President STAN SCARDINO opened today’s meeting by welcoming all attendees and our guests.  STAN thanked all greeters and his team who make today’s meeting, including

 

 

SONG OF THE DAY was “Happy Days Are Here Again” led by JOHN MCDONNELL.  We had a fun and cheerful time singing!

 

 

 

 

 

THOUGHTS OF THE DAY were presented by GEORGE STAFFORD: Tips for Aging Gracefully, by Clint Eastwood.  When asked how Clint Eastwood still makes and directs movies at 90 plus years of age: Clint responded: “Don’t let the old man in”.

 

INTRODUCTIONS:

 

Visiting Rotarians: Mark Flegel, Menlo Park Rotarian and past president, past Rotary International District 5150 Governor. Mark is also today’s featured program speaker.

 

 

Rotarians’ Guests:

 

NEXT WEEK’S SPEAKER: Dina Chavez, on Singing and Discussion.

 

 

 

LARC DIRECTORS ELECTION: President-Elect, CHUCK LINDAUER asked those who have not voted for

our candidates for the 3 directors.  Votes were tallied and the 3 directors elected are: SUSIE MIELKE, SANDY MINGIA and KRIS OLSON.  Congratulations!

 

 

 

TEN MINUTE TALK: VIVIEN D’ANDREA: VIVIAN’S parents met in England and moved to Detroit where she was born.  They moved to Redwood City when she was a child and grew up in Palo Alto.  She plays piano, violin, and viola.  VIVIAN likes to ski and still does.  She went to UC San Diego and then UCSF Medical School.  She met her husband who played cello with her in a quartet.  In addition to being a physician with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and one-time chief of staff at El Camino Hospital, VIVIEN has been very active in the community...she directed talent shows and was a co-lead for girl scouts.  She used to play soccer and then coached soccer.  Her family plays musical instruments together and is active in cycling and skiing.  One of her two daughters plans to be an opera singer and is currently in a ‘Capella group.  Another daughter is a resident in Psychiatry at UC San Diego.   We are fortunate to have VIVIEN joining LARC last year.

 

RON LABETICH honored TANIA RAZUMOVA for offering free lunches for the veterans at Foothill College.

 

March 30, 2023

The Garden House

Looking for all professional artists: painters, sculptors, dancers, singers, musicians, poets and other artistically creative professionals to showcase their talents and their artwork at our Rotary meeting on March 30th at Noon. The talented spouses of our members are invited to participate as well. The painters need to provide their portable easels. 

 

Please kindly send your very short bio related to your artistic background and include your headshot photo as well as the photo of your art to be exhibited on March 30th. or your photo while singing, dancing, etc...  to Lina Broydo at lina.star_pr@sbcglobal.net. 

For more info call Lina at 650-255-1081.

 

RECOGNITIONS: KRIS OLSON

Ever wonder where common phrases like; “Off the cuff”, “Let the cat out of the bag”, “Rule of thumb”, and “Going berserk” may have originated and why?  KRIS challenged us with these phrases and more.  She was very fair about it though.  If you had a different or thoughtful explanation besides the true answer, you paid less for trying.  Impressive creativity came forth on behalf of today’s “Fine People” under a bit of duress: 

The following are members who contributed:

SHIRLEY CHANG FLEGEL, PETER LANSBERGER, MARILYN MANNING, ROGER MEDSKER, CAROLYN ROGERS, RICHARD LONERGAN, GARY MAGGARD, PP CYNTHIA LUEDTKE, VIVIAN D’ANDREA, RENE ZIMMERMAN, AARON NEUFELD, and STEVE POMEROY.

 

FEATURED PROGRAM SPEAKER: Mark Flegel, retired President/CEO of Flegel Home Furnishings Inc., San Francisco Fleet Week Board of Directors for the past 13 years, 40 years member at Menlo Park Rotary.  Mark shared the history of The Young Paul Harris and how he founded Rotary International.

 

Paul Harris was born in Wisconsin in 1868.  His parents were divorced when Paul was 3. He moved to live with his paternal grandparents in Vermont.  At 7 years old, he reconnected with his parents.  His father left again in a few months and Paul went back to live with his grandparents.  Having done a lot of mischief in his early teens Paul was sent to a boarding school and later to a military academy where he had done well.  He attended Vermont University but was expelled in his sophomore year.  He went to New Jersey and later attended Princeton.  He went on to law school at Iowa State at the age of 21 and graduated in 2 years.

 

He decided to take 5 years to travel the world before practicing law.  When his grandfather passed away, with his inheritance, Paul traveled to San Francisco and worked as a reporter for the Chronicle, for a few months.  He picked grapes in Fresno for a few months before going to Los Angeles as a reporter.  He worked as a salesman in Florida for a few months and moved to Washington DC and then to Philadelphia before starting work on a ship to England.  It was hard work on the cattle ship, and he returned to Philadelphia.  His next job was working on a ship with farming equipment and he spent one month in London.  Upon returning to Philadelphia, he went to Chicago for the World’s Fair and was impressed with the advances in Chicago.  Paul moved to New Orleans to pick cotton, but the job was too hard.  He moved again to Jacksonville, Florida to work for his former employer as a regional manager covering the southwest USA, Cuba, and the West Indies.  After 5 years of travel, in 1896 at the age of 28, he went to Chicago to start a law practice. 

 

In 1905, he conceived an idea to start a club to network with other business owners and help each other’s businesses.  After changing the names several times, he decided on the name of “Rotary Club”.  They “rotated” their meetings among the member’s business locations every 2 weeks. In 6 months, they had 80 members and decided to meet at a restaurant.  In addition to networking, they started providing community services. 

Paul wanted to expand to other cities, but the local members did not agree. 

In 1909, Paul and his friend started Rotary in San Francisco.  They invited the top 100 community leaders to meet.  Then they talked to a group of 40 and they all joined and formed San Francisco Rotary Club.  They also started the Tri-City Club including Oakland, Berkeley, and Alameda.  Seattle soon became the 4^th city with Rotary Club and had 800 members.  In the same year, Los Angeles became the 5^th city with Rotary Clubs with 500 members.  Rotary was expanded to Winnipeg, Canada and then to England, Ireland, and to Shanghai, China.  By 1914, there were 100 Rotary Clubs in the world.  By 1925, there were Rotary Clubs in 60 countries.  Today, we have 34,000 clubs in the world.