Change of pace on Friday; our meeting was held at the Peacock Cafe at the Arboretum in honor of Arbor Day. It turned out to be a beautiful day for an alfresco lunch.

Both of our singing Mikes being out of town, your president led us in singing our perennial favorite, “R-O-T-A-R-Y.” Being Spring and mating season, the peacocks lustily joined us in song. The good news is that the peacock were so enthusiastic that they drowned out the questionable voices of us Rotarians. The bad news was that many of them misspelled R-O-T-A-R-Y.

YP thanked Jim Pontello and Aaron Morris for all their hard work in setting up this special meeting. These two guys are behind-the-scenes workers who do so much to make our meetings a success, not just for this special meeting, but for every week.

Aaron Morris led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and Brian Hall offered a prayer. Yvonne Flint introduced guests, and there were several. In fact, our guests made this the biggest meeting of the year, with over 50 in attendance. Your President also thanked Jerry De Lange for being our greeter for today.

We recognized Joanne Chinn’s birthday on April 26. Back at his old stomping grounds, former Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof was wished a happy birthday by the club for May 1. Ever the outdoorsman, Richard plans to take a hike to celebrate his natal day.

Three of our members were recognized for their Rotary anniversaries. Past-president Ashley Andrews was not at the meeting but was thanked for her  6 years of service to our club. Jim Pontello was recognized for 10 years of service in our club. And past-president Pat Dolphin was celebrating 30 years with Arcadia Rotary. 

There were a number of important announcements:

• First Friday Funday in May is going to be on the first Friday of the month! Imagine that. And it’s going to be special. Paul & Sandra Kalemkiarian are opening their beautiful backyard to the club for a fun late-afternoon get-together. One of the activities will be playing or watching pickleball on the K’s new pickleball court. Now, Imy Dulake was bragging to YP, something about her prowess on the pickleball court. Mike Danielson was planned to be one of our pickleball demonstrators, but his whereabouts are unknown and he is not expected to be back on this new date. We may just put Imy up across the net from the fearsome Mike Real. Should be interesting, folks. BTW, we have over 40 signed up for this event.
• The Teri Muse Memorial Walk-a-Thon will be on Sunday, May 19. There is a button in the High Gear that will take you to the registration page. Cost is $45 and the funds will go to support mental health at Arcadia High School. We will also be circulating a signup sheet at our meetings. It is about a 5K walk around Arcadia Park. And, walkers will participate in the opening ceremonies for Field of Honor by carrying one of the final flags to be planted at the Field the last couple of hundred yards.
• A flag assembly work session was announced for Mike Real’s house on Saturday morning at 8:00. At the time of this writing, that has already happened. About a dozen of us assembled, had coffee and donuts, told a few outlandish stories, and made short work of assembling 100 new flags. If memory serves, those helping out were David Fu, John Sun, Dong Chang, Gil Stromsoe, Frank Griffith, Pat Dolphin, Mike & Paula Real, Jim Pontello, Ray & Barbara Bushnell, Miguel Cea, and Bob & Patsy Harbicht. A fun, productive morning!
• You may recall that the Chantuers singing group from the high school entertained our club with their outstanding musical presentation last Christmas. The Arcadia choirs are hosting their annual benefit concert – “Choir Night Cafe” – on May 24 at 6:00 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center. All are invited. Contact Ken Chan for more info.

Your president reported that he – along with Brian Hall and Mike Real – had received a text from Matt Weaver

with a picture of his family near a beach in Australia. Within minutes, Brian responded with a picture of he and Betty in Scotland! The wandering Matt Weaver is still God-knows-where and wasn’t present at the meeting, but Brian was here and available. YP got Brian to his feet and commented on his total disregard for the feelings of Mike Real and himself, stuck here in Arcadia, working on Field of Honor, and other worthwhile activities and being taunted by their far-flung traveling friends. In an obvious plea for mercy, Brian noted, “It was an expensive trip, Bob.” YP replied that the trip was about to be even more expensive than Brian realized. YP consulted with Mike Real – the other stay-at-home – and a fine of $100 was decided upon.
Facebook occasionally shows postings from years ago as a kind of “remember this.” YP had one pop up of John Sun from seven years ago. The main thing YP noticed was that John didn’t look any different than he does today. In discussing this with John, YP said he couldn’t decide whether John looks seven years younger now, or maybe already looked seven years older seven years ago. Unable to sort it out, YP fined John $25 and let it go.
Interesting talk by Frank McDonough of the Arboretum about tree failure. It seems that much of what we are doing to maintain and protect our trees is actually counterproductive. And, there is a great deal of physics going into keeping trees upright. Frank always does a great job.
Next week we will hear from Tim Brick, who will be speaking on the future of the Arroyo Seco. Should be very interesting. Hope to see everyone there.
Bob HarbichtPresident