July 2012 http://175.sirinc2.org/ Branch 175 Vol. 18 Issue 7

Marin Vallejo Charlie Pepper

Hope everyone had an enjoyable and safe July 4th. It’s always been a special day for my family. Judge Ardaiz has sent me a copy of the speech that he presented to our branch at the May luncheon. I will bring copies for all that want one to the July luncheon. I have a limited number run off but if I don’t have enough, I’ll

print whatever number we need. Our July program will be a dance team from Break the Barri-ers. I’m expecting a great show so make sure you’re at the luncheon and bring that lonesome buddy that you know will enjoy it too. Joan Thornton, Sales Manager of Grand Circle Travel, will speak to us in August. She will provide us some information on group travel and upcoming tours available to our SIR membership. In September, I’m planning to have a representative from Lemoore NAS to give us some Navy fly-boy talk...I know you ex-sailors will love this one. I want you to all to join me in congratulating Sir Stan Nappe and the other golfing members of our branch. Our 175 golf-ers were on the ropes after the first day of the tournament with Branch 179. But we came back strong on day two to win the trophy for 2012. Congrats to all! Great quote: “Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.”

As a young boy, I used to like summer, it meant swimming, ice cream, hot dogs, baseball and picnics with girls. I could take them or leave them (girls)….then. But now, as a retired

person, I look forward to important holidays for fam-ily and friends gathering. But, why wait for a holiday, a friendship is here with the SIR guys every month and you don’t have to watch your P’s & Q’s when you talk about those old days.

LUNCH MENU: Beef or Chef’s Salad

Lunch: 11:45AM

Board Meeting: 10:30AM

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Who is the arguably the biggest user of our Branch 175 SIR Library? Answer: Sir Sid Marks, 97+ and past recipient of SIR Super Senior Presidential Award. Sid reads about four books a week plus magazines, particularly “Sports Illustrated” (do you suppose his favorite month is the Swimsuit Edition?). He gets all of his books from our branch library and when Dennis doesn’t open up the library at luncheons due to illness or some such, Sid has to do without. He says he’s al-ways been a good reader. Sid told me, “I’ve gotten to be a really prolific reader since I don’t drive and I don’t *&#^@ anymore.” (rhymes with blue)!! His favorite genre is lawyer books particularly lawyers going to court. David Baldacci is his favorite author. He’s currently reading “The Whole Truth” by Bal-dacci. Because they are easier to read, Sid really likes big print books.

Pictured left to right: Sir Sid Marks, Wayno S c h w a r t z (standing) and Tony Ducas

Little Sir Charlie Pepper (left) presenting “Certificate of Appreciation” to Tony Miranda , the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity (center) and Sabrina Kelly, the Neighborhood Revitalization Coordinator. The Habitat for Humanity—Fresno is the 100th af-filiate of Habitat of International and was started in 1985.

SEPTEMBER GUEST SPEAKER will be from Lemoore NAS

Sid Marks

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MEMBERSHIP Sir Ron McClain

DEADLINE for the August Echo is Thursday, August 12

MURPHY’S LAWS

1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A

tax is a fine for doing well. 3. If the shoe fits, get another one just

like it. 4. The shin bone is a device for finding

furniture in the dark. 5. A day without sunshine is like, well,

night.

Mr. SIR Golf Guy—- it’s pretty much a rule of thumb that if there’s a SIR golf tournament going on somewhere by “any” of the four Fresno SIR branches, Sir Bob Dickson is there—that’s usually twice a week. Everybody knows Bob. “Any time, Any where” could be Bob’s motto. Why does he play so much golf? “Because I like it; it’s good exercise”. Bob’s a Charter Member of Branch 175 (chartered in May 1995) and was brought into the branch by Sir Dave Riesner, also a charter member but no longer residing in Fresno. After a year at Fresno State University, Bob served in the U.S. Air Force ‘50-’54. He retired after 36 years with the Santa Fe Railroad as a civil engineer. ————————————————————————

Bob Dickson pictured at the Branch 175/179 tourney held at Sherwood Golf Course on June 26.

I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to Sir Dean Clark for stepping in for me while I was on the East Coast at my Shriner’s National Convention. It’s nice to have SIR that will step up and help out when asked. This month will be PROUD TO BE A SIR month. Wear all the pins and apparel you have with our rooster on it, including bolos. Our draw-ing is for a free lunch, yes there really is a free lunch, and bring a friend that they may see what a great time we have. Sad news is that we have had three members drop out due to personal and/or health reasons. The good new is that we have three guests ready to be initiated this month. We break even but we still have more to bring in during the coming months. Lets keep the Branch active and participate and bring your friends. Big Sir Marin is doing a great job and Little Sir Charlie has an outstanding line up of speakers for us. See you at lunch

Joan Thornton, Territory Sales Manager for Grand Circle Travel has over 30 years experience in group travel. She will be presenting Eastern Europe to the Black Sea River Cruise scheduled to depart on March 18, 2013. She brings a wealth of knowledge from traveling all over the world including Europe, the United Kingdom, South Pacific, Middle East, Caribbean, North America and Central America. She has been married to her high school sweetheart for 29 years and loves cooking, bowling, camping, biking, reading, and of course, travel.

