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TAXING ISSUE APRIL 15, 2023
VOL. 3 NO. 35
BACK HOME, IN THE BACK
NEWS-NOTES-NONSENSE
Look for your next Eastender News on May 13th. Until then...
On Thursday Eric Fields, Chief Engineer for the Terminal Railroad Association, was on hand to make a presentation about the TRRA. It serves all railroads moving cargo through the St. Louis region. It was founded in 1889 and controls the Eads, Merchant and Mac Arthur bridges spanning the Mississippi River. Eric gave a brief history of railroads in our area and the bad blood between early river shipping and the railroads. He concluded his presentation with a couple of videos showing the recently rebuilt Merchants Bridge in Venice.
First to arrive included AllenH, MarkS andRodC.
RodneyD took the podium and gaveled us to order.
It was nice to see MarkS and RodC for the first time this year. Happy New Year gents!
LoriP has your Baseball Mania tickets. Pickup your 10 pack today!
BillP announced that we have received our $400 check for our Christmas Wonderland duties. We are on deck for the December 5th this year.
LoriP told us that we have two RHS students attending RYLA this weekend. They and our RHS scholarship students will be joining us at an upcoming meeting.
AllenH was disappointed that his Chico's Coney Dog was served sans the chili.
BradL will be making the presentation, that we viewed last week, at the Woodland Golf Course in two weeks.
RodneyD read three thank you notes.
GeorgeM reminded us about the upcoming Refuge fundraising event. See the recent email from LoriP for all the details.
Birthday wishes go out to LoriP on the 17th, TommieM-23rd, PaulH and TammyI-28th and PattyW on May 6th.
Among the last to arrive-ChrisH, LeonardB, HenryS and JohnP.
18 members savored the crispy fried yardbird, Rotary g-beans, carrots, slaw and cookies.
SAA LeonardB accepted Happy Fines from JohnP and BillP. We had a Rotary Magazine quiz. The results were mixed.
Opening duties were handled by RodneyD, MarkS andBillP, who was thankful for back-to-back Cardinal wins and for the Pirates coming to town.
LoriP and PaulH allowed the 50-50 jackpot to roll. MarioS won the scratch-off.
Ciao! Have a fine and dry weekend.
Au revoir!
WONDERLAND BUCKS
FRIED CHICKEN FRENZY
ALL THINGS TRIVIAL
The rise of crispy chicken sandwiches has fueled demand for birds of a certain weight. which?
A-2 pounds
B-4 pounds
C-8 pounds
D-12 pounds
(Answer is found near the end of the newsletter)
Today is National Rubber Eraser Day
What state is known as "The Last Frontier"?
Montana
Hawaii
Texas
Alaska
In March 1867, Russia sold the enormous territory of Alaska — larger than California, Montana, and Texas combined — to the United States for the price of two cents per acre. The total clocked in at $7.2 million. Many saw this as money down the drain, decrying the negotiations as “Seward’s Folly,” after then Secretary of State William H. Seward. The extreme distance from the lower 48 states and rugged, unspoiled wilderness of the territory earned it the nickname “The Last Frontier.” Alaska joined the Union nearly a century after, on January 3, 1959, and even though it wasn’t the last state to do so (Hawaii joined eight months later), the nickname has stuck.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Sourced from the Make-Up and Banner newsletters
Mid-April 2012
The program presenter at the WR meeting was associate judgeKyle Napp, a 1985 RHS graduate. The EA club heard from Alton ortho doc Randall Rogalski.
Current member serving as club officers include-ScottL, LoriP, GeorgeM, CoryG and GeorgeT.
AlanaY claimed the $614 Queen of Hearts Jackpot. ChrisH had a shot at the $47 EA 50-50, didn't happen.
The WR club paid a $1,000 installment toward a project in Columbia that is being coordinated by WendellR.
25 hungry EA members dined on Julia's fried yardbird.
Bethalto's "Cousin" Jeff Dyer paid a visit to the WR club. Tyler Pitchford made-up at the EA meeting.
LoriP shared some RYLA highlights with fellow EA members.
LeonardB Donated $1 for every WR member voting in the recent consolidated election.
