Highlights of January 27, 2022 Meeting

 

As members and guests were arriving for the meeting, they were greeted by Steve Ross.  

 

President Dan opened the meeting by introducing himself then reciting the Rotary International 2021-22 theme - Serve to Change Lives.  He then reminded everyone of the Rotary Vision Statement:

 

 

Don LaBarge explained that Greg Bouslog, who was attending via Zoom had planned to provide the program for the January 27 meeting.  He is employed at the Farnsworth YMCA and with COVID transmissions being so high right now, they have implemented a policy preventing employees from leaving the facility and coming back the same day.  They will revisit that policy in March and when that restriction has been lifted, Greg's program will be rescheduled.

 

Instead, a fun program was hastily put together with members sharing true stories from their own personal history.

 

Chuck Flint shared a very serious story from his past.  So serious, he feared he would die and die quite violently.  On September 10, 1981.  It involved the community involved with the Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church located in the southeastern corner of Arizona near Bisbee.  The community was comprised of African-American individuals who had relocated to Arizona from Mississippi and Chicago.  Their leader was Frances Thomas.  They were at odds with Cochise County officials.  At the end of a work day, As Chuck was driving, suddenly, he had to slow because the highway had suddenly become quite littered.  On his right, he saw a Ford van.  It looked like it had exploded.  Two people waived Chuck down and asked to be driven back to the Healing Center and Church.  There were two things that were clear to Chuck about his passengers.  They had trouble hearing and smelled of dynamite.  They were wearing green army jackets which appeared to be covered with bits of human flesh.

 

When they arrived at the church about 280 people were outside and some of the men surrounded Chuck's vehicle and were behaving in a threatening manner.  Because Chuck had delivered some of their own to the church, their leader persuaded the men to allow Chuck to leave.  He drove to the first pay phone and reported what he had observed.  Chuck learned that some members of the congregation were being held in custody by local Sheriff's department.  A jail break had been planned.  One of the passengers in the van had been carrying a bomb in their lap.  More can  be learned thru Wikipedia related to an event called the "day of fear."

 

Don LaBarge served with the Phoenix Police Department for 21 years before retiring in 1990.  After eleven years in the field, he had an opportunity to participate on a major felony team investigating class 3-11 felonies.  They worked undercover.  Many of the fugitives had vowed they wouldn't be taken alive.  Don was the first member of the team to become a lead detective.  He said it was a great career.  He enjoyed working with the FBI cases the most.

 

He recalled one homicide fugitive in South Phoenix.  He was about twenty.  They learned who his grandmother was.  She lived in a charming old house built in the 20's.  Don was impressed by her kindness.  She told them quite frankly that she would never call them, but neither would she ever lie to them.  About the third time they were in her neighborhood, she spotted the young man.  When they opened the door of their vehicle, the kid flew.  They radioed for field patrol support asking them to set up a perimeter.  They called in the dog unit.  The search dog went crazy near a stack of plywood.  The fugitive was underneath.  As they were putting the kid in the back seat, a raging pit pull came on the scene and grabbed the police dog.  One of the officers went to shoot the pit bull, but hit Don instead.  He had horrific pain in his leg.  Don remembered someone telling him "If you are ever shot and it really hurts, you'll be okay.  If you can speak, say "county hospital."  The county hospital is well-experienced with gunshot wounds.  The paramedics wanted to cut Don's pant leg off to they could control the wound site.  What they found was a piece of concrete.  Don had not really been shot.  The bullet had caused a piece of concrete to fly at Don's leg.

 

Don also told about how he met his wife, Chris, when he was in uniform.  While he was on patrol and they were pursuing a speeding vehicle, they came across a sorority gathering.  Some of the sisters were jay-walking, which is illegal.  In Don's mind, he was thinking "eeny meeny miny mo..."  He knew from prior experience that it would not be okay to ask for her number while in his uniform and on duty.  He told one of the other sorority members he could not ask that young lady (Chris) for her number, but if she wanted to give him her number, he could accept it.  Chris overheard and suggested he just run her plate and pointed at her car.  Doing that was also an infraction, but it worked.  After doing some research, he learned that she worked at Transamerica Title.  After he persistently called for a couple of months, they became an item which has lasted 44 years.

 

In case you are wondering the crazy pit bull escaped and the $84,000 police dog survived.

 

Don Boucher told of an experience when he was working in LA in law enforcement.  They would occasionally get calls from headquarters asking for the department to allow private citizens to do a "ride-along."  When they received one of these requests the parties they were asked to "host" were Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith from Miami Vice.  They were honing in on someone who was working undercover for the police but who was actually selling drugs on their own.  The officers were in one van and Don and Melanie were in another.  After observing what they needed to know in a 7-11 parking lot, they ended up in the undercover person's apartment - which was actually very nice.  While there, Don Johnson walked over to the young man and said, "If you're gonna do the crime, you're gonna do the time."  

 

Robin Harris shared that he used to have to do a lot of business-related travel.  Because he flew so frequently, he would accrue "points" that would allow him to upgrade to first class fairly often.  One time, when he had a red-eye flight from Phoenix to Newark and would be seated in first class, before boarding he noticed a young man wearing a yarmulke who was travelling with a young woman in a wheelchair.  Robin's first-class seat was in the second row next to the window.  He knew there were two black men behind him, but knew nothing more about them.  He couldn't help but notice, when they began boarding the coach passengers that passengers would stop in their tracks and stare at one of the men seated behind him. 

 

Robin heard one of the men asked to talk to a flight attendant.  After a quiet conversation, she told him they would see what they could do to accommodate his request.  Robin remembered seeing the young Jewish man and his wife go down the aisle.  She had been moved into a narrow wheelchair that would barely fit in the aisle. 

 

Before the airplane took off, the flight attendant came back and again spoke softly with the two men behind Robin.  They got up and followed her out of first class.  Before long, the young Jewish man and his wife were escorted to the seats behind Robin.  That is where they remained for the entire trip to Newark.  One of the two black men - the one who initiated the switch - was Mike Tyson.