In a midday reprieve from the swelter of a late summer “heat-dome day," Rotary Club of Ojai members meandered into the Fellowship Hall at St. Thomas Aquinas for their weekly dose of good-doing and cheer. Assembling the space was the intrepid and integral re-president-elect Bill Prather. First up on the sign-in was Dave Brubaker and Michael Scar taking our lucre in ten dollar increments, while Suzanne Scar ably and amiably greeted us.
After co-president Kay Bliss did the ringing of the bell, Don Reed led us in the pledge, then Leslie Bouché invoked us with a spirited message of gratitude and service … “and so we give thanks for the opportunity to serve, and we thank the Divine for instilling in us this powerful urge to share - this inspiration of love, this obligation to love …”
Guests included Bret Nighman and Walt Hamann, and a lovely couple of visiting Rotarians from Ipswich, Mass. who talked about their sister Rotary club in Ipswich, East Anglia.
Club Business:
Kay thanked Wendy Barker and Tessa Turner for coming out in the scorching heat on Wednesday to move supplies for the diaper bank.
She mentioned several board and committee meetings coming up - including the Board meeting on Sept. 15 at 7:30 a.m. in the church center’s library. All members are welcome to attend. And Cheree Edwards is busy with the plans for the club’s 75th anniversary. Taste of Ojai is back for the planning. An initial walkthrough, review of previous event, and assignments will take place the 13th of September at 6 PM at the Libbey Park fountain.
Announcements:
• Bob Davis gave an energetic appeal for the Polio Plus fund, made urgent in the light of an outbreak of this dread disease making headlines. He reminded us that wild polio only survives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Kay urged people to get the polio vaccine.
• Leslie Bouché talked as head of the International Service Committee about the recent floods in India that ravaged Puri, India but bypassed the Prashanti School that our club has supported for years. A Global Grant of $18k which the ISC administered was at least partly to credit, as the purpose for the walls and drainage systems that were required came clear.
• Wendy Barker talked about the Rotating Meetings, hosted at a member’s business, on Sept. 23rd. Wendy at the museum, Bret Bradigan at his downtown office, Marc Whitman at his architect’s office and Greg Webster at Greg Rents in Oak View will be hosting.
• Sue Gilbreth talked about the Contra Dance group at the Art Center on Sept. 24th and how that will be fun and easy to learn. Contra dancing is a form of folk dancing made up of long lines of couples. It has mixed origins from English country dance, Scottish
country dance, and French dance styles in the 17th century. Sometimes described as New England folk dance or Appalachian folk dance, contra dances can be found around the world, but are most common in the United States (periodically held in nearly every state), Canada, and other Anglophone countries.[1]
A contra dance event is a social dance that one can attend without a partner. The dancers form couples, and the couples form sets of two couples in long lines starting from the stage and going down the length of the dance hall. Throughout the course of a dance, couples progress up and down these lines, dancing with each other couple in the line. The dance is led by a caller who teaches the sequence of figures in the dance before the music starts. Callers describe the series of steps called "figures", and in a single dance, a caller may include anywhere from six to twelve figures which are repeated as couples progress up and down the lines. Each time through the dance takes 64 beats, after which the pattern is repeated. The essence of the dance is in following the pattern with your set and your line; since there is no required footwork, many people find contra dance easier to learn than other forms of social dancing.[2]
Almost all contra dances are danced to live music. The music played includes, but is not limited to, Irish, Scottish, old-time and French-Canadian folk tunes. The fiddle is considered the core instrument, though other stringed instruments can be used, such as the guitar, banjo, bass and mandolin, as well as the piano, accordion, flute, clarinet and more. Some contra dances are even done to techno music. Music in a dance can consist of a single tune or a medley of tunes, and key changes during the course of a dance are common.
Many callers and bands perform for local contra dances, and some are hired to play for dances around the U.S. and Canada.[3] Many dancers travel regionally (or even nationally) to contra dance weekends and week-long contra dance camps, where they can expect to find other dedicated and skilled dancers, callers, and bands.[4] (Taken from Wikipedia)
This event is jointly sponsored by the Rotary Club of Ojai, the Ojai Lions Club, and Disabled American Veterans. For more information, click here. Tickets ($10) are available online or at the door. The dates are September 24th, October 23rd, November 19th, and December 18th. Let's get there and have fun!
• Kay urged us to sign up for the 5th Friday Social on Sept. 30th hosted at the beautiful beachfront Rincon home co-owned by Larry Wilde and Dennis Guernsey, a joint social with the Tuesday cohort.
