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33 Down 19 Or So To Go
Where Is This Going?
Ronnie Speaks of 10-20 Club; His Upbringing; Altercation with Doug 
 
One Small Change -- - the meeting went fine, but someone needs to let speaker Ronnie Fernandez know that he needs to move his camera up from underneath his desk.                                                                                               (Getty Images)
 
 
This Past Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Downey Rotary President Willy Medina opted to attend and actually run a meeting for the first time in a while. To his credit, President Willy brushed off questions of, “who are you?” and “what have you done to the VP?,” knowing that dignifying such queries would only add to the circus-like environment that is a Downey Rotary meeting.

Larry Graces was capable in the invocation, President Willy himself intoned the Pledge of Allegiance, and, in shock of shocks, Patricia Megallon performed the Finemaster duties (see the article below of this when-pigs-fly story).

Downey Rotarian Ronnie Fernandez, finding a second career in Rotary speaking engagements, handled the program chores for the day. While the program was a serious review of former MLB pitcher Darrell Jackson’s 10-20 At-Risk Youth Club in Downey, it ended on a humorous note.

Ronnie recounted the story of introducing himself as a therapist to past District Governor Doug Baker. Mr. Baker, channeled an infamous Saturday Light Live Jeopardy skit where a befuddled Sean Connery selects a “Therapist” category answer by saying, “Alex, I’ll take ‘The Rapists’ for $200.” Being called “The Rapist” by some Rotarian he’d never met before, Ronnie wasn’t sure if he should leave Rotary and the meeting, or merely take a swing at Doug.

Thankfully, he did neither. Cooler heads prevailed: Ronnie is still a Rotarian, and Doug is sitting in a lawn chair in Palm Desert, nursing a beer and watching his lawn slowly wither away and die.

 
Next Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Ellis White, owner of Premier Fitness, will speak to us on Tuesday, presumably of...fitness! It won’t take Mr. White very long to look out over the Zoom meeting of participants to know that this group of Downey Rotarians need all the help they can get. It’s common knowledge that a Rotarian’s definition of healthy eating is consuming only two Hostess Ho-Ho’s when we're craving six of them.

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Nefarious Plot?
Visitor From LA 5

Chrissy Moses, secretary of the LA 5 club joined us via Zoom last week, ostensibly to spread Rotary love and fellowship. Sadly, the Hub Bub has learned that Ms. Moses may have had ulterior motives for visiting Downey Rotary.

We have it from anonymous sources (okay, it was the Rotary club of Bellflower) that Chrissy is part of a program by the LA 5 club to scout for local Rotary talent and induce prospective Rotarians to abandon their home club and join the prestigious LA 5 Rotary club.

Inducement comes in the form of $20 signing bonuses, Target gift cards, and undefined “warm fuzzies.” The formula seems to be successful as LA 5 boasts a 7% membership increase since the program started.

Depending on your perspective on the efforts of Ms. Moses, no Downey Rotarian was deemed acceptable to the elevated standards of LA 5. Apparently, Rich Strayer was briefly considered, but, according to sources, he was ultimately dismissed for being a little too “east side.”

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Say It Ain't So...
Who's the New Finemaster?

Reports of hell freezing over gained new credibility last week as news came to light that Downey Rotarian Patricia Megallon assumed Finemaster duties at last Tuesday’s meeting.

As the Finemaster position requires said person to speak for several minutes at a time, maintain a dignified composure, and extract funds for the club, it seemed unlikely that Ms. Megallon would ever serve in that capacity during our lifetimes.

Patricia used the upcoming Super Bowl and challenged Downey Rotarians to answer football-themed questions. The result was a rather embarrassing display of poor football knowledge: Maurice Casaus couldn’t identify the football position that exists for both offense and defense (the tackle), and Larry Graces failed to identify the scope of NFL Rule 17, Section 2, Article 3 (c’mon, everyone knows about the Commissioner’s power for unlawful football acts).

Next up for Ms. Megallon - reciting poetry in front of millions at the next Presidential inauguration.

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Bold Super Bowl Prediction
 
Scouts honor - these were my predictions, formulated with modest amounts of margaritas (no salt on the rim) and recorded on Saturday evening prior to the game:
 
Predicted score Tampa Bay 32 and Kansas City 10.
Predicted MVP is Tom Brady
Predicted Total yardage - 692 combined
 
Actual score Tampa Bay 31 and Kansas City 9
Actual MVP is Tom Brady
Predicted Total yardage - 690 combined
 
Okay, so maybe some small liberties were taken with the 4 Way Test, but the Hub Bub has never been viewed as a repository for either accuracy, or the truth. So, is the Hub Bub that good in its prognostications, or were aided by some sort of time traveling mechanism? We’ll let savvy Rotarians try to determine...
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John Is Worried
Lacey Writes, But What's He Saying?

Rotarian John Lacey submitted a brief letter to The Downey Patriot this past week, and the buzz going around in the Downey community is, “Huh?”

