Reciprocator 8/5/09

By Art Endo

If you missed the meeting, you missed greeting all our guests. However, let's get started with the beginning which was only 2 minutes late. Our president plagiarized from almost every club in

District 5280 with his greetings rather than sticking to the wording "patented" (sic) by the late Clifford Bollman, who was club president for 1969-1970.

Steve Davidson, substituted for his "cus" by giving the opening prayer, Bobby Matsuyama led the pledge of allegiance, and then Joel Forman led in singing a song that seems to have replaced "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"' for the 7^{th inning stretch in every major league ball field this year, except for Wrigley Field in Chicago.}

After letting us fellowship for awhile since the lunch still had not been served until after 12:30, the president returned to the microphone to call upon Cy Pierce to introduce visiting Rotarians. But Cy deferred to Steve Davidson, who welcomed his new successor colleague, Eric Hatfield, C.L.U., past president of Century City, and another associate, the guest speaker for club foundation board meeting, Bing Newton, C.L.U.

Carmen Portnoy then introduced professor Dr. David DeGravel of Cal State Northridge, Kaveh Rosham of Duplitex Printing & Graphic, and Maurice Joffee, CPA, who owns the building in which Rod Miyata is a tenant. Carmen later introduced late arriving Dr. Jacob Chodakiewitx of the Neuro Center for Pain & Tremor.

Clint Ehlers had Joe Stevens of Bruce Consultants as his guest. Ann Murakami introduced the person who helped get the stuff contributed by our club to K.K. Mugambe's Rotary Club in Kenya thru customs and into Kenya - Jonathan Cowley.

Finally, Cy Pierce introduced Christina Fields. the manager of Bank of the West in Culver City for her "third" visit. Unintroduced, but still welcome, was Culver Coombs, who sat quietly next to his father. With so many guests to welcome, Chris King had an easy task in leading the club's "welcome song" with gusto.

We learned that Ernie Garza was in the hospital, but he is already out and plans on going on the Mammoth fishing trip next week.

President-elect Linda Black was regretfully not feeling well, so the president called upon Carmela Raack to promote the collection of school supplies for the District project and since she "can do it in her sleep" - the District announcements. "Boom Boom" said the club will take a pledge of $5 or more if you want to let Linda just buy school supplies for you and, yes, she could rattle off announcements for all the upcoming District events like she was planning them all herself!

Clint Ehlers turned over the "book" for the second time to Bryon Mooney who will have the book at Culver West Convalescent Hospital, 4035 Grandview Blvd., in Culver City with the 90066 LA mailing address. The president called upon Steve Davidson to eloquently explain the several purposes of signing the book after this author hoped that more people will sign the book than the five the first time Bryon had the book. This author verified his memory. There were only 5 signatures the first time in early 2008 with one additional person leaving his business card. Although the club collected close to $300 from those not signing the book the first time Bryon had it, let's get acquainted with Bryon and go sign the book this second time around.

The president assessed $10 each from Kathy Haworth for her "past president" name badge and from Rebecca Young for receiving her new member badge.

Then the meeting got out of control when the baseball "commish" ruled that Cy Pierce got a triple by bringing the Bank of the West manager to the meeting for the third time. This ruling got a rousing boo from many in attendance, including the author, since it is our understanding that the membership baseball game started with the meeting of Aug. 5th and past performances did not count. Of course, when we subsequently found out the "commish" was on Cy's team, it was clear that the members of Kathy Haworth's , Jim Machado's, and Don Trepany's team might as well start planning dinner for Cy Pierce's "black sox" team.

This became even more evident when Jim Machado complained that Carmen Portnoy should be on his team rather than Cy's and the 'commish" ruled that a legitimate "trade" had taken place. Carmen got two singles and two doubles for Cy's team with her guests for the day. This in spite of the fact that Carmen's administrative assistant did all the cold calling. Carmen, keep up the good work and keep them coming!!!

The president retained control of the meeting by fining Allan Goldman $20 for not finding his gavel. This, of course, is based upon the invalid assumption that Allan knows what happened to the president's several misplaced gavels. Carmen Portnoy was recognized for the familiar amount of $20 for arranging to get traded to Cy's team. Jim Machado was another $20 poorer by not helping the president find the kangaroo that the president lost right after receiving it from Joel Forman. Is it fair to all concerned when you blame someone else for what you did?

Our guest speaker was Bryan Walls of Crime Fight who humorously illustrated various means of crime prevention. All of the products demonstrated by Mr. Walls, except the toy gun, were "for sale" through the speakers company. The speaker had door stoppers, window stoppers, and car signs, but the best over-all prevention device, in his opinion, was a pepper spray device.

The president presented the speaker with a "cigar candy", which I think is an original, unique, and edible "thank you" to our program speakers. Steve Davidson volunteered to give the closing joke and than the president smoothly closed with the phraseology patented (sic) by the late Cliff Bollman: "you are always welcome at the friendly Rotary Club of Culver City". Yes, let's welcome all our club guests in the future since we hope that many of these guests would like to become new members.