• The club is also organizing a RCO Fireside Chat on September 15th at Ojai Valley Brewery on Bryant Street.
Special Awards:
Dave Watson received his Paul Harris award +5 for his $6,000 donated to the Rotary Foundation, and Michael Scar received his PH+3 and Suzanne her PH+2. Kay said that the foundation donations come back to the club in many enterprising ways, and that we’d like to get full Paul Harris participation in the club.
Fining:
Cheree took our money with her usual charming grace, and with a couple of clever turns to expose knowledge gaps in the Clubrunner site.
But first, confessions:
Al West said he and Joyce will celebrate their 68th(!) wedding anniversary, and he took a moment to reflect on the loss of Queen Elizabeth II and her 70-plus year reign. In fact, Al said that while in Canada, he received the King's Scout award in Boy Scouts, the equivalent of an Eagle Scout in America, which made him a member of a very select group. After Elizabeth II’s coronation, the high honor became the Queen’s Scout award.
Tony Thacher said the paper had a Labor Day profile on some of his employees, who with their diligence and sweat over the past 30 years, keep Ojai and the world supplied with citrus and other produce.
Bryant Huber nailed a question on why Baby Boomers are so called, while Greg Webster was not so lucky with what was the name of the generation that preceded the Baby Boomers? It was not, as most though, the Greatest Generation, but the Silent Generation. The Greatest Generation was actually children from 1900 to the mid-1920s, the parents of the Baby Boomers, while the Silent Generation was in between those cohorts, so called because children of that era were meant to be seen and not heard.
Carl Gross was asked how many club members were under the age of 50, according to Club Runner, which turned out to zero, because Greg Webster, Bryant Huber and Tara Saylor had neglected to fill out their birthdays.
Cheree told us that in an apt turn, Jack Jacobs, Bill Prather and Marty Babayco will turn 75 in time for the club’s 75th anniversary.
She then asked Deirdre was asked how many members had been in the club longer than Jack Jacobs, of which the answer was no one! A perfect attendee since the age of 24, he was the youngest yet member of the club.
Get Acquainted Talks:
With Sean McDermott out with Covid (though attending via zoom), it was up to Bill Prather to enthrall us with his story. And so he did.Born to a pioneer family in Lake County, California, just north of Napa Valley, he grew up close to his grandfather, and the routines of his young life revolved around the family resort, the Adam Springs Resort. He started mowing the lawn at age 10, and the learned the difference between employees and family when he ran over with the mower a patron’s towel. His father was a pilot who trained other pilots on the warhorse B-17 and met’s Bill’s mom at a USO Show, where she was a dancer. His sister Betty was known as “Betty the Body” and had a successful career in modeling.
A car guy from a young age, Bill’s first car of his own was a Porsche, an unusual car in the age of muscle cars like Chevelles and Camaros, but he traded the car for his house, and the car would now be worth millions. He struggled with hearing issues in his youth, “and got whacked across the knuckles more times than I recall,” he said.
A gifted athlete, Bill loved football the most but his talents lie in baseball. His coach, a former Giants player, was good friends with Willie “Say Hey” Mays, and Bill described his meeting with the Hall of Famer. Prather’s speed on the base paths - a lightning fast 15 seconds around the basepaths - was the same as the Giants outfielder.
Bill went to college at the University of South Dakota but left to play several seasons of minor leagues Double AA ball in Lousiana and then Fresno, as a pitcher, then a backup catcher. He lost his eligibility to play college ball, in fact, because of new NCAA rules on amateur sports.
He also attended Sacramento State for his bachelor’s in government with a minor in communications. He then did graduate work at UC Berkeley and found that he liked kitchen and catering work, where he pursued a career, mostly in colleges such as Nazarene in Texas, Oral Roberts University, where Bill was the flamboyant preacher’s private caterer. He also talked about working for country’s youngest college president, who tragically died at age 31 of gallbladder cancer.
He has been married for 50 years to Nancy, and is father of Doug, who owns his own marketing company after being a top executive at the Hair Club for Men.
But it was when the food service company he worked for in Malibu was the target of a hostile takeover, threatening the entire staff’s job, that he got out when the getting was good, relying on a talk with his friend, Bob Chesley, the science teacher and administrator at Thacher School, where Bill became the elite prep school’s business manager, until his retirement 12 years ago.
Final Thoughts...
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