January 5 was a great day if you believe in Southern California imagery and excellent winter weather, in short a postcard to the East Coast reminding them why we all Love Southern California.
Pres. Jackson called the first meeting of 2012 to order, secretary Aly Shoji's son Luc led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and was followed by our president elect Dwight Heikkila with a rousing invocations. Our lone guest was Nina Jackson who sat with Ed Jackson at the head table, in fact they were the head table.
Aly Shoji was in charge of the rest of the program that being the hump day of Pres. Ed Jackson. She started by having past Pres. Sean McMillan, who says that communications has been a problem with Pres. Ed when I asked him to help with the pilot program he thought I meant be the pilot for the pilot program since he does fly an airplane.
Tom Barron next came up to try to teach me how I too could have my face on the front cover of a major newspaper once a month for at least three years in a row.
PE Dwight Heikkila was next and he said immediately he had nothing good to say about me, so he deferred the mike to Nina Jackson who naturally would have something nice to say about her husband the president. Nina explained how Ed loves to share his problems and successes with rotary even though she begs him not to, so she said instead of losing her sanity over rotary she decided to buy shoes whenever She has had enough of rotary. Just call her Imelda Marcos.
The next person on mike was third quarter program chair Jack Paul, Jack was the kindest of all, wishing that I continued to do well for the remainder of the year.
Next was past Pres. Jim Collins this great sportsman talked about my time playing basketball at Washington state and how he knew from time to time I was longing to get back there so he started a contribution to send me back there for the UCLA vs Washington state football game November 10 in Pullman Washington, even though that is the date of my anniversary with Nina. Nina got up opened her purse and contributed to that fund as well.
Art Henry was the next to step up and he gave great detail about our trip in 1984 with 56 gifted students from Mark Twain junior high school, he informed everyone about the great rescue at 2:30 in the morning. I was asked to go out to retrieve the students from the caves of the Yosemite Valley. Leslie but Madleys past Pres. Michael Newman walked up to the podium he informed us all that he did a Google search of the name Ed Jackson and couldn't find anything about me. But there was a time when I was number one in the Google search but I don't think it's a place I want to be again. I'll gladly share this experience with anyone who wants to know.
I want to thank everyone that participated including the audience in this funny afternoon and I was glad to excuse everyone five minutes early.
Announcements:
This month we will hold our annual speech contest art contest and music contest if you're interested in working on these please talk to past Pres. Gordon Fell or Steve Pettise past president Chris Gaynor will be responsible for the speech contest we know that we'll be a great success.
February 23 John Heidt will be sponsoring a project with OPCC.
