Greetings 5170 Century Builders,
I have now been in Osaka and many of you are reading this trip journal
and I thought I would share the realities of life with all of you. One
of the hazards of Rotary is that when you make all these wonderful friendships
sometimes you loose them. I mean they leave Rotary in the worst way
possible.
Just 24 hours ago when I could not sleep I decided to check my email
and found out that one of the members of my Club, Ali Watson, has passed
away. People pass away all over the world and since we are Rotarians
we do so many things to try to prevent that from happening. Every life
is terrible to see pass away. It is so much more painful, though, when
it is someone you have known, enjoyed, and gotten to have a deep caring
friendship. Someone you have sat across at lunch, joked with, worked
with on projects, been kidded by, all those wonderful things friends
do.
Then there are those who you know for such a short time. Joe Morrow,
a member of the Tri-Valley Club died suddenly and unexpectedly during
the time I was gone on this trip also. I met Joe only once. He was a
relatively new and young Rotarian and had attended his first Rotary
District meeting as a Foundation Area Representative. I remember him
because I needed some help from someone before the meeting and he jumped
up to help me. We chatted for a moment while he was helping me. It just
hit me “what a nice guy”. To hear only several weeks later
that he has passed away is just such a loss when you have been touched
by someone.
Yes that is one of the Hazards of Rotary. It just makes………what
we do so valuable…….. If we feel a loss and it hurts, then
these friendships must be worth a lot. Without Rotary these valuable
treasures might not be ours. Thank you Rotary.
Speaking of wonderful friendships, this morning Cindy and I started
our day by having breakfast in the
Coffee Shop of our hotel with Karl Stucki, the International Chair of
our District. We talked about his special friend Hisa Nakamuta who is
a Past President of the Fukuoka Rotary Club and how we were going to
have the pleasure of meeting with him twice today.
Today we are going to meet briefly with my counterpart from the Fukuoka
District, Mr. Tomoshige Tachibana, DGE of District 2700, our Centennial
GSE partner. The GSE will span 2 years. In 2004-2005 we will send a
team to their District and in 2005-2006 we will be receiving their team.
Cindy and I as well as Arlene Greenberg and her husband Steve had small
gifts that we wanted to give Tachibana san and his wife as well as to
Hirohata san, his successor, and his wife, since we were in their country.
What a crazy thing trying to meet someone in a sea of 46,000 people.
We had asked all of them to attend our District Fellowship meeting
which for the last 10 years has followed the Opening ceremonies of the
convention. They had prior commitments so we had to meet elsewhere and
at another time. We finally accomplished it and it was wonderful to
re establish the “bridges first built” in Anaheim earlier
this year. This time we had several people there as translators which
was very helpful.
In Anaheim, Tachibana san brought his wife, who knows a little English,
and their daughter who knows a lot of English. This time we had Nakamuta
san, Karl’s friend, and Harada san, the sister of Tachibana san
who also spoke English. I also had my book, “How to learn Japanese
in 7 days” with me. The book was easily ignored by me with all
of the wonderful help that we had. Bridges were built and we ran off
to the next meetings which we all had to go to. I hope that you are
all thinking about who might be that lucky individual who will be heading
this GSE team to Fukuoka, Japan on or about April 10, 2005.
Cindy and I went to the Paul Harris luncheon and we were thrilled to
see our very own PE Tom Schmitz 
heading
a platoon of Sergeants (of Arms) dressed very distinctly. We had another
one of those lunches with people we had never met before and by the
time lunch was over more bridges had been built and enjoyed. Cindy and
I sat next to a most wonderful couple who had received the Service Above
Self Award.
There are only 150 maximum given every year by Rotary International.
They had received the award for work they had done in China. They came
from the Crow’s Nest Club in Sydney, Australia and had helped
to build a school on Mainland China. There accomplishments were so great
and recognized as such that the Chinese Government was sending them
as a Thank you for 10 days anywhere in China that they wanted to see.
The Chinese Government has recognized 2 other couples who had done equally
exciting charitable things.
The people one meets at these meetings are absolutely wonderful. It
is a real adventure just to be able to sit next to them for a few hours
and hear these great stories of accomplishment.
We then met one of my classmates and his wife and then we went over
to the opening ceremonies. This too was hard to describe. A room with
50,000 Rotarians, all doing good things…..enough to give you goose
bumps.
After this we went to our District Fellowship Event at the foot of
Osaka-Jo (Osaka-Castle). We had a delightful evening and we have to
thank Past District Governor Brad Howard and President Elect Jolene
Bortz for arranging such a pleasant event without 50,000 people present.
We
had some distinguished visitors, friends, 3 of my DGE classmates and
many of our Presidents Elect. Kathleen Delaney, PE of Hayward, and her
husband Bruce Cervone, PP of Oakland Sunrise were seen Building Bridges
as was John Curtis, PE of Los Gatos Morning, and his wife Janie.
It was great to see them all and feel the anticipation of “Celebrating
Rotary” approaching. I reminded everyone that Paul Harris was
here (in Osaka) in 1935 and in his book, Peregrinations II, he said
that Osaka was like the Chicago of Japan. How appropriate for us to
build a bridge and be in Osaka in the 99th year of Rotary when in the
100th year we will be in ……. the Chicago.
It is now around 5AM and I just asked Cindy if she wanted to say a
few words and she mumbled something…….do you want me to
find out what she said?
Saying goodbye from Osaka, Japan.
See you on the website tomorrow.
Ron and Cindy
