Rotagram for Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Early Fellowship meeting (12p Zoom)

During that time several members were present and spent time catching up with one another.

Zoot recounted a story: When I used to run prison art programs one of the inmates told a story about one of his favorite days as a kid, there was this old man Gutierrez that wouldn't let anybody in his pool and he had the only pool on the street, and he had a big fence, and he snuck into the pool one day and the pool owner has a little dog a Chihuahua that would chase people out. And he snuck into the pool, and he got out and the Chihuahua chased him and Mr. Gutierrez is chasing him, “get out of my pool, and he get to the fence and the Chihuahua’s got him by the butt and he gets halfway over the fence and the Chihuahua drops, and he finally gets to the other side of the fence he stops and he’s catching his breath and he is looking kind of eye to eye with Mr. Gutierrez. Mr. Gutierrez is laughing and says that's the most fun I've had all year.

Opening: Ring bell. “Welcome to the Rotary Club of Fullerton”

Commentary:

Welcome to the Rotary Club of Fullerton. And welcome to our last meeting of the year. And we're going to do things a little differently today. So Sue, would you lead us in the Pledge? Yeah, actually, I'm going to take president Ken's cue that this is a patriotic moment. And rather than doing the pledge, because we just got through a contentious election and COVID and everything else going on in the country and we need some unity. Please stand for our national anthem.

Patriotic Moment: Zoot introduced Monette Velasco to sing the national anthem. Thank you Monette!

Invocation: Judy Atwell

This being the end of the year we kind of look back and say goodbye to this year. But we're also looking forward to the year and the days ahead. So I found this it's a prayer for the new year by Edgar A Guest and I thought it is so spot on. Grant me the strength from day to day to bear with burdens cut my way. Grant me throughout this bright new year, more to endure and less to fear. Helped me live that I may be from spite and petty malice free. Let me not bitterly complain when cherished hopes of mine prove vain or spoiled with deeds of hate and rage. Some fear tomorrow spotless page, or to as the day she'll come and go. Encouraged let me stronger grow. Let me with patience stand and wait a friend to all who find my gate. Keep me from envy and from scorn that shines the sun with every morn on great and low. So let me give my love to all who around me live. Or as New Year dawns today helped me to put my faults away. Let me be big in little things, grant me the joy which friendship brings. Keep me from selfishness in spite. Let me be wise and what is right. I happy new year grant that I may bring no tear to any I win this new year. In time she'll end. Let it be said I played the friend that lived and loved and labored here and made of it a Happy New Year. Happy New Year!

Club news:

Dan Ouweleen and Joe Lins gave us an update on the production of face shields to St. Jude. The said they would deliver a couple of thousand face shields this afternoon.

Finemaster – Warren Wimer

• Farrell Hirsch wife’s B-day (Beth) (Fine excused for anecdote)
• Dan Kiernan – Ann has a birthday on 12/27. $5.00 fine.
• Dick Mathewson – Congrats and reaching his 88th B-day. Dick almost went pro football for the Pittsburg Stealers but rather Dick decided to take a job at Kroger making more money than he could have being a football player.
• 2020 knock joke. Knock Knock. Whos there? Just leave it on the porch.
• Bob Jahncke, What is the significance of LGBTQ? (Let’s go back to quarantine) Correct, you are fine free.
• Warren wanted to recognize/ remember some Rotarians that have since passed. Pat Geary, Bob Hathaway, Bob Maxwell, Commander Bob Engelmann, Don Bankhead. We ask for a moment of silence for each of those rotarians. (Warren self fined for 5 ea. (5 x $5 = $25) Judy Atwell contribute $5. Dan Kiernan is giving $5 dollars each total $25. Ken Kaisch for $25. Daniel Stewart for $5.