Mr. Lacey is choosing to be either subtle, or laconic, or he just likes to keep people guessing about what he hell he’s thinking. Insiders have speculated that a 10,000 word manifesto, (a la The Unabomber) is forthcoming in the weeks ahead. Regardless, his letter did end with the promise that we’ll be reading more from him in the weeks to come.

We can only hope it includes his infamous artichoke and chipotle dip salad recipe.

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Letter From the Editor

I’ve been in Rotary long enough to recall many of the noteworthy inspirational Rotary speakers. One of the best was the now infamous RI President Richard King speeches that always included his I’m-just-about-ready-to-break-down-moment when he would pull at your emotional heartstrings, and if he didn’t shed a tear, at least he knew you would. Yeah, it was calculated, and you knew it was coming, but damn, it still worked!

Fast-forward to 2021 and the new standard-bearer is last week’s District Breakfast speaker Brad Howard. An orator, he ain’t. A vocalist with a soaring baritone resonance? Nope. Striking looks? Puh-Leez! What Mr. Howard does bring to the game is a message of bold thinking and a new perspective to Rotary.

No, he’s not suggesting funny hats or secret handshakes (although that might be cool). Brad instead takes the position that Rotary isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a service organization. Our evolution into the preeminent service organization might have been natural and completely laudable. But it disguises the reality that our beginning as Rotary was a group that focused on members, and not service projects. Brad makes a strong case that the 21st century has introduced changes in family, time management, interests, and employment that upends the old model of Rotary growth.

His compelling theme? Create a club that your members will love, and wonderful things like club growth and service projects will naturally flow from an engaged, happy club membership.

I couldn’t help but see the parallel with my 30+ year career at All American Home Center. That family-owned retail story for most of its early history focused on the age-old maxim that The Customer Is King and it worked fine for quite a while. Generation Two of the family slowly introduced the radical belief that no, actually, it’s The Employee Is King. In other words, create a business that employees love, and the customers will be taken routinely care of.

And they were, until, of course, Generation Three reared her ugly head and it all went to crap. But that’s another story (to be told over adult beverages) and it detracts from the Rotary message that Brad promotes.

The Hub Bub encourages our program chair to see if we can get a recording of the District presentation for a future meeting. It was that good.

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SnapShot: Game of Numbers
By Lorine Parks
First-time Fine Master Patricia Megallon displayed her love for the game when she quizzed Rotarians about the Super Bowl. “What were Vince Lombardi’s 3 most important things in life?” she asked.
 
“I have no clue,” said Alex Lopez, so Patricia told him, “my family, my religion, and the Green Bay Packers.” The three guidelines for Al Davis of the Raiders would have been: win, baby; win; and, just win.
 
John Lacey announced that Ray Brown had published his Super Bowl chart in the Hub Bub, source of all wisdom. Since this was my first rodeo, so to speak, I had to ask John to tell me how his Super Bowl Lotto works.
 
I was given numbers 9 and 1 as the score at the end of any inning, and I had thought, the score of 1 is an impossibility. My bet was history, a contribution to the Club’s treasury.
 
But John was good enough to explain, “Your numbers are Tampa Bay 9 and KC 1.  So if the score at the end of any quarter ends in TB 9 and KC 1, you win money.
 
“Our SB pool WILL have 8 winners,” said John.  “Two per each quarter (Four quarters in a game). For example, if the score is TB 19 and KC 11, or TB 39 and KC 21, you are a winner.  Hope this helps” said John. “If not, let me know.” 
 
That put the fun back in the bet.
 
 
But then I did a little research.  First, there is a possible score of 1, called the technical safety.
 
So rare it has practically never happened, but the rules do state that “if the defense gets the ball in the field of play on a conversion attempt, and then a defensive player takes the ball into his own end zone and is tackled, the result will be a one-point safety: the offensive team will get one point.” That has never happened before in NFL play-off history.”
 
Patricia, you can add that to your list of questions.                   
 
Second bit of research, I began to wonder about probability, odds and random chance. Take a quick look at random numbers. At first it would seem, if 50 squares are sold, one has 1 chance in 50 of winning. The odds would be 50 -1.  But that doesn’t take into account many factors
 
The logic behind our 10K Winners Night is, 200 numbers sold, odds of winning, 200 to 1.  You can increase your chances by buying more than one.
 
But this is Super Bowl Lotto, and is based a specifically ordered combination of two numbers.  And if zero is included as a number, there are 10 of them. There are 4 quarters, and the numbers are not depleted each time. Chances begin again with each quarter.
 
So is it 1 in 100 each time, with zero included as a number?  Or much greater, considering the stipulation about team designation? For me, if I win, it will be 100%.
 
John put a merciful quietus to my thoughts: “It is all random really,” John said. “I have been involved with this for many many years and have seen all different combination of numbers win. Nothing is guaranteed.”
                                                                        
The Rotary Lotto rules allow 4 winners, and by the time you read, this Super Bowl will have been played and there will be 8 winners. John may be a magician, for all we know.
 
But the actual odds in the California Lotteries or the Irish Sweepstakes, are not so generous. The rules there are that no one has to win. This is why it is called the Numbers Racket, not the Numbers Game.  Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware.
 
Anyone have any other theories?  Send them to the Bub.
 
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