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Alright Rotary literati, let’s see how many Papa references you can pick up in this week’s Rotogram. This week’s Rotary movable feast was held at the Lansing Country Club and what a feast it was. The old man and the sea spared no expense and we dined on savory salmon, mashed potatoes and mixed greens, so no sloppy joes for us. Todd Gute provided an invocation calling on a higher power, lamenting the tribulations of those who have and have not and praying for our collective ability to learn from history. John Dale Smith led us in America the Beautiful and our voices soared across the river and into the trees. We totally nailed it.
Irv Nichols gave the remembrance report and most of us were pretty limber, thankfully no farewell to arms, but Jack Bates (new moan-ia) and Jack Draper (oh the gall of that bladder)were in the hospital. Let’s all wish them good health. Since nobody new died this week, we didn’t have to ask for whom the bell tolls (interesting that we actually ring a bell for that at our Club). President Lisa also called our man about town Ken Beachler to the podium for being honored as the 2016 Rotary Hero. Ken has been a Rotarian since Rotary was a club of men without women. Ken will be honored on April 23, 2016 at the District Conference in Kalamazoo. Apparently in the Beachler family, the son also rises to the occasion, as Ken’s father and grandfather were both Rotarian heroes in Greenville. Lisa will attend the festivities with Ken. The rest of us will probably think our standing ovation was enough hero worship. Ken, of course, graciously acknowledged the accolade and had John Dale Smith take a bow.
Special music returned today and although we didn’t hear a Dolly Parton Kenny Rogers duet of Islands in the Stream, we were treated to In Lillie’s Eyes which is featured this week and next in the Peppermint Creek Theatre’s production of The Secret Garden. Now that we’ve got Valentine’s Day behind us, we can handle the dark side of musicals, unrequited love. Spoiler alert, Beachler told us practically the entire play in the intro to the song. Next week, wear your Sunday Go to Meeting duds because Dave Trumpie is going to put the mic down, pick up the camera and capture our 100 year old self on film for posterity sake.
Getting Steve Roznowski to be serious when he’s at the podium is always a challenge, but today he had nothing but kind words of praise for our speaker, his 30 year partner at Christman, Ron Staley. In addition to holding down the fort at Christman’s Detroit office (27th floor of the Fisher Building that Christman built), Staley heads up Christman’s historic preservation unit. Not content with restoring historic structures across the US and the green hills of Africa, Christman’s latest project is Ernest Hemingway’s Finca Vigía, practically a garden of Eden, just outside of Havana Cuba. Staley had a great slide show of the Hemingway 12 acre farm where “Papa” lived from 1940 to 1960. With no new construction and lots of deferred maintenance since the revolution in 1959 (Godfather wasn't written by Hemingway, that would be Mario Puzo), Cuba’s infrastructure and that of the Finca Vigía is crumbling. Christman’s expertise (gleaned from restoring Jefferson’s VA Capitol Building, Notre Dame and the Ottawa Street Power Station), is being put to use to restore one of the Hemingway buildings to better house artifacts, manuscripts and Hemingway’s 9,000 book library. Many of the books are first editions with Hemingway’s own commentary written inside. Artifacts include everything from his hunting guns to a pickled lizard. Christman is packing 4 shipping containers to be dispatched to Cuba, including every conceivable washer, nail, screw driver, and hammer that will be needed to do the project because of the lack of available construction materials there. The Cuban and American governments fly speck everything to make sure it can’t be used for espionage or weapon construction. If you missed Friday’s meeting, my heart died a little death in the afternoon for your loss. Ron fielded a number of questions from the audience and was graciously thanked by President Lisa and we adjourned.
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Mark your Calendar! As part of the Centennial Celebration, we will be taking a group photo of the Club as part of our meeting on March 11 at the Lansing Center. Bring your best smile! Thanks!