THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Three is one too many Spike

Spike Speicher gave us a three-fer. First, "One life; live it." Second: "If law is so hard, why are there so many lawyers?" In the interests of gender harmony, we'll skip the third one.

VISITING ROTARIANS

Alicia Cragholm, - Lafayette

Mike Ball - Walnut Creek Sunrise

Dominique Yancey - San Ramon Valley

John Sherry - Lafayette

Larry Sly - Concord

Anna Stevenson - Lafayette

GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS

Annaliesa - Mark Lark's very-tolerant fiancee

Glenda Fillinger - Paul's and our Queen

John Kallio - United pilot, awaiting permission to land here

Mary Mark - invitee of Steve Ware

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES AND OTHER GOOD STUFF

We believe you, Dan

Dan Herbert claims he went for a "walk" to do some "mushroom hunting" for his anniversary. He also claims he gave Treasurer Extraordinaire Ernie Furtado a "check." It all sounded rather suspicious, but President Alex let it pass. (Hmm, maybe Alex is in on the conspiracy . . . .)

AND OUR MERRIE BAND JUST KEEPS ON GROWING

With George Chaffey doing the honors, we

At least George impresses Ron

inducted Claire Roberts and Ron Melvin as our latest Red Badgers today. After the traditional intro by George and welcoming handshake from all Members present, Ron and Claire got right down to the first duty on the road to their Blue Badge status - shining every Member's shoes and detailing their cars. Actually, since Ron is coming to us from the Livermore Rotary Club and Claire is Prez-Elect Mark Robert's

Claire's happy too!

significantly better half, we couldn't pull that one over on them.

Welcome, Claire, and welcome, Ron. We are delighted to have you. And thanks to John Fazel and Hays Englehart for sponsoring Ron and Claire, respectively.

SPEAKING OF DIRECTORIES

Hays speaks for everyone!

Hays Englehart and Lafayette stalwart Anna Stevenson announced that the Service Directory is now going to include eight area Clubs. What? You don't know about the Service Directory? It's a chance for every Lamorinda Sunrise Rotarian and the Members of each of the other seven participating Clubs to list their business info for distribution to all of the Members of the eight Clubs (and to anyone else we can think of). Also, if you want, you can buy a quarter-page advertisement for more exposure. Thomas Peeks will be handling the sign-ups for our Club, so hunt him down if you want to be a part of this - and you do want to be a part of this, right?

AND NOW FOR THE WEEKLY JOHN SHERRY ANNOUNCEMENTS

Heeeeeres John

You may have thought that John Sherry came to see us every week from the Lafayette Club because he likes us. Maybe he does, but he really seems to be motivated by wanting to make announcements to us. This week's litany included: (1) a report on the Reservoir Stage dedication (the rain held off and a grand time was had by all); (2) the annual Concert at the Res is coming up on May 12 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.; and (3) the annual Lafayette Rotary Golf Classic That Is Always Won By Lamorinda Sunrise will be held June 11 at the Rossmoor Golf Course. Well, technically, Hays Englehart announced #3 before John did, but we know John would have told us about the golf tourney eventually.

THE ANNUAL TASTE OF LAFAYETTE...

Got a winner there Ernie?

As reported by Ernie Furtado, is being held on the evening of Tuesday May 15th. This event is a leisurely walking tour and tasting at most of Lafayette's fine restaurants. In conjunction with the event a raffle is being sponsored by the Lafayette Community Foundation. The Lafayette Community Foundation raises money for numerous local charities and were the main drivers behind raising the $125,000 necessary to build the Lafayette Reservoir Stage. Ernie has raffle tickets available for purchase and you can purchase them from him at the next two Rotary meetings. Tickets are $25 each or five for $100. Raffle prizes include:

A year of dining at Lafayette restaurants (gift certificates from Taste of Lafayette participants)
One week at a Maui beachfront condo
One weekend at a charming Carmel cottage including a free BMW rental
Vacation at a South Lake Tahoe home including a free BMW rental
Other prizes

Please note that these are raffle tickets, not tickets to the Taste of Lafayette event. Tickets for the event can be purchased from the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce. . . .

MOTORAMA PLANNING IS PROCEEDING APACE

Everything's hunky dory in Motorama

Krysten Laine reports that Motorama 2012 is coming along nicely, but, of course, there is more to be done. For one thing, we need cars to display (Jim Kendall is handling that, but you can also take care of it on line at the Motorama website). Sponsorships and ads are trickling in, but we can certainly use more of those.