Main program (Ken Kaisch) – As y'all got the word, I was approached by Santa Claus, a few days before Christmas. And he said that Rudolph was ailing. And he wasn't sure that that Rudolph was going to make it. And so since I have the red nose, he thought that perhaps I might like to help out. And, you know, when Santa comes knocking, how do you say no to that. So I couldn't be there last week. So sorry. But I was up at the North Pole, with just this amazing whirlwind of training about flight operations, and reindeers and scheduling and dodging missiles and anti aircraft fire. And somehow, we survived. Thankfully, Santa didn't have to rely on my rather poor skills at flying. So Rudolph was able to pull through, but it was still exhausting for me. And I have been recovering in a bunker underneath the North Pole ever since. So I'm now broadcasting to you from that bunker. And this is a time of year or last meeting, where I think thanks to Bill McGarvey. He started a tradition of Irish Coffee, and just sitting around together and kind of reflecting on the year and talking about our hopes for the new year. And I thought, you know, that's a tradition worth keeping, especially after year, as difficult as this past year has been. So one of the things that I've come to learn through my life is that every coin has two sides, there's a head to the tails. And We have certainly had enough of the tails this year to last us for a decade, maybe even a century. But it strikes me also that when you have such a strong negative experience or a set of experiences, there is going to be some bright experience as well. There are some things that suddenly you see from a different perspective. So, I thought we might spend our meeting today with our libations with one another and sharing What have you learned from all of the changes that have come your way this year, I'd like to end the year with reflection and reflection on the positive things, so that we can enter the New Year kind of with renewed courage and renewed resolved. So I think I'll maybe lead off with this. I had no real idea what a rotary presidency was going to be like. I've watched lots and lots of folks over the years, take the helm. But the day to day stuff, how to get things done, you know, I just really didn't have a whole lot of understanding of that. And I have been amazed at all of you. I've been amazed at how everyone has stepped up in whatever capacity they can to keep this club going to keep it alive. I've been amazed every time I've run into a problem. And I've, I've called up suits and said, Zoot, can you take the meeting for me? Or, or Susan, can you give me a hand here or every single time I've had people say yes. And that's pretty extraordinary. I've always known that it takes all of us to make things happen. But I think I've come to a much deeper understanding of that, and appreciation for that, that this club is a living organism. And we're all part of it. And we're all working each in our own way to, to keep this club going and to accomplish the goals that bring us together in the first place. So I guess the thing that I've learned the most this year, is, how important my friends are, how important my fellow travelers are, and how sweet it is to rest in that matrix of friendship, of love, of mutual support and caring. So, thanks. Thanks to all of you. Someone else? who else would like to share some of the bright learnings, the bright experiences that they've gleaned from this difficult year? Well, everybody speaking at once, I can't make it out for all of the babble.

(Warren Wimer) I was just on but if nobody else is going to do it, I did a little doggerel. If anybody knows. We sent Christmas cards, Nancy and I people on the East Coast friends at all, not locally, but if you if you want something, I'll start it off with a little note with deference to Zoots work as well. But a little note that I included with the Christmas cards, Nancy and I included 2020 not a totally busted year war, Nancy, and you are still here. Because octogenarians we never know so what we do is go with the flow. And the weeks have a sameness that isn't all that boring family tennis, walking pickleball. But no touring, looking forward to a new year vaccines for all the winning of graduation and back to the mall. So here's a toast to a brand new year, whether champagne wine, hard stuff, or beer is 2021. Our 60th comes to an end as 2020 our 60th comes to an adventure awaits around the bend. so joyful thoughts to all of you we send.

(Zoot Velasco) as president elect, I gotta just say that next year is going to be so much better than this year and what Ken has done with this whole pandemic thing, what can I say?

(Ken Kaisch) You and I are both looking forward to that. (Zoot Velasco) I blame Mike really cuz Mike started the whole thing. And he's not here so we can blame him without a problem. The pandemic it's all Mike's fault when you get down to it.

(Ken Kaisch) I knew it was somebody you know,

(Zoot) I promise vaccines in 2021 in my year.

(Ken Kaisch) Yeah. Okay, but I want a vaccine that doesn't hurt.

(Ken K) Okay, okay. It looks like it's a little hard to come up with bright things.

(Jim Williams) Well, on that note can and not to be contrary with Zoot. But one of the things that I miss, which might surprise you can but I don't think the rest of us was when we got to enjoy your musical preludes before our meetings as we wondered about saying hello to our good friends when we were still up at coyote hills. But I really appreciated the music and I look forward for the day after Zoot gets us all immunized to when we can meet together in person. But in the meantime, I hope that everyone will continue to support our zoom meetings. And I have a lot of appreciation for those that are making zoom meetings happen. I think everyone knows who they are. But I do appreciate the time that we get to spend together. Some of the best things and some of the tough things. Not private, but a little hard to share. Perhaps beyond that for me. I'll leave it at that. Dan looks like he wants to say something.

