Another sparkling autumn day was the perfect backdrop for the Rotary Club of Ojai’s meeting at Soule Park. With lots of visitors, the place thrummed with anticipation of a program that was, in turns, poignant, heart-warming and stark — a reminder of the horrors that lurk beneath the veneer of civilization.
But first …
Greeter Kathy Yee gave us a badge-scanningly warm welcome. Therese Brown led us in the pledge of allegiance, while Ray Powers gave a stirring invocation that reminded us to be grateful for our community, each other and the opportunity to be of service.
After our Prez gabled the motley crew to a semblance of order, she thanked set-up crew Mike Malone and Bryant Huber for their last-minute audiovisual rescue, finding an elusive projector for our presenter. Mike was also on the roving mic, and Ginger got a shout-out for the lunch buffet of chicken fajitas.
Guests included presenters Deb Walsh, her father Jerry Szamus (apologies for spelling), Michael Addison, Patti Strickland, Judy Norris, Joyce West and Lisa Berman.
Visiting Rotarians Judy Pugh and our erstwhile member and medical miracle man Dr. Robert Skankey were also in attendance.
On the buffet table were 12 named cupcakes for each of the dozen Rotarians who shared October birthdays. Cheree, ever the team mom, brought plenty of the delicious confections to share.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
• The October Classic, the 1k, 5k and 10k race/walk to benefit Ojai Valley Community Hospital’s Guild, is coming up Saturday, Oct. 26th. Cheree and ComServ director Bret Bradigan got a show of hands to form a team of Rotarians to show up for the good cause, at 7 a.m.
• Rotarian Parachute Plaque: Cheree’s gracious and grateful Parachute awardee (as in, “Who packs your parachute?”) this month is the inimitable Dr. Marty Babayco. Cheree praised his leadership on the Ed Foundation’s gift acceptance program and his wise mentoring as a past president and all-around problem solver. Congratulations!
• Membership Moment: Deirdre Daly and Jack Jacobs (mostly D) gave us an inspiring talk about the importance of membership - particularly the opportunity to bring in new people with new ideas to the club.
• 
Coming Programs: Bill Gilbreth, speaking off-the-cuff, gave us a preview of coming attractions.
- Oct. 18th - Deputy DA Mike Frawley will give us his informed perspective on the criminal justice system.
- Oct. 25 - former member Pradeep Kapadia will talk about “the ripple effects of a tertiary education in developing countries - a 20-year case study.”
- Nov. 1 - Robert Rosenberg will speak about the “Power of Chance.”
- Nov. 18th - guest Judith Norris will talk about her legendary legal career and the mentorship of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
• Taste of Ojai is coming soon, Oct. 27th and tickets still remain to be purchased. Enough said.
FINING
Colin Jones with bagman backup from Ren Adam shook down the crowd for an impressive sum with questions based on this month in history.One example: “In what year was John Lennon’s “Imagine” released? A. 1971; or “in what year was Gen. George A. Custer buried in full military honors at West Point? A: 1877. Among the victims were yours truly, Kay Bliss, David Scarlett, Jack Jacobs, Deirdre, Tara Saylor, Duane Boccali and Fred Fauvre.
Confessions? We have a few. Bob Davis was celebrating a birthday that ended with a “0” though he was coy about the number preceding it. Brian Berman urged everyone to come support Ojai’s many talented artists for the Ojai Studio Artist Tour. And Dr. Gross was heading off the next morning for Roatan, along with Dr. Skankey and lots of supplies and donations from CMH and Fred Farkhani’s Medicine Shoppe. Terry Beckett said that his insurance premiums went up 80 recent (ouch!) and that he installed a backup generator because of the recent outages during high winds. Thanks Terry. Now we know where to go when the power goes out.
PROGRAM
Sandy Buechley introduced her long-time friend and Patagonia colleague Deborah Walsh, who talked about her father (in attendance) and his family’s survival during the Holocaust. Of the Polish village of Trochenwald’s 3,400 residents in the 1930s, only 39 people survived the devastation of Nazi occupation. Of those 39, ten members were her family.
The gripping, saddening and inspiring story included such anecdotes as the near-misses during searches of the village by Nazi soldiers. One soldier discovered them hiding in an oven and was bribed into silence by Walsh’s grandmother’s fortuitously hidden jewelry. Another situation had them hiding under the floorboards in a cramped space, which was already occupied with two other Jewish villagers. Her uncle had to stand athwart two barrels of lye for hours.
Eventually, the family escaped into the deep woods, where they remained undetected for 2.5 years, “picking lice out of each other,” Walsh said of the deprivation, disease and fears of detection and execution that were the only constants. That and the hunger.
Jerry, her father, was only 4 at the time of the Nazi invasion, and was known to a noisy child, fussy and crying a lot. The situation got so bad that her uncle threw the crying child down a well, where only by finding a knobby tree root on which to stand, was he able to survive until being rescued by his mother. Another time Jerry’s own mother took him into the woods to lose him, so that his crying would not get the rest of them killed. He survived. In fact, his mother (Deb’s grandmother) took to calling him “the lucky child,” and told the rest of the family “their lives depended on him surviving.” He did.
Walsh concluded with the lessons that her father and family taught her about the horrors of the Holocaust, and how “one step after another” that we could, in turn, be led into such brutality. "First, people are isolated and dehumanized,” she said. To fight against the hatred, you’ve got to “stand up and speak out,” and to “lead by example.”
President Cheree concluded the gripping program with a highly relevant quote from 13-year-old Anne Frank,
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
