Craft Talks
by Lorine Parks
One of the best programs we have is the archaically named “Craft Talk,” when members introduce themselves to us in some depth without fear of getting fined for “advertising.”
Program Chair Roger Brossmer asked a trio of members to speak, from newest to longtime member. First up was Nathan Mahoney, a product of the Downey schools where he remembers having “Mr. Brossmer” and “Mr. Cartozian” as his teachers .
We know that Nate’s grandfather, Nunzio Barone, is, by great coincidence, a man who was sponsored for citizenship from Italy by our own Angelo Cardono forty-five years ago. Nate’s grandfather Nunzio still works at his jeweler’s bench alongside Angelo today.
But Nate did not go into his grandfather’s profession. Born and schooled in Downey, a 2003 graduate Downey High, he has for the last seven years worked in real estate.
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Second to speak was relative newcomer Mario Osorio. Mario said he came to the United States when he was thirteen, and is now a broker and vice president in charge of investments and insurance with Financial Partners Credit Union, a wealth management firm. He lives in Huntington Beach with wife Lisa and five-year old son Max, and commutes to Downey where his company has an office on Imperial Highway.
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Financial Partners Credit Union has been a longtime partner of Downey, Mario said, helping its residents with their financial needs as well as sponsoring various community events such as the Downey Christmas Parade and Rocket Fever at the Space Center. FPCU will be celebrating 80 years next year, “all in the great city of Downey.”
Mario was invited to join Downey Rotary by his sponsor, Raul Lopez. A two year member of Downey Rotary and a graduate of UCLA, Mario says he is grateful to be in Downey and to be in this club.
Where were you (if you were even born by then), on August 17, 1982? Manuel Gallegos was President of the Rotary Club of Downey, and on that day, long before he became a member, Jim Reynolds stood in front of Downey Rotary as a guest speaker and told about himself, as he did again today. For old timers, Jim recalled that Bob Kotob was immediate past president, and Howard Buswell was the director at the Association for Retarded Citizens, as the Arc was then called.
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Times change, as we saw when Jim passed around the souvenir folder presented to him on that occasion, complete with Manny’s signature and a picture of Jim in mid-sentence, resplendent in a powder blue suit and tie to match. Jim had dark hair and a brown beard in those days. And thirty-four years later, white-maned and silver bearded, Jim has fulfilled a life’s ambition, to become a Rotarian.
Jim recalled how he was born in a small rural town in down-state Illinois. He went for first grade to a one-room schoolhouse where six grades were taught, by one teacher, and he learned to read and write, and picked up a lot of other useful information. When he moved to California in the second grade and found that his classmates knew none of his skills, he tells us he thought, “these must be the dumbest kids in the world.”
Jim’s family settled in to Bell Gardens, where he graduated from high school, and was lucky enough to go to Rotary Interact Camp for summer in his junior and senior years. Here he met local luminaries such as half of the Rams’s Fearsome Foursome, Rosie Grier and Deacon Jones. Meeting the Rotarians who sent him there, inspired Jim with the thought that he wanted eventually to own his own small business, so he too could become a Rotarian, and know the fellowship they share. This is still an emotional subject for Jim.
Then Jim began to do something which would result in great opportunities for him: he volunteered. He volunteered for the Air Force, and after boot camp, eventually his volunteering took him to training in the same preparation for a moon landing that the astronauts experienced - in 1969, the year of the first Moon Shot, in which Downey’s North American aerospace firm played such an important part. Small world department. “I saw a lot of the world,” Jim says.
After his time in the Air Force, Jim wanted to join his father in his small business, and he is proud that after his father retired, his own son joined him and now runs the family carpet service. Jim has served as President of the Downey Chamber of Commerce and is active in Chamber affairs.
Jim joined the VFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, “the finest organization in the world,” and feels it important to keep us up to date on patriotic and historic moments in American history. The flag pledge being one of his special hobbies, he has informed us, for example, that all members of the armed services, whether on active duty or retired, may salute during the Pledge of Allegiance, while others are to place the right hand over the heart.