In the beginning...
As a sparkling clear morning turned into a sunny warm afternoon, an assortment of good-deed doers ambled into St. Thomas Aquinas fellowship hall for a 75th anniversary meeting of the Rotary Club of Ojai. Hilarity and hijinks ensued.
The room was
packed as president Co-President Dr. Carl Gross welcomed us as the "Club with the Biggest Heart.” As Cardiomegaly is a major health risk, we may want to get that checked out .. perhaps board-certified cardiologist Dr. Fred Fauvre can give us a checkup.
Carl then thanked the following:
- “Little” Bret Nighman manning the lucre-collecting.
- Christine Golden warmly greeting us
- Don Reed leading the Pledge
- Tara Saylor with an inspired invocation from the pen of conservationist Terry Tempest Williams.
- Set up and tech: Jerry Maryniuk
GUESTS
We had many, including:
Mary Sawyer, an executive assistant at the Ojai Community Hospital, a guest of Haady’s, Beatrice Rodriguez, Kara Lakes, Antonio Sacré, Allison and Stella Payne, Yami Bernal-McCrary, Lynne Goldfarb, and Terry Campbell, Janet’s husband.
COMING PROGRAMS
Jack Jacobs 
teased us with a preview of superb programming ahead, including …
• October 27 with an off-site convening at Taft Gardens for a special lunch and tour arranged by Tara, with a talk by director Jaide Whitman
• November 3 with our own estimable Dr. Marty Pops with an insiders’ look at affirmative action. As Admissions Director for UCLA Medical School, Dr. Pops was embroiled in the fallout from the reverse discrimination suit brought by Allen Bakke which went all the way to the Supreme Court, who ruled that race-based preferences violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. It is particularly timely and relevant because the Supreme Court this summer stuck down all affirmative action programs at universities in the Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Come find out what’s all the hullabaloo about.
• November 10th & 17th: We have actor Anna Kotula and professor Francis Longstreet respectively.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Speaking of cardiomegaly, Tony Thacher gave a big-hearted appeal for Polio Plus, challenging us to do our part to end this water-borne paralyzing disease. The club’s goal is $4,000 or about $50 per member. From millions of cases in the 1950s in 129 countries, polio is down to a handful of cases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He also ran a message to Rotarians from Microsoft founder Bill Gates about the work of his foundation, partnering with Rotary to stomp out the remaining cases and consign this once-dread disease to the ash heap of infamy. “We’ve got to keep the faith or this disease will come roaring back!” he warned.
SERVICE ABOVE SELF
Bill Hatch introduced Katherine White, principal of Mira Monte Elementary, with four of the 27 students who were honored for “Service Above Self” awards. The four sixth-graders ran us through a charming presentation of their leadership group, which performs such tasks as handling parking for events, recycling bins, lost and found, and also managing school assemblies. They also explained the tools they’ve learned for conflict-resolution and other situations at the school, including Social/Emotional Tools, and Listening Tools, replete with the hand gestures they use to communicate, such as using their ears to communicate it’s time to listen.
FINING
Andy Gilman started with a round of confessions, led by Wendy Barker (“Mystique” exhibit opening and Halloween Party at the Museum), Taylor Saylor (a successful Search & Rescue operation), Kay Bliss (a suggestion to use auto-pay for Polio Plus dues), Patricia Gates (her Bridges Therapy website is up at BridgesTherapy.net and also for landing a huge deal to be an-network provider for a large insurer which expanded their potential client base to 8 million people!), Bill Prather (remorse for crowing up his pain-free first root canal, which balanced out because of the pain of his second).
Andy then asked a few questions based on etymology. Ren Adam (annular eclipse), Tony Thacher (avocados originated in Mexico and is the Mayan word for gonads) and Don Reed (quarantine, for the 40 days ships were required to wait in-harbor for the all clear) were tagged.
PROGRAM
Kara Martin Lakes, executive director of the Ojai Storytelling Festival gave us dates (Oct. 26-29) a call to action for volunteers and some background on the festival and its esteemed storytellers. She also talked about the festival’s outreach into the schools, and the difference kind of 
She then introduced Antonio Sacré, who charmed and delighted us with stories about his half Cuban and half Irish background. Among the tales he told were about his days at a puppeteer, which led to a career as a teacher. His first few years he was paid by his students with coin jars of suspicious provenance. He talked about the origin of his 8 names, given to him by his family, and the 9th name (Cool) given to him by his principal in kindergarten.
Antonio talked about his father, who told him he was proud of him for making a living telling stories, but that he “was the 9th best-storyteller in the family.” He ran through three of them, one a former Cuban pugilist, who got the cousins to clean up the streets in front of his abuela’s house by organizing them into a counter-revolutionary force with bazookas and tanks. And his Irish uncle, who taught generations of kids to swim by tossing them into the water. To learn about the other ranked family storytellers, you will have to attend the festival.
Antonio is also the author of several children’s book, is a writer for television and loves to talk to students, even junior high kids, widely known as one of the world’s toughest audiences. The crowd was on the edge of their seats the whole time as he reminded us of why storytelling is the world’s oldest art form.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Pres. Carl gaveled us out with this thought from author Sue Kidd: “Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here."
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