Your President Mark Rogo was on vacation, AGAIN!  So you were stuck with your P.E., Aly Shoji.  It's going to seem like the LONGEST running presidency EVER when I eventually DO take over  ;)

PP Dwight Heikkila provided our invocation.

No visiting Rotarians today (word is out!) but Mike Newman did bring his beautiful wife, Angel, and handsome son, Patrick (under that beard! ;) to support him in his senior craft talk and to keep him honest.  Always happy to have you join us!

There were lots of announcements so lets get those listed before we move on to our highly anticipated senior craft talks (and b/c Loberg can't stop fussing with his electronics for his presentation!)

Health and Welfare: Aly read the following email from Pat and Andy Anderson from the recent visit from our club member -     "Andy joins me in thanking you for organizing a very special event.  I was a bit leery at first because I did not know how he would react to a dozen or so friends whom he had not seen recently -- but, oh, he enjoyed himself and I think this party will be something he and I will talk about for a long time.  He really was thrilled to see so many friendly familiar faces and I was impressed that our buddies would take time out of their busy schedules to visit with him on a very hot day. There are so many wonderful benefits from being a Rotarian, and having jovial and gentle friends come to talk with an old buddy is a pleasure I had never anticipated.  Thanks again for your thoughtfulness.  With hugs to all, Pat Anderson"

September is New Generations Month in Rotary, which we celebrated and kicked off last week with Jim Crane and our Rotaractors and Interactors.  (round of applause for Jim). Introductions for the Head table starting with our two Craft Talkers on the left (Michael Newman and Eric Loberg) and asked club members if they knew why the three gentlemen to the right were sitting at the head table?  No CORRECT replies so we announced Paul, Phil, and Brian were all Your September Birthdays: Paul Aslan Sep 18th, Phil Gabriel Sep 19th, John Heidt Sep 24th, Ed Jackson Sep 12th, Brian Whitney Sep 10th  and we sang Happy Birthday to our September birthday boys as they chose from the WVRC swag bag of sweatshirts.  

Announcements:

• Lew Stroh's memorial service details on flyer
• Judy Wessling's mother's service is same day at 10:00 at the Westwood United Methodist Church.  
• Upcoming District Picnic On October 6th at the Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach
• Paul Harris Celebration in November 9th at Endeavor
• Leo on the  Chinatown San Fran trip Oct 25th thru 27th
• Dinner with the Ex program has been moved to October due to the Holidays and other events we have on our calendar - details will be forthcoming.

Now onto our long anticipated program!  With no further ado, Introducing Eric Loberg, Past President 1982 - 1983  (a special note for those not in attendance, Eric set-up a speaker with his favorite songlist that played or I should say accompanied his presentation.   As the rock and roll music picked up pace so did Eric's song and dance - you all really missed quite a show and I actually even kind of like Eric a little now, I have to admit  ;)

Eric began but stating, "When people are celebrating the start of it all, Rosh Hashana, I'm surprise that on the birthday of Adam and Eve more than three people showed up to listen to this mess.  But then again, this is a day of awe, or something like that - awe gee or holy smoke?  Just checking your neuro-plasticity. OK, my History.  I was born and lived in Jacksonville, New York, the podunk crossroads of 200 people, 10 miles outside of Ithaca.  I was the last of four boys, my father was the Director of Mechanical Engineering at Cornell and my mother was a house wife.  The first two boys went to Andover Academy, a fancy prep school north of Boston, with the Bush Boys et. Al. Money ran out soooo the last two boys attended public schools.  (He had visuals FYI) I went to a 2 room school house with three grades in each room.  And yes, the school had a red roof.  Yup, Mrs. Washburn for 3 years. Of the four boys, two were engineers (Kodak and Proctor and Gamble) and two were Arts and Sciences (Judge in Santa Barbara and myself) Eric showed a picture of where he froze his tongue on the school hand rail and they knew right then and there they had some work to do.  Eric mentioned "Mikey Feurer complained about his son having to take Spanish III in a classroom of 70 kids, I had to go to a room with 3 classes in it!  He joked, Mikey just wants more tax dollars to spend ;) but then added maybe there is something about the individual wanting to learn rather than just throwing money at bad attitudes, I think Mikey's poor son did end up at Yale.

He and his wife, Mary, married in 1968 - 45 years for those doing the math.  They have three daughters:

"Blossom", aka Kristin (38), writer, NY Times best seller

"Huggums", aka Erica (36), writer, poet, mental health advocate 

"Sweetums", aka Dana (32) Co-Founder of Movie La La, a social media site for networking and marketing for the movie industry.  All three went to St. Pauls and on to Marymount.

