|
Another Good Craft talk, on November 8th
at WVRC
Yes, LYNDON PARKER was the speaker; excellent as
expected. But before that,
KEN KILPO led us in the Pledge, and we had TWO songs
- America, with PP STEVE
DAY directing, and Bicycle Built for Two, with LENNY
FRIEDMAN at the helm.
Both melodies were accompanied on the piano by
today's speaker, LYNDON PARKER.
PP HOWIE HENKES gave an interesting leadup to the
Invocation, based on
"everybody, somebody, anybody, and
nobody", in various combinations, followed
by a short prayer.
Well Done, HOWIE. While still on his feet, HOWIE
then reminded us of the
Braille Christmas Luncheon, set for Friday, Dec 14th
- save the date, and you
can give them a hand as a server that day.
HARLAN LEWIS had but one Visiting Rotarian, with the
unusual classification
of - get this - Pallete Recycling. His name was Jeff
Otto, and he hails from
the White Bear Lake Club, which I'm sure you knew
was in Minnesota. RUDY
ALVAREZ introduced his Special Guest, Cathy Marie
Rezos, who is in Property
Management. PP MIKE NEWMAN brought along Iris Kwan,
a graduate student from
Taiwan, pursuing a Doctorate in Theatre. My Special
Guest was Dr. Harold
Goldman, and we met as dog-walkers in Westwood. He
told me afterward that we
did appear to have our share of senior members,
which made him quite
comfortable! TED IHNEN introduced Special Guest Kacy
Rozelle, who has been
circulated already.
MIKE YOUSEM reminded us that he will again conduct
the Christmas Shopping
Tour for the kids from Venice Boys and Girls Club.
The date is Thursday
December 13th, and it's a nice way to get into the
Christmas spirit, as Pres.
GEORGE then pointed out. The Board of Directors will
meet at the J and R
Seafood Restaurant, 6:30 next Tuesday the 13th. And
the Youth Committee,
under KEVIN KOMATSU is set for 11:30 here, before
our regular meeting on the
29th of this month. PP JIM SUMNER had the misfortune
of having his name
appear in the Brentwood News, which cost him 300 Dea
Dollars - but JIM
protested that the fine should be paid by someone
who really LIVES in
Brentwood, since he hadn't seen the article himself.
JIM suggested either
DON NELSON or PP STEVE SCHERER, but neither one of
them appeared to agree,
somehow. But while he was on his feet, JIM did
relate the story of the man
who was not feeling satisfied with his sex life with
his wife. His doctor
recommended he run ten miles a day, and to come back
in thirty days with a
report. "Well?" asked the doctor - "I
don't know, I was 300 miles away".
JACK HARRIS told the sad story of the guy who swam
across a swimming pool
with four crocodiles present, apparently to win a
bet. However, his concern,
after making the crossing, was to find the clown who
pushed him in! RALPH
SMITH and Betty returned recently from a cruise,
which cost RALPH a hundred
big ones. And then, Pres. GEORGE first planned to
fine the five Bob's -
LUSK, THOM, TROXLER, WESSLING and YOUNKER - but
since only LUSK and TROXLER
were present, they were excused, and the rest were
fined in absentia (that
means they weren't there to protest, I think).
Obviously, this was a ploy to
encourage attendance …As
the final preliminary event, SLOS VIAU spoke of the
forthcoming clothing drive for the local
Salvation Army Center. They need
men's clothing in particular, and items
that could be worn on job interviews
are requested. SLOS will have his car
available in the parking lot next
week, so bring your extra clothing along,
OK?
RUDY ALVAREZ was pleased to introduce
LYNDON PARKER, our newest member.
During this process, the subject of money
came up, and RUDY claimed that
LYNDON ended up paying him a hundred bucks
for his sponsorship! When LYNDON
came forward, his first words were,
"It was only fifty" - followed by an
anonymous voice from the audience saying,
"He charged ME Five Hundred".
While it may not be possible to fully
investigate this matter in these pages,
it is something we should look into,
apparently…
LYNDON was born in Philadelphia, where his
Dad was completing his doctorate
at Penn. It seems that his Dad met his
Mother at Emory - which is in Atlanta
- and YOE would have to say that LYNDON has
a pretty good imitation of her
'southern' voice. Parker Sr. taught
Political Science at the
City College of New York (CCNY, that is)
This arduous subject forced him to work as
much as three hours EACH WEEK - a
schedule so busy that he commuted from
Philadelphia during the latter part of
his tenure.
Meanwhile, LYNDON played baseball with some
success in Little League (they
won the Championship in 1959!). He moved on
to graduate from American
University in Washington DC, then on to Law
School at NYU, plus getting a
Masters in taxation.
This enabled him to sign on with the IRS -
and as an aside, he had to admit
that many of today's names in WVRC were
familiar to him, having seen them
before while investigating and prosecuting
shady characters during his tenure
with the Service.
Later, he joined ARA Services in
Philadelphia as assistant General Counsel,
but gave it up after awhile when he saw how
many were ahead of him as far as
ever becoming General Counsel himself.
Moving into private practice, he
formed a law partnership, and after one
year, they had 16 lawyers, then 40
the next year. But LYNDON didn't like what
he was doing, so sold the
practice, and moved to California. Here he
met his second wife, Nancy, and
between them they have three children -
Joseph, Rachel, and Adam. Joseph, who
is 25, has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from
Syracuse, and is in advertising
design. Rachel is a senior at Brandeis
University and plans to teach blind
children. Adam is a senior in high school.
The family resides in La Canada.
Waldorf and Associates is a firm
specializing in executive search for
attorneys - they handle both firms who are
looking and attorneys who are
seeking. Confidentiality is very important
here, and they particularly pride
themselves in this department. This is of
course a niche market, and since
they have branches in several locations,
they can cover it very well. They
only place two or three attorneys a month -
which means each case is very
carefully researched, and this in turn has
earned them an excellent
reputation.
Their fees are paid by the law firms, in
every case.
LYNDON then spoke about why attorneys want
to change firms. Usually, it
isn't about money, but about the culture of
the new firm they are seeking.
He mentioned annual salaries of 1.2
million, then accepting a mere $700K, and
in that league, a half million dollars
simply isn't that important,
apparently. Since Waldorf has an excellent
reputation, both firms and
attorneys will usually take their calls. He
spoke of a 'Book of Business'
which refers to how much annual business an
attorney is doing, and of course
how much of that is transferable should be
change firms. Some attorneys are
looking to leave that competitive category,
and are looking to become staff
counsels in corporations - at a lesser
salary, apparently.
The Waldorf firm likes what they do and
they pride themselves on getting the
right fit between attorney and a new
position. Obviously, they do it well.
LYNDON, thanks for taking most of us to
territory we haven't explored before.
You indicated you like it at WVRC, and the
feeling is mutual.
YOE, Ernie Wolfe
|