Rotary Reflections 2022
Like so many of you, I can look at my past and see several “turning points” in my life. Why does a North Dakota “flatlander” end up marrying a Missouri “hillbilly”? There’s a story there for another time. I’ve often reflected on my college days working for JC Penney in the lingerie department back in the days when women wore full slips and half slips. Often they’d hold one up, evaluate it and drop it and I had the “opportunity” (likely not my word of choice then) to refold it and put it in the right bin. To this day, I can’t hold up a folded item in the store and not refold it. Now, opportunity was the right word!
How many opportunities have been life-changing? I want to share with you a story in the latest Rotary magazine called “learning the lingo.” Caroline Gear was 18 years old when she had the opportunity to be a Rotary Exchange student. Despite planning to major in music and having studied French, she was assigned to Peru. Well, French wasn’t a lot of help for her there, but she did learn the lingo of Spanish…learning on the spot. She had to learn Spanish and a different culture to be able to survive. She had to learn to listen. She also learned to laugh at her mistakes as she soon learn to “catch” most of the words spoken to her. And in listening she truly learned that through studying other cultures, there is peace through understanding. This became a turning point for her when she went to college to study Spanish and international relations and now is the executive director of the International Language Institute of Massachusetts. She may not have gotten there if she hadn’t learned and listened while in Peru. (Ask me about Rotary Youth Exchange.)
As we approach those “turning points”, we aren’t always happy. “This isn’t the way it should be” we think. That’s one advantage of the aging process, we have more to look back on…and maybe remember.
There are some young people who will soon be graduating from high school in our Cass County. They have a lot of “turning points” ahead for them. Some will get a Rotary boost through one of our scholarships. That boost comes from our many area merchants who have supported our scholarship program. Things will be a bit different this next year in that we are going to talk to merchants about supporting our “5K Run for 150” in September (10) which will help us in all our youth activities. We appreciate everyone’s support in our activities and will be looking for more opportunities in the future.
Rotary is an international organization where one club will be talking about digging a water well half way around the world while another club will be stocking a food pantry in their neighborhood. Rotary is about serving the needs of which we are aware. Come be a part of Atlanta Area Rotary Club. We meet at Luigi’s the third Thursday of every month at 6 pm. See you there. Questions? Call me at 903.691.9717.