Your Weekly Get Up & Go Has Been Updated

     Sugar Time…you might have recognized the music as Mr. Dave Morse tickled the ivory last Friday to welcome us to another Sunrise Rotary meeting.   However halted abruptly by the clanging of the bell signaling the “real seriousness” was about to begin.  So after a vocal rendition of America the Beautiful and Smile a slew of visitor introductions began with ….Matt Crider and his rising star daughter Isabel;  Chuck Cunningham introduced Nina , the newest at Cunningham Engineering;  Patsy Inouye bragged about  Dr. Carolyn from Sutter;  Matt Dolcini’s lovely daughter and Mr. Wandering Brandow’s wife Brooke.

     Without missing a beat, Vanessa Errecarte jumped up to remind the group of the hands on project scheduled Saturday, April 1^st (no joke) to build garden boxes at Patwin school. Leader of the Day is none other than Jack “the handy man” Latow (no joke).  Sign-up sheets going around.  Get your name down.  Vanessa promised lots for everyone to do including the kids, so no excuse and a good time to involve your family.  Larry Olsen gave a pitch for our Annual Jay Gerber Young Professional event at the Cycling Hall of Fame on April 13^th.  Pass the word to your friends and neighbors (Applications can be found here).  Carolyn Stiver gave us MOW requests for a copy of everyone’s driver’s license and automobile insurance to help protect their liability.  You can bring copies when you are scheduled to deliver meals or mail it to them. 

     In typical Rotary fashion we hazed inducted our newest member Jacques Franco a Science and Policy Fellow at the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy.  He has an extensive 30 year history in a variety of positions relating to environmental science.  Jacques is from Lima, Peru; an avid long distance biker and married for 36years to Galia they have three wonderful children who have since given them two super grandkids.  Sit next to him and introduce yourself to discover more.

     Up popped Tim Daleidan, our Sergeant of the Day who immediately struggled to gain control but quickly began collecting Happy Bucks and leveling fines.  Seems Dick Berry was pleased, as he should be, to have his latest carvings on display at the Senior Center through tomorrow, so check them out today!  Gary Johns visited Missouri to wish his mother Happy Birthday greetings and then snuck in an Aggie game in Tulsa (I’m not sure how that worked).  Meaghan Likes is thrilled that their chickens are 2 years old…dinner anyone? (If you mean quiche… then sure!)  Carolyn Stiver was happy to be alive but a bit tearful at the specific birthday number for which she doubled and donated to our Foundation combining a challenge to all the March babies to do the same. Nancy Storm was thrilled by a financially successful Crab Feed benefitting the Crisis Nursery and was indebted to Andrew Yang to come to their rescue with our Rotary sound system.  Lori Raineri and Daisy completed a 100mile ULTRA marathon and were thankful for the 14 friends who came out to stroll along with them at various intervals.  Brodie Hamilton got a shout out for an article in the Stanford Sentential for his Pro-bono work to help Santa Cruz to decrease their traffic and parking demands.  Bud Harmon, getting ready to really retire, was acknowledged for his years of family photography when 1/3 of our members (that was impressive!) stood to indicate Bud had taken pictures of their family over the years.  And Bud’s comment, a humble “Say Good Nite, Gracie”.  Vanessa Errecarte and Clay Brandow were acknowledged as Aggie band member and a Domes resident respectively.

     Our Speaker, Stephen Mikesell is a historic preservation specialist and public historian, and lives in Davis, California. He has worked in the historic preservation field since 1980, including a decade serving as the deputy state historic preservation officer in California. He has also worked for private environmental consulting firms, ranging from small businesses to a NASDAQ-traded corporation. He currently runs Mikesell Historical Consulting, a small historic preservation consulting firm in Davis. Throughout his career Stephen has focused on preserving and documenting historic bridges and other engineering resources.  His professional work has involved historic engineering features in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. He has written extensively, including Historic Highway Bridges of California (1990) and historic bridge–related articles in The Public Historian and Southern California Quarterly. He wrote a book on the steam-era rail line, The Sierra Railway (2016). His interest in the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge dates to 1998, when he wrote the historical documentation for the Historic American Engineering Record, prior to demolition of the East Span of the bridge. His latest book A Tale of Two Bridges will be released this summer. Mr. Mikesell holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard University and a master’s degree in history from the University of California, Davis.

      Stephen Mikesell spoke on the documentary Bridging Urban America.   He shared the interesting perspective of participating and appearing in speaking parts on a documentary film.  The documentary is on the career of Ralph Modjeski, the principal engineer for the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.   Ralph Modjeski was the son of a Polish Shakespearean actor who immigrated to America.  Seems young Ralph was torn between studying music and engineering.  We should all be grateful that engineering won out.   Originally they estimated the Bay Bridge would need to handle 70,000 cars a day, which it did gracefully plus 5 times more!  Ralph Modjeski held the belief that bridges should be permanent, functional and a thing a beauty. Mikesell then shared yet a small part of this most interesting documentary and the challenges faced and overcome in design and construction of the Bay Bridge.

     Then Dave Heard shuffled the cards and let Isabel draw the ticket that did NOT draw out the Joker so the pot grows. 

     President Manny clanged the bell closing yet another “memorable” Davis Sunrise Rotary meeting.