Meeting Recap for July 23, 2012
If it’s been awhile since you’ve been reminded that nice guys do finish first, you should have caught our guest speaker, best-selling author Robert Dugoni, at this week’s Rotary confab. More about the literary Mr. Dugoni a bit later, but first a quick covering of the usual and customaries.
After the pre-gavel meet-and-greet --with the wine flowing courtesy of Bill (elementary, my dear) Watson -- her honor, Judge Kim Mueller, bestowed upon us the Thought of the Day (on the benefits of hard work), and we moved next to the pledge and a little singing at the direction of Dick (Golden Pipes) Osen, before Sergeant-at-Arms, Rick Davis, took care of the requisite introductions.
President Peter Dannenfelser II then beckoned the eloquent Mark Huffman to the podium to introduce a new series, called “Centennial Moments”, which will cover some of the more historic contributions of the club to our fair city and its environs over the past 100 years. First in the series was our learning that the Rotary Club of Sacramento was responsible for ponying up $4,500 in 1920 ($65 million in today’s dollars [give or take]) to start the first Boy Scout Council in Sacramento, which still operates today (at the capable hands of our own Jim Martin) under the more familiar name of the Golden Empire Council. And who is the Boy Scouts’ “Distinguished Citizen of the Year” this year? Why, that would be our own President Elect, Thom Gilbert, who will be knighted as such on August 11th at Gibson Ranch (so plan to attend the event [5p.m – 9p.m.], or Amin Elmallah promises he’ll make 42 more announcements about it between now and then).
Sticking with the historical theme, one of the oldest customs of Rotary is “Brown Bag Day” (for you newer members, this is when the club commemorates how Paul Harris and his Chicago buddies started the tradition of the Rotary meeting by brown bagging it at each other’s offices). Contact Steve Shiflett or Barry Goldberg if you’d like to grab a piece of history and host one of the meetings on August 27th (by the way, the food is catered and delivered to your office so you don’t have to do a thing except let Rotarians in the door).
Turning to the sports page, John Swentowsky advises that our sultans of swat opened a can of whup-butt on the Elk Grove Rotary last week (official score: lots to not enough), and we once again sit in our usual perch atop the standings in the Rotary softball league. Our team has everything but a crowd, so head out to the I-80 softball complex on Wednesday nights and root, root, root for the home team (e-mail or call Coach Swentowsky for game times). By the way, John still needs volunteers for Loaves & Fishes next Tuesday (7/31), so lend a hand if you can.
If you can’t make the 31st with John, join Past Pres Skip (I look nothing like Edie) Lawrence and his dental pals on August 24th or 25th for CDA Cares – two days of helping our local dental professionals provide free dental care to Sacramento’s less fortunate at Cal Expo. Past Pres Skip promises you’ll be richer for the experience.
If you can’t help Skip on the 25th, the only acceptable excuse is that you’ll be 8200 feet above sea level, checking out the Yosemite high country with our resident Yosemite guru, Jim Phillips. More to follow on that, but Jim always provides a unique Yosemite experience for his fellow Rotarians, so save the date.
After some voluntary tithing by Rob Shearer, Clayton Lee, Susan Sheridan, and Jim Martin (fall on your sword before President Peter finds out about it – not a bad strategy, you four), to the podium strode another of our judges, the honorable William (Bill to his Rotary pals) Shubb, who introduced the aforementioned guest speaker.
One of 11 children, Robert Dugoni discovered his passion for books as a result of his disdain for weeding (you see, his mother [an English teacher], would often give him a choice of weeding or reading a book when he complained of boredom, and Robert was a smart kid), and by the 7th grade he knew he wanted to be an author. The road from 7th grade dreamer to bestselling author wasn’t as easy as that, of course (see the “About the Author” link at www.robertdugoni.com for full details), but Robert shared snippets of his journey, including giving up the comfort and wealth of being a partner in a successful San Francisco law firm to living in his wife’s grandmother’s house for free (all he could afford) to pursue his dream, persevering in the face of rejections (42 in all) from every publisher to whom he sent his first manuscript, to a chance meeting at a party that he didn’t want to attend, which led to his first best seller, and the publishers’ resulting clamor for the exact manuscript that they all turned down once before (which also became a best seller). Best seller after best seller has flown from Robert’s proverbial pen since then, and he’s just a darn nice guy (with a wonderful wife who stood by him during the entire journey, and who we were fortunate to have in the audience with us today). You see, nice guys do finish first. JBW