Well we have reached the end of August and three meetings have passed with no Rounds, no tour of the Otter Cove and no peaches. Well, I’ll try to remedy the first do- without (I know you all have been suffering), hopefully we’ll get our missed tour soon and, fingers-crossed, make up for the last omission next August. So here goes, with Rotarians attending our last three meetings at Broadway Park either in person or via Zoom.
August 12th Meeting: Wally Cole gave the invocation after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and The Four Way Test. Brags or fines were limited to Steve Andrews being happy he was finished with the quarantine necessitated by his wife coming to Fergus Falls from New York City and Dan Johnson for having to leave early. Buzz Lundeen introduced Blayze Buseth who talked about the Kickstarter Campaign he launched in 2019 named “Tom’s Adventure.” Blayze has been to China twice. The blue balloon cartoon character he has created allows Blayze to combine his love for porcelain art, ancient vessel forms called artifacts, and storytelling centered around Tom’s adventures in China.
August 19th Meeting: Wally Cole again provided the invocation. Keith Olson was the first to offer a brag, noting his son’s marriage the Saturday after our meeting. Buzz Lundeen happily reported he became a great-grandfather the prior Monday. Randy Kempfer paid for an article in the newspaper and President Anthony felt he had messed up on something so paid for that. One of our newest members, Zach Stach, was the program and he brought fresh zucchini and cucumbers from his garden for anyone who wanted to take some. Zach, a Fergus native, married Wally’s youngest daughter and their family consists of children from his prior relationship and born to him and Amanda. He and his wife met when Zach was 21 and managing a pizza parlor; until he learned otherwise from Wally, he had thought of the chiropractic field as mostly “quackery.” He decided to go back to school and received his bachelor’s degree at St. Cloud State and then attended Northwestern Health Sciences in Bloomington for his chiropractic degree. Zach spent a lot of his time in the Twin Cities dealing with sports medicine and athletes, working with the Human Performance Center, the Minnesota Vixens and a professional tug-of-war team. He moved into the family practice area upon coming back to Fergus Falls. Accompanying Zach to our meeting was “Jeff,” a human skeleton, and he talked about doing both adjustments of bones and muscles, using different tools for “scraping” muscles depending upon where they are located on the body. Zach does “cupping,” which Michael Phelps made famous, which is done to improve blood flow into an area, thereby improving performance and range of motion. He ends every treatment utilizing a messaging machine, as a treatment can cause a little inflammation as part of the healing process. He also does advanced relief therapy (“ART”), where muscles causing a problem are identified and then one works through a range of motions to bring blood flow to an area. He also will give his patients good exercises to do and had all in attendance do a posture exercise that helps the spine get back into proper alignment. Overall, there are 188 different techniques chiropractors can use. One is acupuncture but obtaining certification in that is very expensive. The number of treatments can vary, but Zach noted that shoulder issues can be difficult to address, sometimes requiring up to 10 to 12 treatments to see marked improvement.
August 26, 2020 Meeting: John MacFarlane gave the invocation. Brian Tjaden reported on a possible service project, helping the probation office in town (where his wife works), in a voter registration effort. An event is planned for Tuesday, September 22nd at the Public Library and assistance is needed on getting out word of the need to register and helping on the day of the event. Brian also talked about a possible fundraiser that would entail offering shredding services in the community, working with a company that offers these services. The Board will discuss at its meeting next week. Kathy Austvold talked about the possibility of taking our meetings back to the YMCA, which would require us to have no more than 30 in attendance, no more than three persons per table, doing our own contact tracing, and having to bring and take all our normal Rotary paraphernalia to and from each meeting. It was noted that except for Kathy Austvold, all the female Rotarians attending (Katie Johnson, Lois Josefson and Mary Pettit) the meeting were doing so via Zoom. Steve Andrews bragged that his spouse flew back to New York the day before and their daughter, Alice, had started a new job with a different bank. John MacFarlane noted Africa had been declared polio free. Keith Olson reported on his youngest son’s wedding the prior Saturday and that Kim and he had been married the fourth longest of all couples in attendance – 37 years. Kathy Austvold made it to a niece’s wedding in Pennsylvania, told us flying Delta “was not bad,” and was happy that both her parents were able to attend the ceremony.