Posted by Editor: FDBobko
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The FOGHORN 
ROTARY CLUB OF HALF MOON BAY
December 20,  2018
 
CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION AT THE ODD FELLOWS
 
    
 
Article by  Joe Brennan  
Photos by Liz Schuck
 
President Paul Wrubel opened the meeting in the historic Odd Fellows Lodge of 1895. Odd Fellows Diane Haussler, Christine Burns, and Al Ellsworth joined our two joint members, Dave Andrews and Joe Brennan, to welcome Rotary to our Fourth annual joint end of year meeting. The theme was Cowpoke Christmas and Patti provided a wonderful Ranch supper in kind. And he ended the meeting with these thoughts:  "When I first looked at Rotary, I thought it was all about business, and that was not enough for me because I had read a few things that created my ethical requirements.
 
He then quoted from A Christmas Carol  (see below) and explained that, "That is why I joined Rotary."  
 
You know the story and you remember the words:  “But you were always a good man for business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge.  Business!  Cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again.  Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
 
We so easily manage to forget that timeless, illuminating passage in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  How is it we too often condemn ourselves to the figurative fate of Jacob Marley who was only able to see the light in the shadow of his own death?
 
When we embrace the lesson that poor Jacob Marley learned only too late; when we learn that by tending to the betterment of mankind as our “business”, only then we will shed our own chains of indifference and greed and, like Ebenezer Scrooge who had such an epiphany just in time, only then will we have a chance at spending the rest of our days keeping  not only Christmas well but every day of our lives so that in the end it may “…be truly said of us, and all of us!...God bless us Every One!”
 
 
Dave Andrews gave words of wisdom that life is a blessing to be enjoyed and acknowledged every day.  Visiting former foreign ex-exchange student, Fie of Denmark and her host home sister were introduced by John Evans.

Kevin O'Brien recited Cowboy Poet and Veterinarian Baxter Black's poem Rudolph's Night Off, a hilarious tale of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's stand-in Billy the glow in the dark goat.
 
Dave Andrews delivered a true Cowboy Soliloquy describing the yearly cycle of life on the ranch out east of Elko in Halleck where he was born and raised. It was all about cycles, the cycle of the Humboldt  River, the growth cycle of grass, the calving cycle, the harvest cycle and growth of boy to manhood.
 
Joe Brennan directed everyone's attention to the decorative Red Bandana on each table and around the necks of a few attendees. He then read an ode to the Cowboy's red bandana enumerating its many practical uses for a man traveling light by horse or foot. 
 
Pat McNutt played Seasonal Music on the piano assisted by Liz Schuck, Terry Pickle, and Kevin O'Brien leading the assembled in song, A joyous and wonderful tradition!
 
 
 
REMINDERS
 
Our Monthly Rotary Day at the Community Free Breakfast (held at the Lutheran Church will be Wednesday, JANUARY 30.  Please sign up with ROSE SERDY for a shift for future days (last Wednesday of each month.)