This Past Week...
On this day in 1877, a burly civilian blacksmith named Frank "Windy" Cahill apparently went too far when he called William Bonney (known better by the name “Billy the Kid”) a "pimp." Billy responded by calling Cahill a "son of a bitch," and the big blacksmith jumped him and easily threw him to the ground. Pinned to the floor by the stronger man, Billy apparently panicked. He pulled his pistol and shot Cahill, who died the next day. According to one witness, "[Billy] had no choice; he had to use his equalizer." This was Billy’s first killing.
Perhaps that explains the unruly mood in which we Westwood Village Rotarians found ourselves. Or perhaps it was August birthdays - most of whose celebrants failed to appear. (Do I smell a fine or two here?) Or maybe it was the “bombs” that were tossed at the audience as jokes by President Mike. Whatever the excuse, President Mike called upon Sgt-at-Arms Jim Downie to calm the mob, and the meeting got underway. New member Barry Marlin led the pledge, followed by a rousing rendition of “America the Beautiful” led by Lenny Friedman with Jack Harris on the piano. Lee Dunayer skillfully delivered the invocation – short (and sweet) enough that we were requested to remain standing.
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The Anderson Family
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Pat Anderson introduced her and Andy’s guests – daughter Vicky Reiser and granddaughter Caroline Reiser. (Caroline was one of our outgoing Japanese Exchange Students – more on that later.) Kevin Komatsu introduced one of his patients, Hisako Muramatsu, a patent lawyer by profession who is bi-lingual in Japanese and who graciously agreed to serve as translator for our Japanese guests. Our Japanese guests were quickly introduced by Steve Day, Steve Scherer, Ed Gauld, Leo Tseng, and Sherry Dewayne.
August birthdays were next – Kacy Rozelle, Jack Harris, Ernie Wolfe, Dan Price, Mark Block, and Lenore Mulryan. This year President Mike has asked the club to make a donation of current books to the Westwood public library in honor of our birthday Rotarians.
Jim Downie was next up to remind us that the Auxiliary Summer Party/ Club Annual Picnic is this Sunday at Eloise Siskel’s. Drawing a harmonica to his mouth, a challenge was made to “name that tune.” First with “Suwannee River” was Steve Scherer; Pat Anderson caught Little Orphan Annie for her prize.
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Caroline Anderson and flag exchange.
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Dr K and Hisako
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| Caroline gave an enthusiastic report on her experiences in Japan. |
Our program today were the seven Exchange Students (aged between 16 and 19) from Tochigi Prefecture (less than an hour from Metropolitan Tokyo by bullet train), and our own outgoing participant in the exchange, Caroline Reiser (Andy and Pat Anderson’s granddaughter). Caroline gave an enthusiastic report on her experiences in Japan, beginning and ending her talk in Japanese! Caroline found the Japanese people very welcoming and friendly, and although she was a bit shy and nervous at first, the community baths took care of that in a hurry. Caroline says that the Japanese are far more polite than are we Americans. She stayed in four different homes in the four weeks she was in Tochigi, taking the bullet train from and to Tokyo. According to Caroline, traveling at 180 miles per hour by train was a very interesting experience. So was eating raw fish.
Our incoming students were: Miki Ishizawa, Mai, Maiko Ogura, Satomi Kimijima, Hayato Morofushi, Keisuke Akasaka, and Yurika Karasawa. Their impressions of California were very positive, with the possible exception of the homeless they witnessed in downtown Los Angeles. (Lenny Friedman asked a follow up question on that, and we learned that Tokyo also has its share of homeless persons.) Ed Gauld mentioned that they were a bit surprised by the athletic prowess of UCLA and all the trophies they saw on their tour of the campus. The students then introduced themselves and fielded questions from the audience. (Our volunteer translator, Hisako Muramatsu, was rarely called upon to assist.) We had questions on the driving age from Sally Brant and Leo Tseng, on women in business and in Rotary by Elliott Turner and Mike Newman, on youth and pop culture by Steve Scherer, on the requirement that students learn English by Warren Dodson, and on sports by Ray Zickfeld and Tony Marrone.
With an exchange of flags and gifts to our students, the meeting was adjourned.
