The day was overcast along the Shore, but bright and sunny at the Ridge. Our weekly gathering was moderately attended, five tables occupied with several open seats, in keeping with the usual doldrums of late August.September is in sight and with it hopefully a return to better attendance and heightened Club activity.
Fadiman or Fenneman?
The session started off inauspiciously with Dan Firestone raising to give the Invocation, a task he apparently contemplated for days, prepared carefully scripted remarks for, and completely forgot to bring to the meeting. Forced to ad lib, he did his best and drew at least one “Amen” for the group.
The all too frequent chicken and rice buffet followed, accompanied by salad, mixed vegetables, sliced white bread and cookies. It got the job done but won’t be winning any culinary awards.
No guests today, but President Dave likes to hear the Welcome Song, so Art Bradbury did his best to wrangle our voices into a semblance of harmony. Not an easy task.
Our table conversation ranged from Kevin Kickery promising “I’ll be quiet today” which he promptly disregarded to a discussion of the old TV Classic, Groucho Marks’ You Bet Your Life and its erstwhile announcer the late, great Clifton Fadiman … or was it George Fenneman? A quick check of Google pointed to Jack Martin’s choice of Fenneman. Clifton Fadiman, Doug Willett’s choice, hosted a show called This is Show Business and was a contemporary of Groucho and George. The shows were on TV in the Fifties so the shaky memories go back more than 60 years. This was a slow meeting.
Sandy and Bob Mark 53 Years
Jim Watts was our Sergeant at Arms and provided the following: Bob Buettner is celebrating 53 blissful years of marriage; Dave Amberg has two grandchildren completing a stay at Casa Amberg today; Dan Larson has his first born celebrating his 43 birthday; Bill Saunders remembered his hearing aids; Neal Cunningham lost his Rotary pin; George Schoen needed to leave early; and the Klock’s were back from a two-week vacation. And Steve Jacoby was one minute late today. Very slow meeting.
On the caring moment side, we got the good news that Pat Fallon is recovering nicely from a broken leg and will be coming home from rehab this week.
Only a couple of announcements: The Board will be meeting Monday, August 28, at the YMCA at 5:30 p.m.; the Golf Tournament is coming together nicely with about 90 golfers enrolled but the need for additional raffle prizes and hole sponsors remains. Golfer’s Warehouse has a nice sale going on. Only three and a half weeks to go. Have you done your part yet?
Ruthie Sheehan won the raffle. As far as I could tell, she did not donate it to the Jimmy Fund.
Rest In Peace, Jay Stewart
With that we adjourned, but a couple of hours later came the sad news that our dear friend and longtime Rotary stalwart, Jay Stewart, has passed away. Jay was pillar of the East Hartford community and a fixture with our Club for over 50 years both as a member and as the wife of Past District Governor George Stewart. George has been keeping a seat warm for her in heaven for several years now.
Jay’s obituary will list all the civic and church activities this remarkable woman participated in over the years, but for now we can tell you that calling hours will be on Thursday, September 7th and the Funeral will be held on Saturday, September 9th.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of Jay’s three sons, Randy, Doug and Bob, as well as to Jay and George’s dear friends, Art and Charlotte Bradbury, who have been joined at the hip with the Stewarts for more than 70 years. Jay’s is a life worth celebrating and there is no better example of a life of Service above Self. The world is poorer for her passing.
