Paper is the Favorite
Twelve Rotarians and two guests were enjoying a meatloaf dinner when Karl rose to report that dictionaries and atlases were distributed at St. Monica - St. Michael School and the teachers and the principal wholeheartedly support the continuance of the project, describing it as appropriate and important. Flash forward and Joe S. reported that it was nice to be greeted by Caroline’s stepson who had taken a long term substitute teacher position at the school after attending SUNY Plattsburgh during which he developed a desire to become a teacher (Yield for that news=2 Happy Dollars).
Bob asked President Tony to pass the gavel and then proceeded to propose a fine of one-and-nine on him for executing a poorly planned agenda by singing before a meeting. He opined that it was necessary to satiate the need for food before one could exercise one’s vocal cords. With little defense from Arthur or Joe, the fine passed.
Last We MetOn this day in history: 1896 The first modern Olympic games begin.
1917 The United States officially enters World War I.
Earle’s Pearls
Caroline was next with an announcement that a District Virtual Spring Training will take place on Saturday, April 23rd from 8:30 am to 11:30 am. .JPG)
District 7850 is in the process of building an improved infrastructure; a survey on the topic will be coming soon.
District 7850 is beginning to fall below the required membership of 1200. If we don’t increase the number of members in the next few years, our District will be absorbed into other adjacent districts.
Africa in the SpotlightPresident Tony called Nicole to center stage to present her with a check for $1000 for the Tanzania Project which was started over ten years ago. She expressed her gratitude and noted that our Club has also sponsored three children.
Attorney-Comic-Author
Karl introduced our speaker, S. Lee Manning. Sandy is a retired attorney and award-winning author (and occasional stand-up comic) hailing originally from New Jersey. She received her law degree from Rutgers and went on to practice law in different places, ending up at one of the larger NYC firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore which is a competitor of Debavoice & Plimpton where my son is a partner. She is the author of the international thrillers, Trojan Horse and Nerve Attack and she is working on her third novel, Bloody Soil.
She now lives in Vermont [Elmore] with her husband. She has two adult children who live in California and New Jersey. Welcome Sandy.
Sandy’s love affair with literature began when, as a child, she read a story about a dog that died and she in turn wrote a book about a dog that herded cows and didn’t die. Later in life
she attended college and received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in literature. After not much success as an author, she went back to the halls of academia and earned a degree in law. She took some time off from practicing law to have two children, wrote for trade magazines and penned a “terrible” novel. She had “great” rejections while she continued to practice law. In 2014 she dusted off Trojan Horse, updated it and received a contract for it although it wasn’t published until 2020. In February of that year she attended a workshop at the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington, but the pandemic hit in March and with no venues available to perform, she concentrated on her writing. She also talked about how she takes painful situations and turns them into comedy and how she thinks that comedy relieves stress. She also discussed her connections with Ukraine, her Jewish heritage (four grandparents from Eastern Europe) and she described how she approaches her writing. An informative and interesting presentation was rewarded by a warm round of applause from appreciative Rotarians.
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