(Dan Ouweleen) I just want to say one thing I've learned it's a little boy scout saying but from this year is be prepared 1, because you never know what's going to happen in your life. And the other thing is, it just really struck me what amazing things can happen when people really do come together. And we've actually made a lot of amazing things happen even during this terrible situation with COVID. With the shields, today, just this last week, we were able to build 3000 shields, you guys some of you saw earlier Joe's here right now. Joe is going to be helping to deliver those this afternoon to St. Jude's. Thanks for everybody here that contributed to that. I want to do a special shout out to Susan and Thad, and Mikko and Joe who helped this last week in assembling the shields and getting them done. We also had Rotarians show up from about four other clubs. We actually got outnumbered by Brea. In any case, we had about 30 volunteers in all and thank you guys for making it happen.

(Jim Williams) Good Job Dan.

(Cathy Gach) Well, and I'd like to recognize our program committee that has put together terrific programs while we've been meeting remotely. It's been truly amazing. Great job.

(Jim Williams) And on that note, if I may, for everyone listening, looking forward to receiving your recommendations, nominations for future programs. For the first time, were not loaded, and we certainly have some good ones coming up. But please make yourself a note to contact us with things that you would like to see happening on our programs for 2021. Thank you.

(Minard Duncan) I'd like to say that for 2021, I'd like to be able to get to know the new Rotarians a lot better. I'm looking forward to that.

(Ken K.) I'm so looking forward to being able to meet in person again, and actually chat with everybody and kind of reconnect on that personal level. That's been one of the most important things for me in the club. So I'm right with you Minard.

(Bill Mathy) I have a question. We received an email a month or two ago, probably longer about the new membership classifications that were to take effect on January 1. Are we supposed to pick one of the classifications that we want? and submit that? Or are we going to be self assigned? What should we do on that membership classification? And I think that's for you, Dan, maybe you send out the email.

(Dan O.) Yeah, basically, it's up to everybody to select what classification that they feel they fall into and let should let really Kathy Gach know. So that start with the next quarter Billings go out. We've got them correct. So and if anybody didn't get that notification, just we can resend it.

(Cathy Gach) So yeah, I recommend that it be resent anyway, all of us need a reminder. Yeah.

(Zoot V.) And obviously, there's a lot less funding coming in than in years past when we had all the lunches to you know, people who paid for lunches and didn't come to lunches that we could use as extra money for things. We don't have that now. So if you're if you're thinking about your classification, you're on zoom. Regardless of what classification consider giving a little extra money to rotary, either international or the local, or the foundation, because all of that helps us do the things we do as Rotarians and give the Community Investment awards, as we've always have.

(Dick Mathewson) Hey, I'll make a suggestion to some people that we that several of you write letters and put them in the envelope with the card and some off to people and far, far off places we send in as far as Finland and Denmark. We I started two years ago, I found a couple of old Christmas letters as written. And so I decided to put them in a notebook along with a card that I'd sent at that time, and now I've got a book here full of them. And as I was writing the letters this year, I would suggest to you that you go back and read the previous year's letters. Very interesting. And the habit that I got into with my dad and many of you heard I left home for the first time to Boy Scout camp was to write, my mother every week I was gone. And first week I came home from Camp, my father said, Look, don't address the letter to me address it to your mother. He had written his mother every year for 60, 70 years on every Sunday night. So I found that when I got into my 50s and 60s, and I was still writing my mother and dad I found out it was good therapy for me to write the letter each week of what happened because you forget the good things and the bad things. And and then the yearly letter. I started reading this in December when I was putting together this letter and I said Holy mackerel. I remember that, that was a great year, I remember this and that, a good reflection for all of us, the receiver of the letter and the writer of the letter. And I just make a suggestion, Christmas time is a great time to do that. And I've got a book here, it's kind of thick right now. It's got all the cards and all the letters in it from way back into the 80s way back into the late 80s. Now I wish I had it from the 50s in the 60s, but I didn't.

