Lexington Spoke

Since the last two bulletins were spot quizzes to test your ability to pay attention to instructions, this week we will test your ability to stay awake in the gruesome heat wave under way in the northeast as you read this. As the temperature climbed to 90 degrees, 27 Lexington Rotarians, three visiting Rotarians and our guest speaker enjoyed a lunch of steak tips, mashed potatoes, salad and the usual cold cuts accompanied by chocolate chip cookies covered with local strawberries from Wilson Farms. (Sorry Nick).

The pledge was started by PP Murry who just returned from his post presidential trip to London, Florence, Rome and Paris. SVP Domenic led us in one verse of America and PP Bill offered a thoughtful invocation.

Happy dollars were offered by PP Spencer for his family cruise to Nova Scotia followed by PP Murry’s light donation for his fabulous trip to Europe. In addition to being under the influence of jet lag, Murry did not have time to exchange his euros for dollars but he promised to visit one of the clubs bankers to arrange for more dollars next week. PP Nick is still hung up on PP Bill’s red suspenders and offered to pay if only Bill would appear in the brown ones he wore last week. PP Bob paid the current equivalent of a Ralph Hill quarter ($1.00) for having no guests (or anyone else) at his table. PP Spencer tried to up the fine to three or four times this amount but the lovely, intelligent, compassionate SoA Connie demurred. Thank you Connie.

Next on the agenda was some leftover business from last year, as PP Murry awarded PP Doug a plaque for his contributions and advice during his year.

PE Jim stood in for program chairs Juliane and Marian to introduce today’s speaker Dabin Kim, a Rotary Scholar studying at Fischer College until December of this year. Dabin is from Seoul, Korea and spoke to us about her homeland. She related the history of Korea starting from the Choseon dynasty through the Korean War that started in 1950. For those interested in finding out more about this war google “official dates of korean war” and read about the history of this conflict that several of our club members experienced first hand (PP Dan L and PDG Jack).

After the war both North and South Korea were among the poorest nations in the world. After 60 years South Korea has the 11th best economy in the world and North Korea remains one of the poorest. Question: Does this tell us anything about capitalism vs communism? Dabin feels that the young people of South Korea strongly support re-unification with North Korea for a stronger Korea. Best of luck to you Dabin as you continue your year in the U.S.

The 50/50 raffle was $75 and carried off by PP Spencer.

Stay tuned next week to find out if PP Bill finds his brown suspenders again.

Respectfully submitted by PP Jim F and PP Bob S.