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Our May 15, 2019 meeting, or as President Joe affectionately calls it, week 47, started with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by Paul Deschambault’s version of the Four Way Test and Joe Bassett regaled us with yet another off the cuff prayer. I do enjoy setting with Joe B. He is one funny guy.
Our unknown President Elect, Fausto was another no show apparently saving up his Wednesdays for his presidency so President Joe introduced former member, Tammy Ackerman, who was visiting us.
Joe introduced Don Pilon who talked about our mini-golf fundraiser which will be this August or September. Don announced that so far Schooner mini-golf and Martel’s mini-golf have agreed to participate by donating $1.00 from each round that day to Rotary. Don is still working on Pirates Cove in OOB where Don is apparently a member. RP Bell has agreed to sponsor one venue for $1,000 and Don is looking for another major sponsor. Don will also be looking for hole sponsors and volunteers to work at each venue. Stay tuned, more to come. I am hoping we will have a chance to put some teams in this mini-golf tournament with a team fee to go to Rotary as well.
For the record, Joe thanked the members of the Scholarship committee for their good work and invited anyone who wanted to attend the last round of interviews for scholarship candidates to show up that afternoon. It is my understanding that our potential scholarship winners are incredibly impressive which perhaps means that we will have a strong next generation of leaders to keep social security going for us.
Joe again mentioned the Saco Bay Rotary Club’s murder mystery production called “A Pryce in Blood” which has a pirate theme. The information related to that event was in the May 8 Tack.
As a reminder, Brian Dallaire announced that May 29 will be Rotary Foundation Day which can be a lot of fun. The day is designed to encourage everyone to give to the Foundation. For everyone who brings in a donation to the Foundation (Brian is encouraging $100 gifts) they will receive a raffle ticket (minimum donation to get a raffle ticket will be $10.00). We ask members of the club to bring in their company swag such as t-shirts, coffee mugs, umbrellas, you name it. If your business does not have swag bring in a gift certificate you have laying around or go buy one to donate, but nothing too big. We will then draw raffle tickets and each winner drawn will be able to pick an item from the table full of stuff and then they can keep that item or Yankee swap with someone who has already picked something. It really is a fun meeting and everyone should plan on attending.
Visitor Tammy Ackerman drew the winning 50/50 number and it was hers, but then she donated it back so we stopped the Congressional investigation which would have cost millions and disclosed nothing.
Since President Joe talked non-stop for months about the May 11 Rise Against Hunger hands on event I felt I should comment on it. It was held at the Elks Club in Saco and we got to work with a bunch of Kiwanis Club members putting together dry packets of macaroni and cheese, 1000’s of them. We had a reasonable number of Rotarians there though I would still characterize the showing a weak. Of course Lucie Kay showed up when we were all done. The process included working on an assembly line putting together carefully weighed packets of dry ingredients while a former pastor preached about food insecurity, begged us for more dollar donations and told us that Maine (insert whatever state he is in) volunteers are the best volunteers in the world. This organization has raised money and put up somewhere around 1,000,000 meals this year which are donated to local food pantries so all of the packets we put together went primarily to the Biddeford Food Pantry. It was quite the process and not as easy as it may sound, especially if people don’t follow instructions, but it was fun and worth doing.
Mary Grohman announced that we will be putting flags on veterans graves in the St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Biddeford on May 24 starting this year at 9:30 so that some Biddeford students can join us. Please try to make it if you can. It was also announced that the Heart of Biddeford is looking for some volunteers to do a Clifford Park clean up on May 24 from 10:00 to 1:00. For more information contact the Heart of Biddeford. Finally, it was announced that this year’s United Way Day of Caring will be on June 5th and if you need more information about that contact Reegan Hebert.
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Matt Simmons was MIA, again, I guess he is now a substitute teacher which means he was duct taped to the back of a classroom door somewhere covered in spit balls, so President Joe had Heather McLean ably fill in as sergeant at arms. A lot of people had pent up happiness after missing a week including:
- Jeremy Ray has his heated pool open.
- Ken was happy about the Bruins and his son’s merchant marine internship being spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.
- President Joe because his son, Costa’s girlfriend is about to be a doctor when she graduates from UNE’s dental school.
- Steve Morin was happy because his daughter will receive her physical therapy doctorate this weekend as well and his wallet will start getting heavier.
- I am sure there were many more happy dollars but I stopped listening.
Heather did fine Mark Nahorney for his new Tesla. I saw the long extension cord in the parking lot. He got the one without the batteries. She fined Sabine for some Facebook pictures. What is Facebook again? And she fined President Joe for shutting the doors on her and Don at the beginning of the meeting. Don I can understand.
Our program had to cancel so Conrad shared with us some stories about his Dad’s life after his Dad’s recent passing. The life of Conrad’s Dad could easily be a movie or a 6 season mini-series. His life was hard, adventurous, dangerous at times and rewarding. I loved the fact that Conrad’s Dad would be doing something or hear a song and that would remind him at times about something that happened to him in his life, and that would inspire him to tell Conrad a story and Conrad shared some of those stories with us.
His Dad was born in Ohio so he was a US citizen but he grew up in Nazi Germany and became a medic in the German army during WWII. He was captured twice, spent 3 years in a US POW Camp in the US having survived the voyage to America at a time when German U-boats were sinking ships left and right (or port and starboard) and he spent 3 years under the Marshall plan in France before heading back to his family in Germany who thought he was dead. He then escaped Germany (long story from season 3, but I don’t want to spoil it for you binge watchers) and headed back to the US. He was eventually drafted into the US Army and was a medic in Korea but first married Conrad’s Mom. In Korea he saved Dan Blocker’s (Hawse or Horse on Bonanza) life. When he got back he made up for lost time and had 5 kids in 6 years or 6 kids in 5 years, not sure (season 4, mature audiences only). He worked in the plastics industry molding anything from things for NASA to BOSE speakers to toys for McDonalds (befriended Ronald McDonald who at the time was Willard Scott). He eventually moved to Maine, built his own house, worked at BIW and began a life of public service including helping veterans whenever he could. At 88 he became a Brunswick folk hero for beating up a young impolite truck driver in a Hannaford parking lot.
The stories came fast and furious. Conrad is understandably proud of his incredibly resilient father who survived and succeeded under conditions that would have crushed any of us. Clearly, we now know where Conrad’s sense of family and desire to help others comes from. Thank you for sharing Conrad. That talk was quite special. For most of you, you will simply have to wait for the HBO re-runs.