  Saturday - HOME TEAMs strike again - 8:30 a.m.   


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