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LIBRARIAN Sir Dennis Murane

BRIDGE by Sir Bob Cleveland

Polo Shirts—$28 Baseball Style Caps—$12 Windbreakers—XLs $40 XXLs up— $42 Rooster Pins — $1 Bolo Ties — $3 Window decals—- $1

GOLF by Sir Stan Nappe

HARDWARE Sir Jerry Stoltenberg

Remember: you can place an order with me by: phone: @ 289-9287 OR email @ stoltsgs@yahoo.com

Hardy Wagner Tom Schab

George Pisching Bud Pope

Ron Pistacchio Art Vallejo

If you attended the last SIR meeting, you probably noticed the library was back. (Glad you’re better now, Dennis: Editor’s Note) For many of you, who remember the old pocket novels, we now have several of Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer novels in the library. They may bring back memories of years gone by. In addition to Mickey Spillane, we also have just ac-quired several Louis L’amour novels. Many are westerns but not all. I would like to point out to our members, that your library contains many fine books, and I encourage you to take the opportunity to use it. A few non-fiction books I would suggest you read are: 1. “Lost In Shangri-La” by Mitchell Zuckoff. A true story of survival and the most incredible rescue mission of WWII. 2. “American Uprising” by Daniel Rasmussen. The untold story of America’s largest slave revolt. ————————————————————————

Mark your calendar with the following change. Sept 27th at Belmont CC has been changed to Thurs. Sept 20th at 8 AM SG June 26th we played the first half of our championship against SIR 179 at Sherwood Forest. The format was team match play. Our winning teams were: Sirs Charlie Pepper & Ron McClain, Jerry Long & Stan Nappe and Gene Parker & Ron Pistacchio. Br 179 took 175 by 4 1/2 points to 2 1/2 points. The second half of the championship was played at Riverbend on July 10th. The format was individual match play. Our individual winners were Sirs Mike Castle, Tom Lean, Gary Beacom, Charlie Pepper, Stan Nappe, Gene Parker, Wayne Schwartz, and Paul Dehn. This put 175 up 10 1/1 points to 179’s 9 1/2 points for the 2012 Championship. Congratulations to all 175 golfers who played. This was a GREAT team effort. SIR 175 gets the annual 175/179 Golf Tro-phy! Golf thoughts: l. Water Hazard—when your shot has to carry over a water hazard you can either hit one more club or two more balls. 2. My favorite shots are the practice swing or the conceded putt. The rest can never be mastered. 3. Most golfers prefer a golf cart to a caddy because the cart can’t count, criticize, or laugh.

July 24 Airways D. Soliday 431-1549 July 26 Belmont has been cancelled Aug 14 Madera Muni Don Wathen 325-0851 Aug 28 Pheasant Run Don Wathen

July Couples Bridge was played at the Livingstones on the 13th. Winners were: Russ Mott 4350 Tess Mott 3350 Bob Cleveland 4210 Ginny Cleveland 3210 We will play next on August 8 at the home of Bud and Grace Pope.

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JULY BIRTHDAYS from Sir Richard Scheidt

BOWLING by Sir Merle Knapp

John Broeske Howard Buchenberger Micael Cardenas Mike Castle John Durant Andy Lawson Ed Nicholson John Snyder Richard Thompson

Free lunch winner from the June Birthday list: Dennis Murane

Free lunch winner from the June lunch tickets: George Pisching

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Branch 175 (only) Date Name Hi Game Hi Series June 15 Merle Knapp 239 622 Highest of the Season Score (Sept-June) Merle Knapp 268 710 ———————————————————————

