Gregory Wrightstone, Geologist, Author
Pete Ratto,
GGBC Editor in Chief
This morning I logged-on just a couple minutes early and both Tony Woodall had Hedy Kaveh were there waiting for me. Our third early arriving usual suspect, Arlen Kertz, who has been missing for the last few weeks, appeared on-line at 8:02AM. Well, he didn’t really appear as he was using his smart phone. Our speaker, Gregory Wrightstone, arrived from Arlington, Virginia, at 6:42AM, which is probably the earliest arrival of a speaker since the GGBC entered the Zoom era. Although Gregory wasn’t interested in our pre-program conversation, he was there to test his connection and his presentation and was gone by 6:46AM. President Craig Adams again wasn’t able to instruct Bert Hill as to when he should commence his banging on our artillery shell cup, as Bert arrived late. So, Joel Panzer was prepared to use his brass bell, but Bert arrived just in time to give us the customary artillery shell cup banging. Shortly after Bert finished his shell banging duty, he had to leave for Seattle. President Craig called GGBC Zoom meeting number fifty-two, or GGBC meeting 3,653 to order right on time. That’s a full year of Zoom meetings, so I do think my terming this as the GGBC’s Zoom era is appropriate. Who would have thunk? We started off a little slower than usual this morning with only eighteen participants at the start or our meeting. As is typical for the Zoom era, we had continual arrivals right up until the speaker was introduced. By that time, we had forty-two participants, or one more than last week.
We were joined by five guests this morning. President Craig hosted two, including next week’s speaker, Tracy Hooperand the following week’s speaker, Paul Coleman. Tracy is going to help us elevate our professional presence on video calls. It only took us a year to figure this one out. Paul, who joins us from the Turks and Caicos, will be talking about anti-money laundering, not giving us tips on how to launder money. Well, I guess my guests are going to be sorely disappointed. Chairperson of the day, Bill Buchanan, hosted Thomas LaFreniere, who logged-in a little late. So, Billwas unable to give Thomas a proper introduction. We also had two mystery guests, “blank” and “eseib”. Now “blank” lived up to his or her name and did not use video or audio. That was not the case for “eseib” who did use his video. Even so, he was not claimed by any of the membership, nor was “blank”, who didn’t say a word.
Excuses requested for this morning from me for your Treasurer, Ray Siotto, who has an early morning appointment with the Chiropractor in San Carlos and from President Craig for Anastasia Lipske. I’m pleased to see new member Anastasia is already in the habit of asking for an excuse when she cannot attend our meetings. This is a time honored tradition that harks back to the earliest days of the GGBC. Anytime a member was going to be absent, the request for an excuse was required. And, if you missed more than three unexcused meetings, you were asked to leave. Did you think you could skate by? I mean is anyone checking? You betcha. Attendance Chairman Claude Grimm walked through the ballroom with a gigantic clipboard and checked off each member who was present. So as to not fall out of favor with the ghost of Claude, I will ask for an excuse for next Wednesday. I’ll be on Zoom attending the American Public Transit Association’s
Mobility Conference. Don’t worry though, in my absence Bill Buchanan will be ably writing this column.
I was surprised many of our members were using the same virtual Zoom backgrounds they used last week. We did have some new ones though. Reg Young was in Barcelona at the entrance to the Gaudi Gardens. Unfortunately, with Regbeing limited to the tiny Zoom “box”, the entrance alone doesn’t do justice to the gardens of Antoni Gaudi, which took fourteen years to construct. On her last trip abroad before the shutdown, Patricia Fripp was in Barcelona and visited the Gaudi Gardens and was suitably impressed. This past Saturday though, both myself and Reg attended a GGBC Board sub-committee meeting, which, of course, was held on Zoom. For his background, Reg used one of Oranjestad’s double-decked, open streetcars. I was sure Reg would use the same background this morning, as these streetcars have a very interesting story. At least to me anyway. Alas, he did not, depriving me of an opportunity to draw upon my massive store of obscure rail rolling stock knowledge. Jim Prost started the morning with his collage of a number of Antonio White’s GGBC official backgrounds, then switched midway to Antonio’s “California Street Cable Car #52”, which is Sidney Mobell’s signature background. Derek Arden created a “GGBC UK Chapter” background. I had another SamTrans meeting where members of the tax paying public will be participating. So, I needed to stick with a very current subject to show where their tax dollars are going. So, I used one of our new Proterra fully electric and zero emission buses taking a break between runs at the Daly City BART Station. Photo credit to SamTrans.
