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| Summary of the July 14th Meeting |
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We celebrated Bastille Day with a long line of Red Badgers for our greeters. Later, President LARRY STONE commented that in Past-President ROD DIRIDON'S just concluded year we brought in 41 new members, 20 of whom were under the age of 40 years. So Red Badger Committee chairman GREG YODER has a lot of youth and energy on his team.
RAY SILVA led us in God Bless America, with PAUL TUMASON at the piano. JOHN LUNDIN gave us the wisdom of the day from Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, who was a keen observer of the new United States in the 1830's and 1840's. He said "I believe the American Republic will endure until its legislature learns that it can bribe the public with the public's own money..
The next business was the introductions of a large number of visiting Rotarians and guests of our Rotarians, presumably in recognition of Ed Asner, our speaker for the day. Red-Badgers JOCELYN GARCIA-THOME and RICH ROBINSON had the traveling mike duty for the day. President Larry called on CHRISTINE BURROUGHS to tell us about the Children's Musical Theatre, one of the organizations we sponsor, and to introduce JIM ELLER's daughter ADRIENNA and SEAN PLATZKER, who gave us two of the songs from "Miss Saigon", a long running hit on Broadway based on the theme on Romeo and Juliet. The polished work drew a good round of applause.
Next we had the introduction of two new members. President Larry presented TAYLOR NUMANN, who must certainly be one of our youngest members since she is a 2009 graduate of Princeton. Despite her youth, this graduate of San Jose's Presentation High School has already acquired a solid list of credits evidencing her commitment to service and to help the less fortunate. Along the way she achieved All-Ivy honors in playing soccer. MKE CONNIFF introduced our next new member, who is Professor DIANE GUERRAZZI of San Jose State. Diane's interest in international studies was whetted by a year in Italy on a Rotary scholarship, and she is now a Professor of Journalism at San Jose State. She is scheduled to lead a tour to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
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MAUREEN EVERETT was up next, with a fascinating and heart-warming report on the International Service Committee project for the Siloe School for the Blind in South Africa. We learned that there is no government program to get audio materials for these youngsters, who can be inspired and learn from the audio materials we are supplying. The presentation was highlighted by photos of the children and our Rotarians who were visiting them, including Maureen and MARY STENSETH.
Looking ahead, President Larry said our speaker next week would be our County Executive Jeff Smith, and the speaker on July 21 would be San Jose Earthquakes goalkeeper Joe Cannon. He then called on Nick Nichols to introduce Ed Asner, our speaker for the day. Mr. Asner gave us an interesting and entertaining talk about his life and how he found a career in acting. Along the way, he told us about the positive aspects of growing up in Kansas City as the son of immigrants. He said it was a vital place as the meeting ground of North and South, particularly with the influx of African-Americans moving up for opportunities. Among other things, this led to the very special Kansas City jazz which he enjoys. His father was in the junk business, which Ed liked and might have followed except for the acting bug He left Kansas City for the University of Chicago, which he thought was a great university. However, his interest drifted into acting, which he discovered only by a casual introduction from his roommate. But once he learned of that world, it became his passion, and his academic career was over. After a return to Kansas City, and Korean War duty with the Army Signal Corps in France, he again got a call from Chicago. This time he joined a new theatre group, which was successful. By then his body of work had included Shakespeare, La Ronde, Wozzeck and modern plays. He said he particularly liked doing radio, since his looks were not a concern. Ed said the guiding genius of much of the work in Chicago was Paul Sills, who was the founder of "The Second City" and the guru behind much of improvisational comedy as we know it. Ed gave Sills, who died last year, much of the credit for his own success. Except for a few jokes about the Mary Tyler Moore story, he didn't say much about his television career except that he came to California and the rest was history, including becoming President of the Screen Actors Guild.
During his remarks and more specifically in response to questions, Mr. Asner said his commitment to causes was rooted in seeing unfairness caused by prejudice and missed opportunities for the underprivileged. He also said that he was fortunate in being offered some serious roles he wanted, such as in "Roots", "The Gathering", and most recently for his voice role in "Up". He particularly relished a compliment he got from the animation team for that movie, who told him his voice gave them great flexibility in doing the animation. In closing, he tossed a sincere compliment back to our club, saying, "I admire you and what you do and am proud to be here today." All in all, an enjoyable meeting!
Respectfully submitted by: Jim Little, Rotary Summary Committee
Photos submitted by: Bryan Kramer & Peter Carter, Photography Committee
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