OPTI-BEA-BULL 8-4-11

The meeting was called to order with our bell (oh how sweet the sound) the flag salute and the invocation and this day in history (tell you later speaker Wally said).

This Day:  Then President Al fearing our Club would go into withdrawal if we failed to recap today’s history, briefly mentioned some highlights. In 1873 General Custer badly misjudged his Indian adversaries at the Little Big Horn. In 1944 after the Allies had already stormed the beaches of Normandy, Ann Frank and her family were betrayed to the Nazis and were arrested. She and her sister died at Bergen-Belsen of typhus. In 1964 after an intense search by some 200 FBI agents, the bodies of three civil rights workers were located buried in an earthen dam at Philadelphia, Mississippi. (This is the same town that President Regan began his run for the presidency, perhaps a coincidence?) On that same day in 1964 we were told North Vietnamese PT Boats attacked our ships in the Gulf of Tonquin which was the start of the Vietnam War. My head was spinning with all these dates. We used to have just one date to concentrate on which was easy.  Hopefully, Alan’s computer will break again and we will concentrate on one era. Will the real morning day in history please stand up… 1861 to 1865, thank you.

Secret Greater:  Wally caught Marv Thompson ignoring him while Wally set up his equipment and then Marv told us an amusing story about planning to circle back to shake his hand and greet him warmly but accidentally forgot. It was a heartwarming story but he still had to pay-up.

Raffle: Today’s raffle $16.00 was won by Jack Franklin (You get $8.00 Jack) for the second week in a row, this after Jack may have never bought a ticket (how can that be??) Jack did donate last week’s win to the Dean Mitchell account.

Board Meeting: Our August Optimist board will meet on Monday August 8^th at the community center on Allen Avenue starting at 6:30 P.M. All Board members who can not attend, please call Alan to be excused.

Speaker: Wally Johnston, our club’s Chaplain, author and history buff whose family fought on both sides of the Civil War, presented his film and slides on the Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Wally talked about what the first territories of our states went through prior to the war both economically and socially. All states wanted to protect the status quo prior to the election of Lincoln. After the war started it was found that families were divided and brothers fought against each other. The farmer whose property was the site of the beginning of the clash of armies at Bull Run moved his family to a quiet out of the way spot to Appomattox Court House which is where the war ended in his parlor. For more information see Wally or his next program coming up. (see our web site for information) Thanks Wally for a great program on the Civil War years.

Last week’s B-Bull was not printed for those who missed it. There are those weeks that this guy runs out of time and town. We did have a wonderful program discussing the 16 jazz venues available to us in Portland. We also learned that Merridith, our Program Chairman for July will be performing in the Hollywood District in a jazz performance this month. Hopefully she will share with us the date so we can go see her.

Until then!