We welcomed our newest member this morning; Gino Greco of Northwestern Mutual with the customary GGBC round of applause. Gino is from San Francisco, grew up in the Excelsior District and then moved down the Peninsula to Redwood City.
I received a nice e-mail from one of our missing members, Catherine Accardi. Even though she hasn’t been able to attend our meetings, she keeps up to date by reading this column. Catherine noted my mention of the passing of San Francisco icon Lawrence Ferlinghetti in last week’s column and sent me a copies of her two part interview of Lorenzothat appeared in the L’Italo-Americano newspaper in June and July of 2015. If you would like copies, let me know and I’ll e-mail them to you. And even though Catherine conducted the interviews in Italian, don’t worry, she translated them into English for publication.
This past Friday, President Craig was interviewed by “Fripper” Brian Wagner on leadership, vision and how this is applied to his efforts to lead the GGBC. How did it go? I couldn’t tell you as I decided to tune into Bob’s Coffee Chat hosted by frequent GGBC guest Bob Bednarz. Bob’s guests were BART Board member, Bevan Dufty, and BART’s Director of Communications, Alicia Trost. Unfortunately, Bevan didn’t show up. It wasn’t a problem though as Alicia did a very fine job. Actually, the Director of Communications position at SamTrans/Caltrain is currently open. And, when you ask a Board member to accompany you to an interview, we actually show up.
Hugh Tuck continues to start his Wednesday morning by walking with wife Judy and his dog through Hillsborough and San Mateo Park. Today, Hugh decided to show us a
new house nearing completion just down the street. It’s all yours for $7 million. Hugh is also getting ready to go into the hospital to have a chunk taken out of his neck. It’s a three hour procedure. Wow, that’s a long time considering Hugh’s neck isn’t that big.
We found out a little something more about Steven Campbell this morning. He used to handle all the purchasing for a hospital, which I’m sure Steven is happy that it’s no longer his line of work.
With this latest jump in San Francisco’s COVID tier which allows restaurants to open at twenty-five percent of capacity, Mike Rocco says he ready to have a grand reopening at the MMC’s restaurant. The actual date is still up in the air. The bar will not be opening, but you can have alcohol with your meal. Speaking of up in the air, Mike says the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, just north of San Diego is in danger of shutting down. This is a great museum with almost fifty historic Marine aircraft ranging from little single piston engine trainers to F/A-18s (the same plane flown by the Blue Angels). If you have a couple of bucks, or more, to spare, make a donation to save this irreplaceable collection of historic aircraft.
Mike Kress had a retreat for his company at the MMC last week. His group was small enough to hold the retreat indoors.
GGBC members are not having good luck when it comes to retaining walls. First Ray Siotto, now Sidney Mobell, whose wall collapsed while Sid was having his trees trimmed.
In honor of Pi Day, which is coming up on Sunday, Ylma Gutierrez was wearing her Pi Scarf. No, I don’t know if Caaarrrla has a Pi Scarf too.
Randall Reeder, AKA Will Rogers, is multi-tasking this morning. He’s here at the GGBC and through the magic of Zoom, he’s simultaneously attending a conference too.
Fashion plate Susan Roane loves the GGBC. Every Wednesday is an excuse to dress and jewelry up. Or, in my case, put on a collared shirt and my best sweat pants.
While it’s been raining pretty hard here in the Bay Area, Tana Hope says it’s sunny in Washington. Tana is still having trouble slowing down and breaking into retirement mode though. She also lost a bet that Donald Trump would be back in office on March 4th. Note to self; Tana is an easy mark.
Tony Woodall is now a certified OKR Coach. What’s OKR? Objectives and Key Results.