RhondaB helped SAA RickH collect a few $$ @ the EA meeting. CoryG nailed the right-or-wrong question, causing several members fiscal heartburn.
JohnP served as the WR greeter.
NEW WORDS
Words that were listed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the first time in
Rotary members in Serbia take part in a wine tasting event, advancing understanding and deepening connections between clubs involved in the Hearts of Europe initiative.
By Ann Marie Ellis, Rotary Club of Austin, Texas
I had been to Serbia in 2019 before as a tourist, but I didn’t expect that I’d develop a life-long relationship with the people, the country, and its traditions through Rotary. However, that’s exactly what happened.
In the spring of 2020, I received an email from former Governor Vladimir Matic in District 2483 (Serbia & Montenegro) asking if my club, the Rotary Club of Austin, would participate as the international partner on a global grant. The grant would be part of a new initiative called Hearts of Europe, which is a collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Rotary International.
This initiative builds ties between Rotary clubs in Europe and the United States as a vehicle to improve Transatlantic relations and promote public policy for free and open markets. Through small grants, jointly funded by Rotary and USAID, local Rotary and Rotaract clubs across Europe and Eurasia design and implement activities to benefit their communities, demonstrating a commitment to enhancing local leadership, capacity, and accountability.
This was early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and one project stood out: the town of Čačak in a region of around 250,000 people in southwest Serbia had no way to test for COVID. Matic connected me via email with Vesna Baur, the Serbian lead on the project from the Rotary Club of Čačak, and we began to work right away.
From the beginning, Vesna and her affable husband, Balz, who sometimes served as interpreter, became delightful, hardworking partners. We often emailed daily as we discussed next steps in the grant development. I was proud of our work, and the proposal was successful – one of the first projects approved. Today there are ten approved Hearts of Europe projects, five of which are in Serbia.
The grant proposed a remodeled space for a PCR Lab within an existing and older regional healthcare center. But the importance of the lab and its need for versatility prompted the regional authorities to build an annex just for our lab. While good news, it created a major delay in starting up the COVID testing project. To continue reading, link herehttps://bit.ly/3mnAadL
AND I QUOTE
"Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness."-Leonardo da Vinci
"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach love of reading."-B.F. Skinner
"A cat is a puzzle for which there is no solution."-Hazel Nicholson
"The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven't got the joke yet."-Oliver Herford
SMILE
What if my dog only brings back the ball because he thinks I like throwing it?
Which letter is silent in the word "scent," the S or the C?
Do twins ever realize that one of them is unplanned?
The word "swims" upside-down is still "swims".
Intentionally losing a game of rock, paper, scissors is just as hard as trying to win.
If you rip a hole in a net there are actually fewer holes in it than there were before.
BY THE NUMBERS
Mentions of “spicy” on restaurant menus have grown 8.5% over the past five years-Technomic Inc.
At the end of 2022, approximately 39,000 screens were in operation nationwide at roughly 4,700 theaters, compared with 41,000 screens and 5,700 theaters at the end of 2019- National Association of Theatre Owners
The number of millennial homeowners increased by 7.1 million between 2017 and 2022 to 18.2 million. boomers owned about 32.1 million homes, Gen Xers owned around 24.4 million-RentCafe
28% of older Americans own a wearable and 77% of those people use it daily-AARP
48% of quick-service restaurants like Starbucks, Panera and McDonald’s now give customers the option to tip, up from 38% in 2020-Toast
In February 2023, 21.9 million Americans were working part time voluntarily, up from 20.7 million 10 2022
(Trivia answer-B)
Rotarian Code of Conduct
The following code of conduct has been adopted for the use of Rotarians:
As a Rotarian, I will
1-Act with integrity and high ethical standards in my personal and professional life
2-Deal fairly with others and treat them and their occupations with respect
3-Use my professional skills throughRotary to: mentor young people, help those with special needs, and improve people's quality of life in my community and in the world
4-Avoid behavior that reflects adversely on Rotary or other Rotarians
5-Help maintain a harassment-free environment in Rotary meetings, events, and activities, report any suspected harassment, and help ensure non-retaliation to those individuals that report harassment
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