(Ken K.) Great idea Dick. (Dick M.) the last thing that I would say on the letter this year was a Christmas style. Question How many retirees does it take to change a light bulb? Most of my writing tour in my class, high school or college or that I worked with in Kroger company, the answer is only one but it takes all day. And what do you do all week? Monday through Friday, nothing. Saturday and Sunday I rested. So those are things that I'm getting cards back from people that I enjoy reading their letter, they enjoy reading my letter. Interesting.

(Jim W.) You know I I'd like to take a risk here. And I know I may hear back privately later. But I would like to hear from Dr. Joe Arnold. Sorry Joe put you on the spot. But do you have anything words of wisdom you can share with the rest of us about 2020 and 2021?

(Joe Arnold) Well, grief, you know I have there been extra great good things happening in 2020. And in spite of all this most importantly, I discovered that the my young bride of 51 years, it was not a mistake to marry her, my wife Mary, she's been the greatest companion you can possibly imagine. We have a houseful, I think a little over 1000 volumes of books, we have DVDs, we have a classical music station. And we have each other. And for that I'm very very grateful. And our one of our oldest grandchild got into the college she wanted to go to she's a freshman at UC San Diego. And she actually is living in the dorms. And it's working out because all the rooms are single occupancy only. And the common room, you can't go into common rooms with five other young ladies, unless you're wearing a mask. And every one of them is doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And she's enjoying actually being a quote unquote on your own. Some of us may remember what it was like to actually go to college and be on our own. And to be a shall we say a pretend adult. But yes, an adult, and that's quite wonderful. I missed the most, of course, live performance. I'm a theatre person, I've been a theatre person virtually all my life. And not having the music and not having the seeing the dance and seeing the theater. But it it will come back I know it will not die, we'll be back. And a nice thing this year is just to pick up on the idea of keeping in touch with people. I find myself getting on the phone and calling people I haven't talked to for quite a while just out of the blue. just calling to say hi, nothing wrong, I just want to let you know I've been thinking about you. And I hope you're doing all right. And it's amazing the response you get from people. I can't believe you called? (Jim. W.) Did you try 911 that way? (Joe A.) Yeah. And they said we’re awfully busy, we'll try to get back to you, leave at least one phone number, maybe an email. But no, it's Yeah, it's interesting time, it's a time I think about young people. I mean, they're going to remember this for the rest of their lives. This is going to be I mean this, we haven't had this since 1918. And so you know, I guess what, about every 100 years or so we need to be reminded about how important the little things are. Being able to just, you know, just go out to the store going all the little stuff we did that we can't do this year, I can't go have a beer and a hotdog and an angels game. And we've got that to look forward to down the road. But I think the blessing of this thing is you get to, you have to stop and think about what's really important. And who's really important. And I think I would say a blessing of 2020 is made me stop and think a little more deeply and more richly about the people in my life and the people I care about. And so for that, I will give 2020 is a real blessing. I will also say that I will be very happy to see the end of 2020 looking forward with a veritable glee about sometime around June 2021. But I think we will be emerging out of all of these challenges are the starters. That's it for me. (Cathy Gach) I've often thought about how lucky we are that we live in an age where we've been able to compensate with the technology. And we're able to continue to have meetings and many of us life has gone on. Whereas those folks who went through this and in 1918 didn't have any of those things. So imagine what it must have been like for them. Yeah, that's very true. I would encourage you, I've called a couple of high school friends that I haven't talked to for 60 years or so and that's a kick, you find out what they did. And we're what what did you do and where were what life's experiences. Did you have the last one I called said I was always mad at you for leaving it. School in your senior year to go to prep school for a couple months, because I had to play center on the basketball team when you left and I hated center. He’d played basketball in college, he played for Bucknell and was a forward and he was a good basketball player. But he hated that to switch over the center because I had left for two months in the middle of winter. But you'll find out some very funny things. And whitepages.com. You get free service for a week. You can look up anybody in the world, believe me. And it's a lot of fun. And I looked up Rico Parente. And I figured he moved back to New Jersey. And I and I looked him up on white pages.com and Scotch Plains is right next to Plainfield. And I called him I said, Is this Rico Parente? What are you selling? He said, What are you selling? I said, I told him who I was, we had a great conversation for an hour. And he actually played a very high level of basketball in college. But it's just a lot of fun to talk to some of these people, I do it, I do it three or four times a year, I'll pick up and call somebody I haven't talked to for 50 or 60 years. They can't believe it. They can't believe it.