It’s been two weeks in a row for Tom Jacobs. Although he was late this morning. He found his lap top; he just couldn’t find the link to join our Zoom meeting. Tom chided me for giving the wrong information for his car rally opposing the removal of Sir Francis Drake’s name from both the High School in San Anselmo and the boulevard too. So, here’s a tip for Tom and all the rest of you too. Don’t hold a flyer or poster up to your computer’s camera for five seconds and expect me to read it completely from that tiny Zoom box. Either put the information in Zoom Chat or scan and e-mail it to me. I’m always glad to promote member’s events and I really appreciate it when you send me all the information in a format I can actually use. Oh, where did I get the incorrect information? I took the time to run a search on Facebook and found a post shared over multiple Sir Francis Drake High School pages. I mistakenly took it on faith that it was correct and unfortunately it was not.
Bert Hill announced he has been appointed as a delegate to the National Bike Conference by Nancy Pelosi.
They’re holding a baby shower for Steve Shain’s Daughter over Zoom. Sixty women are invited.
COVID shots continue to be the number one subject during the morning’s comments. I selected one comment completely at random to represent the bunch. Joel Panzer got his second shot at Moscone Center and they gave him a sticker. Joel says COVID has given us a new mantra; I wouldn’t touch that without a six foot pole.
Showing even more confidence than Hedy Kaveh; Patricia Fripp bought a ticket for Vegas for the end of the month.
It’s really raining hard in Sebastopol, although Rickey Wilson says it is better than being stuck in the eye with a sharp stick. Rickey’s Mom’s 101st birthday is coming up and that reminded Rickey of when he took his Mom to a Who concert at the Fillmore for her Birthday. Everything was going swimmingly until the pyrotechnics went off on the stage. Seeing the look of abject horror on her face will never be forgotten.
Do you have an old tennis racket you are no longer using? Betty Taisch says there’s a group in Oakland that’s looking for them. If you call Betty she will even pick it up!
So, Marty Mijalski says this guy walks into a wig shop and asks the clerk if he could see his cheapest wig. The clerk brings it out and the guys asks, “how much?” The clerk replies, “eleven bucks.” The guy complains, “that’s too much!” The clerk answers, “that’s a small price toupee.” Get it? That’s a small price to pay.
After that gem, no joke or pun from Alan Garber. It’s been one year since Garber moved to Sonoma and the Mustard trees are out in full bloom. Sonoma’s still not in the red tier though.
Mike Milstein ran into our former member Dave Bloom, who is now with First Republic Bank. Dave helped Mike get a loan for PPE. So, Mike issued an open invitation to Dave to come to the GGBC whenever he gets a chance. Mike’sKiwanis Club recently had Heather Knight of the Chronicle as their speaker. Since Heather’s column usually covers local interest subjects, Mike thought she would be a good fit to speak at the GGBC. What says San Francisco better than the GGBC?
Tom Kowalski is going into UCSF for cataract surgery, so next week he’ll be looking at us with a new eye. This is eye number two. Tom had the same surgery done on eye number one just before Christmas. So, Tom will be looking at us with two new eyes.
While he was in New Mexico, your Secretary Chris Weisman got the COVID vaccine by accident. Well, we know Chris isn’t over sixty-five, so he’s going to have to explain the circumstances of his “accident”. After Chris got the shot he went to bed and slept for fifteen hours. Now back in San Francisco, Chris had dinner at Luisa’s based on a recommendation he heard here at the GGBC. He didn’t remember the source of the recommendation though. So, I checked my old columns to identify the recommender. I came up empty though. Maybe Chris got the recommendation somewhere else.
After our surge of late February birthdays, Reg Young had but a single member birthday for this week, Bert Hill, tomorrow. Tomorrow is also the birthday of Barbie’s platonic friend, Ken, who turns sixty. Ken likes the older women though, as Barbie is sixty-two.
Reg did point out that March is the Young family equivalent of late February for the GGBC. On the 7th it’s Reg’s granddaughter's first birthday. On the 14th it’s her mother’s (Reg’s youngest daughter) birthday. On the 17th it’s one of Reg’s middle daughter’s birthday and on the 22nd it’s Reg’s oldest daughter’s birthday.
If you’re wondering as to why your clever comment didn’t make the column this week, we had a lot of items this morning and I had to do more editing than usual. So, during self-introductions if you notice time is running short, and we never want to deprive our speakers of their full allocation of time, do some self-editing. You can always save that comment for next week. Pete