Kristin went to Cornell, Erica went to Columbia, and Dana to Yale.

(These are books he referenced:  "Rule #1" by Phil Towne and "The End of Illness" by David Agus.)

Eric continued on.  "High School, I skipped a grade in grade school so I was too young to play a contact sport in high school which ruled out football.  Of course here in California now I could have just gone over to the women's field hockey team and locker room but I did soccer, swimming, and tennis.  By my senior year I was:

7th in the East in the 100 yard breaststroke
1st in the section in tennis
1st in the league in soccer."

"When I got to Cornell, I was tired and bored with these sports and went out for lightweight crew - made 1st Boat,  the 3 Man, my Freshman year out of 150 try-outs.  I was in the Varsity crew my sophomore year when we were undefeated in the intercollegiate competition.  We were sent to England to row in the Royal Henly Regatta.  Lining up for this quarter final against Nottingham Britannia - "They wanted to bet the shirts off their backs!"

"At Cornell I was an economics major and psychology minor while taking the pre-requisites for dental school.  My dad died my sophomore year so I felt a need to get on with it and applied and was accepted to Tufts Dental School after 3 years of Cornell.  After graduating form Tufts, Dr. Robert Baker from my home town convinced me to go into Orthodontics instead of surgery even though I had spent 2 years at Boston City Hospital in the oral surgery dept. sewing up gypsies in the emergency clinic and removing thousands of wisdom teeth.  At that time, Ortho programs didn't take residents right out of dental school so I did a rotating internship at Eastman before being accepted to the Ortho Dept.  When I graduated from the Orthodontic Dept at Eastman, the aforementioned Dr. Baker asked me where I was going to practice.  I jokingly said I was going to open up across the street from him in Ithaca, and he said "The Hell You Are!" so he introduced me to his friend Dr. Howard Lang, 3000 MILES AWAY.  California had better weather anyway.  I went in with Howard in 1973 with a 2 year buyout, but we had so much fun together we continued for 8 years when he finally retired to Newport.  We were at the medical plaza at Wilshire and Westwood, top floor, northeast corner.  In 1989, I moved my office to the present location on Santa Monica Blvd. and that same year I started teaching at the UCLA Orthodontic section as an assistant professor and clinical instructor.  I give them ½ day every other week with a 1 hour lecture and clinical instruction the rest of the time.

"Enough history, now on to the present day. Here is my office (swank pics with great wall art!)

I was President of this Westwood Village Rotary Club in 1983, 30 years ago, right after Bill Goodwyn and John Singleton."  How would you like to replace those guys?  

"I will spare you the details of the cross burning on my front lawn gratis of Mike O'Connell or my poem about the sailor that sat on a rock.  For you doubting Annies and Andys, there is the bag of awards given to the Westwood Village when I left the District Conference.  (And he did have the bag!)  Anyway, we won everything (I mean blue ribbon, gold medal, 1st place, numero uno) for large clubs except International which we received 2nd and was a joke as we were always the most active internationally.  These were not certificates of participation - these were first place ribbons not that we cared two cents about them!  It was just fun."

Eric shared pics from Gary Meldamorr "from the boys in the boat".  He also shared pics from his recent fishing expedition with his wife and girls showing a 22 and 27 lb salmon they caught off the coast of Vancouver and a 70lb halibut.  He had another pic of his daughter just after she finished a lavaman triathlon competition in Hawaii and the next day caught a 506 lb Blue Marlin.

Mike Newman Sr. Craft Talk - 

Dave Whitehead popped out of cake saying Mike will sue anyone for $9.99 every five minutes! Tree People speaker gifts were his choice.  The Year of his club leadership went to Guadalajara with doctors to do ear transplants. Kids came out clapping and stomping because they had never heard each other before.  John Singleton and Steve Schehrer were smugglers bringing in hearing aids. Lyster helped writing new bylaws, and Mike Yousem smuggled in parts to keep the pool heater running at the girls school for the blind. 

Today Mike claims the honor of being Homer's chauffeur, always busy with work, counseling clients.  Today everyone wants things NOW and we need to take time and deliberation. He professes a Love and hate relationship with law,  hates the demands on time, loves that no day is same and loves solving problems

Mike enjoys skiing and taught blind people to ski.  His political experience led him to go into law at Loyola.  In 1977, Mike was hired as a city attorney in Chico, and a liberal hippy dippy professor.

And with that, we ran out of time. Our members gave a round of applause to both of our two Sr. Craft Talk speakers.  Meeting adjourned.