As for the wine barrel auction item, Chuck Bove needs wine from all of us. Bring in a bottle (retail value of at least $20, please) with a note saying who it's from and what it's worth to Chuck at any meeting - sooner would be better than later, please.

According to Krysten, Pat Flaharty is heading up the Motorama food efforts and Walt Nelson is in charge of the Rotary tent. But that does not even begin to cover all the volunteer efforts that are needed, so please sign up to do something.

Krysten will be out of the country for a few weeks enjoying, among other things, the Rotary International Convention in Bangkok. In her absence, forward any e-mail questions, concerns, etc., to Jim Kendall. He probably won't be able to give you a substantive answer, but he will be collecting them for Krysten in her absence.

PROGRAM: HOW CAN YOU BE A NATIVE SAN FRANCISCAN AND NEVER HAVE SPENT A SUMMER THERE? 

In the latest of the ongoing Expose Yourself series, Dave Waal stepped up and laid bare his life. He claims his life has been boring. The Club seems to disagree.

Nice try for sympathy Mr. Waal

After leading off with the obligatory "cute kid" photo and receiving the obligatory "what happened?" comments, Dave let it be known that he is Kid No. 6 of 9 Irish Catholic kids. Dave's father was from Hawaii (a descendant of the first Postmaster of the State of Hawaii). Dave's mother wasn't (her dad invented Tater Tots, the electric knife and a roller system for moving large quantities of hot or cold food while keeping them, wait for it, hot or cold). So he grew up on Green Street in the Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco, going to St. Vincent de Paul Elementary and St. Ignatius College Prep.

So how did he not spend summers in The City? Because summers were spent with either the grandparents in Marin County (no word on whether the Tater Tots were cut with an electric knife), on Hawaii because of his Dad's work, or at Lake Tahoe in the cabin his parents bought. Not surprisingly, there were no sighs of sympathy from the hoi polloi.

After four years of a Jesuit high school education, Dave headed off for the culture shock of St. Mary's College, a Christian Brothers institution. As if the jump from the Jesuits to the Brothers wasn't jolt enough, Dave left San Francisco for that wilderness at the back of beyond known as the East Bay. As Dave pointed out, to a native San Franciscan, the East Bay might as well have been a million miles away. Except that, once there, Dave found he loved it, and hasn't left since.

And in the Small World Department, when Dave left his first job at Xerox, his exit interview was conducted by a manager he had never before met named Alex Arnold. Then, when he went to work at D/A Financial in Orinda, his first manager was a certain Pat Flaharty. With that background, is it any wonder that Dave became a Lamorinda Sunrise Rotarian? Of course, Pat has his priorities, so he recruited Dave for the company softball team first, a team that also featured the self-same Alex Arnold.

How boring can all this be?

So what does Dave do in his spare time? Besides spending as much of it as he can with his wife and kids, not much. Just bicycling to Lake Tahoe every year or going on a trip to bike over the major alpine roads of the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia. Or snow skiing 25-30 days most years. Or water skiing. Or boating. (This last is, says Dave, a great family vacation because the kids can't leave and you all more or less have to figure out how to get along.)

Dave's life has not all been wine and roses, however. Thirteen years ago, he had a pain in the back of his head that kept getting worse. His wife took him to the emergency room. They sent him home. That was a mistake. The pain got worse, and it was finally discovered that a virus was literally eating his nerves. In a short time, he could not move. Dave was out of work for six months, the doctors are still not 100% sure what the heck was wrong with him, and there are still lingering effects to his sense of touch and his ability to register pain. No, that is not a good thing, because not feeling pain in exercising that most of us would feel means that he can suddenly become utterly exhausted, whereas we mere mortals would have some warning and slow down before thrashing ourselves so completely.

This medical nightmare obviously did not affect Dave's ability to view things in perspective or his sense of humor. He noted that his time recovering led him to evaluate his life and what was truly important to him, and to prioritize accordingly. (He is self-avowedly a "work to live" guy rather than a "live to work" guy.) He also observed that, when you are, as he phrased it, a medical anomaly, you get the full undivided attention of the medical staff.

Many thanks for the fun and enlightening presentation, Dave. Even if your life has been "boring" (a premise we do not grant), your presentation of it was a great way to spend a Friday morning.

He's a heckuva copy editor too!

Editor's note: A little bird tells me this will be Tom Black's final contribution as photographer for the Newsletter. His outstanding weekly smug mug offerings have been a true delight for everyone to enjoy. Tom stands alone in this regard as a true Lamorindan Newsletter partner. His professionalism and sense of humor will be sorely missed.  

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