By: Gary Sloan
Guests were introduced. Kathy Gailey invited her sister who was visiting from Las Vegas and participating in the “Hot Chocolate Run”. Kathy vowed that she was only serving Hot Chocolate, not running. Joyce Castro, an honorary Rotarian from San Ramon Fire, was introduced. Lucky welcomed to the club again, our newest member, Kathy Richardson (formerly from the San Ramon Valley Rotary Club) Ian, a former Rotary President from Romania, came to the club with his daughter, Ana, and her husband Alex.
A new member was inducted into the club, Anu Singh who works for Bank of America, lives in Danville, has 2 kids and was sponsored by Kathy Gailey. He was given a Rotary pin, a red badge and two plaques commemorating the Objects of Rotary and the Four Way test. As tradition has it, the entire club lined up to welcome Anu with a handshake and congratulations
Then there was a commercial break as our illustrious President made an effort to introduce a former Interact member and infuse some youth into our midst by permitting this visitor (Chris Jo?) to share his entrepreneurial story culminating with his developing a watch company in 2016 and offering Rotarians the opportunity to acquire this product. A bit unconventional for our Rotary Club with best of intentions, I am sure.
A special presentation honoring fellow Rotarian Jay Tontz ensued. Jay traditionally provided an always anticipated yearly economic forecast to our Rotary Club and others every year. He has 42 years of perfect attendance now assisted by Mr. Greco, Weber, Harvey and Gunning carpool brigade. A plaque was presented to Jay in appreciation for his Rotary work and years of community service. It was rumored that Jay’s major accomplishment was bringing Dennis Garrison to the community and Jay’s greatest misstep was sponsoring Edgardo into our Rotary club. A much deserved standing ovation was given to our dear friend and colleague.
Birthday recognitions included Marv Remmich, a Christmas baby, and Terry Koehne who often times suggests that he is the second coming.
It was a great crowd at the meeting today but for those few who missed this New Year program, you missed a good one. The theme of the presentation today was “Unusual Jobs by Rotarians” with three presenters, Dr. Bill Harlan, Dennis Garrison and Mike Prilutsky. Dr. Bill shared that this presentation was really a tribute to long time Rotarian and past President, Stan Smalley who once held an artificial insemination of turkey job. Bill was also impressed with the great stories of member Rotarians sharing African adventures and business (Mark Hornstra) and family history in war torn Europe (Herman Welm) resulting in the feeling that some of our best programs came from the members themselves. We were not disappointed.
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Mike Prilutsky led it off by sharing his college experience in the mid 1960s where to make money for books and walking around cash shoveled 40 tons of birdseed, baled cardboard in a junk yard, cashiered at a grocery store and sold plasma. Not too unusual you say? Well, Mike announced that he was the first Uber driver in America in 1967 when he would drive to the airport, walk up to the gate of departing passengers and offer cut rate rides to students coming off the flight that need a ride to campus.
Dennis Garrison wanted to put his story into perspective by reminding Rotarians that he grew up in Roodhouse, Illinois a town of 500 homes. Roodhouse is not located at the end of world, but you can see the end of the world from there. When he shared with Bill that he worked as a stripper and in a cat house, Bill’s imagination went wild and Dennis was immediately booked as one of the guest speakers today. Today, Dennis explained that he stripped old parts from junk yard cars and in the spirit of Stan Smalley, literally worked in a research cat house collecting semen samples from mating cats.
Dennis Garrison’s job history was directly related to his mode of transportation. When he was 10 years old he would walk the neighborhood and do yard work, clear snow and distribute flyers. When he got a wagon, he collected pop-bottles getting $0.03 from participating grocery stores. When he was old enough to ride a bike he was able to venture out to the farms where he scooped a lot of poop when he was not delivering newspapers and work at a laundry mat. Once he got a car, he became a chauffeur for a wealthy Jewish family who wanted their children to go to synagogue in Springfield. After praying, Dennis took the kids to McDonalds and home. In college, he work in a pool hall, acted in the role of night operator at the University and security guard. Makes you wonder if Dennis would ever be able to hold down a job. Out of college, Dennis worked for an accounting firm at Illinois State University in 1978 and taught accounting as well. After slipping on ice with legs, arms and exam papers flying all over the place, Dennis decided to come to California… anywhere in California and ended up interviewing with a red haired professor at Cal State Hayward who had the vision and wisdom to hire Dennis. Now both Jay Tontz and Dennis Garrison were reunited at San Ramon Rotary Club with Jay still having red hair and Dennis showing signs of age.
Upon graduating, Bill Harlan left his father’s survey crew for which he received no compensation and got a “real job” for $1 per hour on a mink ranch. (you read that right, little furry creatures with voracious appetites). Bill, who is notoriously not good with animals, had the job of transporting food to keep these valuable animals alive. The owner of the mink ranch was always one step ahead of the law, traditional illegally setting up shop with several hundred caged animals then exhausting all the stalling tactics with the Health Department before moving the operation again. Bill’s job was to drive a 1948 Studebaker to obtain various food sources from slaughter houses. He was once charged with being a public nuisance for transporting cow lungs. One such trip involved driving to Turlock (there were no freeways in those days) to a poultry farm to collect twelve boxes of severed Turkey heads. The problem was that three extra boxes were packed into the front seat and there was no refrigeration. Half way home, driving at maximum speed of 10 miles per hour, Bill noticed cars swerving behind him and cursing him as they passed and to this day Bill has nightmares of 700 dead turkey eyes staring him accusatorially as he delivers this food to the mink farm.
Bill concluded the program by encouraging others with a wealth of stories to share them in a relaxed forum for future events.
The rambunctious meeting concluded with a raffle wherein Edgardo won a bottle of Chardonnay and Dr. Bill pulled a blue marble for $10 missing out on the $140 pot.
President Lucky implored members to attend the next meeting with a SURPRISE event occurring that you do not want to miss.
The meeting was efficiently adjourned at 1:11 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Gary Sloan, acting scribe
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and clothes to those in need, providing treat bags for veterans and get well cards for seniors. In concert with Rotary’s theme of making a difference, this grant directly benefits the local community.