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Program for Friday August 22, 2003

Dr. Robert Hirst PhD Tales of the Mark Twain Archives

If you had spent 24 years at Berkeley Bancroft Library as Curator and Archivist of the largest collection of Mark Twain archival material in the world, you'd have a lot to tell. During all those years, you would have uncovered countless hither unknown gems of wisdom, bits of humor, anecdotes, original notes and personal insights about the person known as "America's greatest story teller. In the opinion of many noted authorities, Samuel Clemens, AKA Mark Twain, was our greatest author and social critic.

Dr. Hirst is brimming over with hither to unknown material gleaned from Twain's personal and family letters, journals, correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, awards and citations. With the assistance of seven dedicated resident editors, Dr. Hirst is accomplishing the huge task of compiling, editing and publishing The Complete Works and Papers of Mark Twain.

Door Duty: Joni Hiramoto and Ren Partridge

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Program for Friday August 29, 2003

Dr. Joseph Marshall The More You Know, The More You Owe!

Door Duty: Paul Hodgen and Joe Nusbaum

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Program of August 15, 2003

Steve Grossman

Making his second Richmond Rotary appearance in 18 months +/-, Steve Grossman of Oakland International Airport/the Port Authority of Oakland, was our guest speaker. Steve provided us with sort reminder of the great aviation history that was made at Oakland in the pioneer days of aviation 75 years ago. Given the current ubiquitous use and expectation of air travel, those names have become little more than the names of the streets surrounding the airport and its neighborhood. However, Earhart, Lindberg, Doolittle, Hegenberger, all made pioneering contributions, from Oakland, to what we now consider common air travel.

Steve recounted Oakland AP's Cinderella story when it lost 50% of its revenue in 1989 with the collapse of PSA and AirCal, but was then able to talk a l'll Texas airline into flying to Oakland. With the arrival and anchor of Southwest Airlines at Oakland over the intervening years, Oakland has become the second fastest growing airport in America, 16% a year.

Special Event
Mark your calendar on Friday September 5th for Governor Connie's visit to Richmond. Governor Connie Crawford will make her official visit to our club on Friday September 5th at noon. President Stoney would like to make sure that you and your spouse and/or sweetheart will attend this most important and festive meeting. A cocktail reception is tentatively planned for 11 AM. See you there!

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Last Week
With rumors circulating that Prez Stoney was playing hooky at an un named golf course at Tahoe, Acting Prez Dr. Herb Cole rang the bell and launched into the Pledge of Allegiance. John Nicol provided the members with a quote-of-the-day from Mark Twain, "To eat is human, to digest is divine." Dr. Herb thanked John, sortta, and asked if there were any visiting Rotarians or Rotarians with guests?

Visiting Rotarians

Guests
Barry Gordon introduced Rob Chambers, a colleague from PayCheck, a Mechanics Bank affiliate.

Dr. Herb introduced Mr. Barrios, his neighbor and father/host of the two visiting Rotary Exchange Students.

Announcements
Acting Prez Herb described one of Werner's more ambitious projects, an "11 AM Richmond Rotary cocktail party for the Governor of California (who is expected to still be Gray Davis). We hope this pending event is further described as the writer missed all of the details either because he was having difficulty cutting his meat or stunned disbelief.

Acting Prez Herb introduced Andrea Barrios and Charlotte Belgium, Rotary Exchange Students. Andrea is herb's neighbor and spent a month with Charlotte in Flemish Belgium visiting northern France and notable 20the century battlefields including Flanders and the Atlantic Wall. Charlotte was now reciprocating visiting the Bay Area.

Coming Speakers

Recognitions
Dr. Herb asked Mike Winter how things were going? As Mike and Cindy just celebrated their 43rd anniversary together with a week in Kauai, thing were going pretty good. Mike made a $100 contribution to Polio Plus as the members struggled to describe the official Earl Brown Paul Harris/Polio Plus check identification and nomenclature system.

David K. was all sunbeams and flowers as he had nothing to report. The members are doing well including Dave Ninomiya who is doing well with his treatment regime in San Francisco and thanks the members for their continued support and good thoughts and prayers.

Happy/Sad $$
X-Prez and terror of Van Nuys Blvd., David Brown had $10 really sad dollars because when he got to the 30th year reunion of his Van Nuys HS graduating class, all he could find was a room full of old people.
Capt. Richie B. had $5 really happy dollars because he just found out that Charlie Wong owns 16 cars. Richie's revelation touched off an impromptu discussion of local on and off street parking problems.
Jim Young had $5 sad dollars because he just realized that Richie B. (Simper Padis) is two tables over also taking "Flywheel" notes which can be guaranteed to add to the confusion otherwise created by Acting Club Management

Raffle
Nobody knew how much cash was in the kitty, but Andrea Barrios picked John Nicol's ticket (again). John picked a white ball.

Acting Prez. Herb, with much encouragement from the members, rang the bell (barely) and adjourned the meeting.