Well, This Was a Busy One...

Well, sir, we may have set a new world record: today was the first meeting of the third Rancho Rotarian to serve two terms as President of the Club.  'Twas Brud Dufficy (who was last president back in 1923,I believe) who did a fine job of leading the pack of wild dogs that has become our Rotary Club.  Aided by Chase Armer leading the Pledge and Mr Chicago Bears on the song, the meeting got off to a rousing start.  The quote for the day was from Will Rogers, but your poor reporter couldn't hear it in the back,so here's one from our favorite British wartime Prime Minister: "Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions."

 

 

Guests?  We had a slew:  Our favorite City Council member Linda Budge came today, as well as Ken Press, guest of Ross Johnson's (more on Ken in a minute) and at our table, Marvelene Weier brought her daughter Heather to lunch.

 

 

  Heather is a nurse in the burn unit at the Med Center downtown, and claimed that she didn't know anyone in the room, save her mom.  

 

 

 

 

In any event, we all began pigging out on some fine Eyetalian victuals and before long it became time for the weekly ritual: announcements.  Here's a couple:

 

     1. Ross Johnson gave everyone a page detailing the upcoming Crab Feed that can be copied and handed out to prospective crabby people.

 

     2. Charter Night has been delayed until March; the new date is not in concrete yet.

 

      3. Paul Schubert reminded us of our commitment to help out at the Carmichael Crab Feed the week after ours.

 

      4. We're looking for a Texas Hold 'Em chairperson to partner up with Community Council for a spring time frame poker tournament.  See Paul if you can take on this important job.

 

 

      5. District Conference: May 13 - 15 at Northshore Lake Tahoe

 

      6. Just when it looked like the announcing derby was over, last week's Sarge stepped up and presented the Super Bowl Pool winnings to Sharon Ewing ($15 for the score at the half), and Pat Orelli ($25 for the final score).  Sadly for Steve Forseth, he was not in attendance to collect his $5 for the 3rd quarter score and as we all know, you gotta be present to win (although fairness dictates that we at least give Steve an "Aw shucks, tough loss, mister..."

 

      7. Paul Schubert is looking for a good man or woman to head up the wine bar concession at the State Fair.

 

And that, as they say, was that.  Next up was the traditional weekly drawing and this time guest speaker Joe Scheimer drew Dr. Bob Adam's number from the can, and for the $127 prize, Bob strove mightily to remove the correct ball (as doctors are wont to do) and failed spectacularly, garnering a small, sad white sphere of indeterminate origin.  Tough luck, Robert, you'll do better next time.

 

 

Next to the front of the room was Ross Johnson, who introduced his guest, Ken Press, who many will remember was the person who engaged us last year in providing water cups to the runners in last year's Parkway Half Marathon.  Ken was here to present the Club with a formal thank you for our effort and recruit us again for this year's event.  In addition, Ken's organization is donating $10,000 toward the installation of a water fountain in Hagan Park, where we, in the likely guise of the Club Foundation, will throw in the remaining $3000 to complete this public service project.   

 

 

Since we found ourselves short of time for our guest speaker, President Brud asked Sergeant Ross Johnson to snap it up and so everyone just dug down into their wallets and threw a few bucks toward bagman Ray Wyatt and it was guest speaker time.  (Potentially world record #2: fastest Sarge's session in recorded memory)  Introduced by President Brud. former Rancho Rotarian Joe Scheimer gave us the benefit of his insight into the Viet Nam War.  He described his job flying light planes in Cambodia in support of the effort to remove the threat of the North Vietnamese in that region.

 

 

  Joe gave an insightful history of the conflict, his study having reached the conclusion that politics got in the way of effective warfighting.  Well presented and at the end he got the customary book and the room cleared as if the Hawaiian Civil Defense guy had just arrived with his own microphone.