October 1, 2003
Service Clubs

Speechifying.  Provided the proverbial bus doesn’t run me over between the delivery of today’s effort to the Sentinel and your reading this first of the month Milieu, today at 9 will find me at the Redlands Community Club discussing the Geezerpalooza bike tour with the members of the Golden K Kiwanis Club.

     Bob Hanson called a couple of months ago explaining he was the Golden K program chairman and without his saying another word I agreed.  Many, many years ago yours truly was a service club program chairman of Kiwanis and the psychological scars remain to this day.  In my opinion the two worst jobs on the face of this earth have to be a) giving enemas to the elephants at the circus and b) serving as program chairman of a service club.

    Now for the obligatory old joke explanation.  A guy goes to his doctor and says, “ I have no friends, because I stink.”  And the doctor says, “Why do you stink?”  And the guy says, “Because it’s my job to give the circus elephants enemas.  I climb up a ladder and put the hose in and when I pull the hose out I can’t get down the ladder before I get hit by everything and that’s why I stink and no one will have anything to do with me.  And the doctor says, “Why in the world don’t you quit your job?”  And the guy cries, “And get out of show business?”

    Why is it so difficult being the program chairman of a service club?  Because only so many people in our valley are willing to stand in front of a group of locals and discuss some subject that may or may not be interesting to the assembled group.  And there are so, so many service clubs.  You’ll find Lions from Palisade to Fruita, morning Lions, noon Lions and evening Lions.  And that’s just Lions.  We are also blessed with Optimists, Rotarians, Sertomans and Kiwaniians.  In fact there are two Kiwanis Clubs meeting at the same time on the same day.  Probably one of the things they discuss frequently, since their membership tends to be Republican in nature, is how government should be more efficient like small business.  I digress.  The point is there must be twenty service clubs in our valley.  All require a weekly speaker.  If the clubs meet fifty times a year, and they probably meet fifty two or twenty six but my mathematical skills decline rapidly when the number is not divisible by ten, with twenty clubs needing fifty speakers a year you have one thousand programs a year required by the service clubs of our Grand Valley.  Not to state the obvious but the talent pool ain’t that deep.

    Service clubs are a wonderful American institution.  The good they do for all of us is legendary. In a previous life, I once served as President of the Grand Junction Kiwanis Club and also spent a year as Lt. Governor.  From that tenure, and as the speaker at many a service club meeting since, I learned all service club members seem to hold two beliefs near and dear.  The first is that every meeting must have a program.  The second axiom, however, is that in no way should a member have to actually sit and listen to that day’s speaker.

    This leads to the rather disconcerting sight of up to half the room departing during the introduction.  It’s not that attendees don’t want to hear your message but many members have to “get back to work”, “have a one fifteen tee time” or “it’s the only time the dentist could fit me in”.  Right. 

    Twenty some years ago when I was President of Kiwanis, and since presidents have to sit at the head table and can’t leave early, they become very dogmatic about everyone else  sticking around, I instituted a policy of “leave early, pay a two dollar fine”.  While this was a terrific fundraiser, a lady who spoke at many service club meetings told me that while it was disconcerting so many people left before the program it was a terrible blow to one’s self confidence witnessing individuals willing to fork over hard earned dollars rather than hear her talk.  We dumped the fine.

    But the Golden K club members will remain in place this morning.  They’re my age meaning they move slowly and have nowhere else to go.  Now if I can just keep them awake.