(Ken K.) We have the time to do that now. And that's special. So yeah, I didn't know about whitepages.com but it looks like I have a date there. One of these first days. They'll track it back. I called a person I sold a house to here in Fullerton and tracked them down because I knew it'd be a fun call. And they were living up on the island off of Seattle. And to find out well to make sure it was the right person I was calling they had all the addresses they’d ever lived at t including the Fullerton address from 15 to 20 years ago. Wow. So you knew you were getting the right person, opened it up by saying who is the best realtor you ever had in your entire life? She said that would be my mother and father and I didn't know, she was born into the family. We had so much fun talking about it. And it gave the age of their children and where they were. Whitepages.com, there's no secrets. There's no secrets. You get a free one for a month. And then after that you have to pay $1 a month or something.

(Zoot V.) You guys want to hear the top COVID jokes of 2020. All right, I'll give you a few of them. All right, Whose idea was it to sing Happy Birthday while washing your hands. Now every time I come out of the bathroom, my kids expect me to have a cake. My wife purchased a world map and then gave me a dart and said throw this, wherever it lands is where I'm going to take you after the pandemic ends. Turns out we're spending two weeks behind the fridge. Ran out of toilet paper we started using lettuce leaves. Today was just the tip of the iceberg tomorrow romains to be seen. My mom always told me I wouldn't accomplish anything by lying in bed all day. Look at me now mom, I’m saving the world. After years of wanting to thoroughly clean my house but lacking the time this week, I discovered that wasn't the reason. If I keep stress eating at this level, the buttons on my shirt will start socially distancing from each other. Every few days I try my jeans on just to make sure they still fit. Pajamas will have you believe all as well in the kingdom. Yesterday I ran out of soap and body wash and all I could find was dish detergent. Then it dawned on me. (Ken K.) Warren, come back. Knock knock. (Warren W.) Just leave it on the porch. Being quarantined with a talkative child is like having an insane parrot glued to your shoulder. Never thought the comment I wouldn't touch him with a six foot pole would become a national policy. But here we are. So you're reaching pretty deep in the towel for that. Oh, I got more. Let's see the World Health Organization. You know who the World Health Organization they announced that dogs cannot contract COVID-19 dogs previously held in quarantine are now being released. So it's clear Who let the dogs out. Ooh, the World Health Organization. Nevermind. Yeah. All right. Since we're all in quarantine, I guess we'll only be making inside jokes from now on. All right, they just get worse from here. So I will stop now.

(Jim W.) Why don't you send those along to us somehow? I'll send you the link there all. Are you on a link? I just put the link in the chat. So you all have it now. Matt Howells How are you doing with your business? Tara’s chance. How does that work in this quarantine?

(Matt H.) it is pretty tough. A lot of the all of our kids are really high risk. So we've been trailering the horses to the kids houses since they can't come and ride the horses. So it's quite the spectacle. But we go out and we light up their neighborhood and pull up with a trailer and some horses and the kids come out and feed the horses and we decorate the trailer and the truck. So that makes them smile. But yeah, we're doing creative things like that to engage our riders and serve out our mission during the pandemic. But it's certainly hard. And we actually just had one of the most careful people I've met during the whole pandemic, she had only been out of her house five times. They went to the hospital three times for her son's condition. And she came up to the horse stables twice to see horses. And she got COVID somehow. So she is really worried because her child is so high risk. So she hasn't even seen her son. And it's just the two of them. In 10 days. Now she's got she's got a couple of days of quarantining left. So we've been sending some of our staff over there to just hang out with her son in the backyard and just give him some form of social interaction at a distance. But it's not easy. That's for sure.

(Ken K.) I hope you have somebody with a video camera recording this because this kind of stuff would be great for a presentation at rotary. Great for your website. Yes, this is service above self.

(Matt H) Yeah, we definitely we definitely perform a lot of service above self and Tara’s chance. That's, that's for sure. Yeah. And it's kind of with the pandemic, just what can we do? Right, what's the best we can do? That's what we've all been trying to do here. So we've certainly learned a lot over the year. On a positive note for 2020, my wife and I live on a sailboat so I've learned quite a bit about sailing over the course of 2020.