by Sir Paul Dehn

June’s Book Club meeting was attended by Sirs: Bob Ed-wards, Hal Debban, Don Milliken, Merle Knapp, Louis Volpp, Tim Finley and Paul Dehn. Sir Dennis Murane, our librarian, also sat in. Hal reported on “A Dogs Purpose” by Bruce Cameron. This prompted lots of dog stories around the table. Bob read “The First Wave” by James R. Been. It was a great cross genre book , part detective and part WWII story. Louis shared two books. First, “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese - a challenging read about two con-joined twins orphaned at birth in the cultural setting of Ethiopia. The second book, “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain” by neuroscientist David Eagleman - the brain is a complex machine with competing efforts by our subconscious thoughts battling for attention of our con-scious brain. Don shared “Innocent” by Scott Turow which is a sequel to the earlier “Presumed Innocent”. Turow is a master of great twists and counter twists and awesome courtroom exchanges. Merle’s book was “The Innocent” by David Baldacci. What’s the chances of two books having near identical titles? This book follows Will Robie an espe-cially good government hit-man attempting to unravel the mystery of a run away 14 year old girl while at the same time avoiding his own agency for refusing to carry out an assigned hit. Tim shared an Agatha Christie book, “Mysterious Affair at Styles” about the great Christie character, Poirot, as well as Artur Hastings. Poirot finds himself trying to solve a murder mystery with lots of intrigue and twists. I (Paul) loved “Dirty White Boys” by Stephen Hunter. The author spins a great story about three escaped cons and their crime spree of murder through the Oklahoma coun-tryside in the late 60’s. This book is loaded with fantastic shootout scenes with the pursuing Oklahoma police (look in the SIR library for this one). Please join our next meeting at Pardini’s Café at the new 10 AM start time.

EDITOR’S CORNER Where am I headed? Isn’t that what we use to ask ourselves in our younger years….have we quit asking? Branch 175, where are we headed. Are we headed toward success, mediocrity, or extinction? At one time we were set up for 175 mem-bers. I can remember having 150 members. Now we have +/- 130. Are we getting so small that we don’t have people to pull from to fill our jobs? Where are our next leaders/chairmen com-ing from? Our “pool” is dwindling. So, what’s the answer? Is one answer to let a job remain vacant and not fill it? (imagine not having great speakers because we couldn’t find a Little Sir?) Is another possible answer to merge with another Fresno SIR branch? What can you do? If you haven’t served yet; serve. Or if you have already served; serve again. Bring friends. Come on, “Win just one for the Gipper” Knute Rockne once said. Where are we going 175?

SIR Branch #175 Editor 9260 N. Green Meadows Lane Fresno, CA 93720

SIR BRANCH # 175 2012 OFFICERS Big SIR Marin Vallejo 275-4622 Little SIR Charlie Pepper 433-0646 Treasurer Robert Bakman 434-1975 Asst. Treas. Andy Provost 439-3295 Secretary Gene Parker 246-4589 Asst. Sectry Merle Knapp 439-3658 DIRECTORS Open Rich Grigsby 2012 439-8540 Gary Beacom 2012 434-4007 Fred Ketcham 2013 225-4041 Russ Mott 2013 441-1115 George Pisching 2014 275-0199 DC Contreras 2014 222-9540 ACTIVITIES Book Club Paul Dehn 292-2225 Bowling Merle Knapp 439-3658 Bridge Bob Cleveland 435-5773 Golf Stan Nappe 435-6703 Golf Co-chair Tom Lean 9407084 Golf Co-chair Mike Castle 323-6832 Travel Richard Beers 431-3728 Woodwkng George Pisching 275-0199 BARN-YARD ACTIVITIES Attendance Ron McClain 292-1919 Bulletin-ECHO Jerry Long 287-4023 Chaplain Russ Mott 441-1115 Database Ed Richard Scheidt 435-2536 Hardware Jerry Stoltenberg 289-9287 Historian Merle Knapp 439-3658 Librarian Dennis Murane 276-1866 Membership Ron McClain 292-1919 Photographer (Open) Special Events Fred Ketcham 225-4041 Sunshine Don Luft 323-7989 Telephone Ray Born 438-5804

SONS IN RETIREMENT 2012 STATE OFFICERS

President James Stedman (925) 932-1636 Vice President Richard Dettmer (530) 755-4118 Secretary Eckart Sellinger (415) 602-7176 Treasurer Michael Berry (707) 837-1792 Director, Region 8 Ed Dorn (559) 433-0670 Governor, Area 29 Douglas Hansen (559) 222-0497

Non-Responsibility Declaration All travel events and other activities sponsored by Sons in Retirement, Incorporated, or its Branches are for the convenience and pleasure of the members and their guests who desire to participate. Sons in Retirement, Incorporated, and its Branches, do not assume any re-sponsibility for the well being or safety of the participants or passengers, or their property or any damages whatso-ever, in any manner pertaining to said travel activities. Where the travel literature is prepared by a travel agency, the following words shall be added to the above wording: “Any other ‘disclosures’ or non-responsibility provisions contained herein shall not in any way incur any liability attaching to Sons in Retirement, Incorporated, or any Branch thereof.”

“Sir Happenings” is the State

Bulletin: www.sirinc.org

Visit our SIR Branch 175 website at:

http://175.sirinc2.org/