(Ken K.) that is taking social isolation a little far Don't you think?

(Matt H) if we ever did contract COVID so far, we're good. But if we ever did, we would have a nice two week quarantine in Catalina islands or something, wouldn't be too bad. Yes.

(Warren W) Where's your boat birthed?

(Matt H) We're in Alamitos Bay, which is just above Seal Beach.

(Zoot) You realize that qualifies you to join the Fullerton Yacht Club, right?

(Matt H.) I'm not sure I'm Yacht Club material, but (Zoot) neither is anyone else in the Fullerton Yacht Club, I’ve met them.

(Ken K.) Warren, are you a founding member of the Fullerton Yacht Club?

(Warren W.) I'd left town by the time that was put together pretty much I was put together about 35 to 36 years ago.

(Bill M.) Matt tell us about your boat.

(Matt H.) It’s a 32 Catalina. I don't know. What do you want to know about it though? 32 feet or 1932?

(Bill M.) How many people visit take to man the boat, just to sail.

(Matt H.) My wife and I are pretty good. Just the two of us. I mean, for sailing. We could get underway just yourself if you just use the motor, but it is kind of hard to sail solo.

(Bill M.) Have you gone to any place exotic like Long Beach or someplace like that.

(Matt H.) San Diego is our farthest sail. And Catalina probably about a dozen times. Yeah. Okay. And then pretty soon here we're going up to the Santa Barbara islands.

(Bill M.) Any dreams to go Hawaii or someplace? Hawaii is the goal.

(Matt H.) Yeah, we're shooting for maybe even next summer is coming up summer we might be trying to do Hawaii. It's more of a time thing though. It takes two weeks to get out there. Yeah, you're a little limited when you go seven miles an hour?

(Bill M.) There is a rotary special interest group of sailors that you can check out if you're interested.

(Matt. H.) I would join that that would be fun. As long as they have a good Polo, they gotta have a good shirt.

(Warren W.) They’ve got lots of good gear. It's one of the hidden advantages of Rotary or some of it is the International group I belong to the international or I did for a long time belong to the international Rotarian yachting fellowship. And as a result, I got to go on people's yachts in, in Holland and in, in, in France and in get to go into like the Victoria, Yacht Club, things like that. And nobody hardly knows about the it's (IYFO) International Yachting Rotarian Fellowship. If you've got a boat, you should look into it, I don't know where the local chapter is. It used to be anybody in this club. Remember, Marty Burbank? District Governor. No, no district governor Marty Lockni. He was the Commodore of the International fellowship of yachting Rotarians for two years. And he got me involved in it. And it was a great experience. So and there's fellowship for many, many different things. RVs and, and all kinds of hobbies, skiing, skiing fellowship, but if you're into skiing, we went to Alaska, Alaska with the international fellowship of skiing Rotarians. And it's a lot of fun, because you meet kind of like minded people from all around the world. And it's an advantage that people should take more advantage of.

(Matt H.) It's definitely fun to go on other people's boats. And we had a we had a 1986 catch at the end of our dock, and we made friends with them and, and that boat had been seized twice. The first time it was drug smuggling up from South America to the United States. And they showed us where they had all the little compartments with the drugs. And the second time the guy was not drug smuggling in it, but he was a big time drug dealer and he had got arrested and part of his assets were the boat. So the Coast Guard took it again. These people got it. It was a pretty interesting.

(Bill M.) How long have you lived on your boat?

(Matt H.) We're new. We're like four or five months.

(Zoot V.) He hasn't been in our club much lately, but our past president Marty Burbank is a big sailor you should get to know.

(Matt H.) Post pandemic if anybody wants to go out you guys just let me know.

(Bill M.) How did you convince your wife to live on a boat?

(Matt H.) Oh, there was no convincing. She was all aboard. Ah. My wife loves it. She loves it just as much as I do. Yeah. She was in the Coast Guard as well.

(Zoot V.) Day 121 at home and the dog is looking at me like See, this is why I choose the furniture.

(Ken K) You know, that's a great note to end on. So let's go out and resume chewing the furniture and go out as always and be good people and great Rotarians. We are adjourned. Thank you so much. See you next year.