Retired Men’s Association Cigar Box Bulletin · Ray Atkins led us in the Pledge of Allegiance,...

Retired Men’s Association

Cigar Box Bulletin September 2013Volume 16 Issue 9

Inside this Issue

UpcomingMeetings

Friday, Oct 11 Friday, Nov 8 Friday, Dec 13 Friday, Jan 10

September Minutes

Continued on page 3

September Speaker

Reporter: Bill Johnson

Ships Bells rang at 10:00 AM

Reporter:Bill Beebee

Al Persson called the lively meeting to order at 10 am; the cell phones were silenced. Ray Atkins led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Thanks to Dave Calder for coming an hour and a half early to prepare the coffee and to John Iberg for bringing the donuts from Stop & Shop.

Also thanks to Rick Dugan for handling the badges today.

Thanks to Don Sherman for operating the computer and video system for our meetings and thanks to Bob Curtiss for his efforts as the Web master, The RMA needs all member’s email

Anniversaries 8 Birthdays 10 Treaty of Paris 11

Continued on page 4

In the old days of sailing ships, most mariners sailed to live. Susie Klein, today’s speaker, and her husband, clearly live to sail. She and her family took a 65-day sailing trip from Boston to Spain in 2005.Susie started the talk by

asking how many blue water sailors were in the audi-ence. Finding relatively few, she focused on the hu-man side of her family’s sailing experience crossing the Atlantic. Susie comes from sail-racing parents, grew up in CA, and was on the UC Berkeley sailing team. She was the ’78 Female Intercollegiate All-American

The Cigar Box BulletinP. O. Box 261

Wayland, MA 01778

Board of Directors

Bill Ely PresidentAl Persson First Vice PresidentRay Atkins Second Vice PresidentMerrill Mack Treasurer Mort Brond Program ChairmanAl Persson Editor of Bulletin Karl Geiger Ron RiggertWally Hart Wayne ClemensFrank Lyons

Proof ReadersYutaka Kobayashi, Bob Curtiss,

Karl Geiger, Abner Salant, John Heckscher, Harry Webber,

Felix Bossard, Bob Diefenbacher

The RMA is a not-for-profit corporation

Published monthly by the Retired Men’s Association

of Weston, Wayland, Sudbury and surrounding communities.

Romeo Report :There were 10 RMA members and our September guest speaker (Susie Klein) in attendance at the Villa Restaurant in Cochituate MA to enjoy food and libations - with excellent service by Carol. Susie was able to enjoy her lunch and continue her offer to answer our combined questions about her "adventures". One thing she commented about was overhearing her eldest describing to his then female companion on a later excursion "this was where we came, etc." - and Susie was able to surmise a rebuttal to his "wish he had been able to stay home from that 'boring' sailing adventure"! A very interesting story and follow-on sharing made this day's luncheon fly by! Reported by, Rick Dugan

Annual Dinner October 16thBar opens at 5:00 PM

Minutes Continued from page 1

addresses so they can get email from RMA. Please send it by clicking on contact us in the RMA website, RMenA.org

Member Committee announcements – Nick Veeder with new members, guests and travelers.

The guest of Bill Tafuri was a friend, Bob Frakes, retired from Foster Miller.

Bob Cooke went on a photographic journey to Prince Edward Island and then on to Scotland for more pictures. Arnold Barnes and Sally went to visit their granddaughter and a military school with a remarkable Happy Hour. Fred Manasse visited a friend in Seattle and Anchorage. He got a plane ride over a sand pit ($800) and a plane ride to see bears ($750). Mort Brond went on a French river cruise for 13 days on the Seine to Normandy.

Ray Atkins went on a hike along Hadrian’s Wall between England and Scotland. It was built by the Romans about 125 BC to keep the Celts out. It is a wall built out of local rocks and cement as tall as one man on the shoulders of another. Much of it still remains today.

Special Events: Ray Atkins reminded members to send pictures of themselves and their spouse in to the RMA along with their email address. He also reminded us of the volunteer opportunities at RMA: Bridges, Habitat for Humanity, FISH, Nursing Homes, RMA meeting set-up, Parmenter, foundations (recent raft project) and other opportunities.

He provided more information on the Annual Dinner – Oct 16, Marlboro Country Club, Jug O’ Punch entertainment, $45 per person, sells-out-early !

Chris Hammer handed out a sign-up sheet for a visit to 3E Systems (a cell phone company) on September 23rd.

John Heckscher gave us some information on the Parmenter Bereavement Center. There is an fund raising event on Saturday Sept 21st at SVT at Walbach farm in Sudbury.

The RMA vital statistics were presented by Gerry Brodie.

Rick Dugan is looking for help to select possible hiking events that the members would find inter-esting

Al Persson updated the member’s health report. Jim Stoddard had a bladder operation and is re-covering. Rolf McVickar passed away on September 6th and his funeral is at 1st Parish Church in Weston on Sept 26th.

Our ROMEO lunch host, Rick Dugan, is taking us to the Villa restaurant on Route 30.

Speaker from Page 1

continured on page 5

champ. Her husband, Jim Hammitt, was also raised in CA in a sailing family. He was in ten long-distance races, including one from LA to Honolulu and another from LA to Tahiti. (When Susie and Jim married in ’84, they sailed away from their wedding reception.) The balance of her family, sons Robbie and Galen, were teenagers at the time of the Atlantic trip. Although Susie’s family had already run the Newport-Bermuda race by themselves, this trip required an additional two crew members. In pairs, differing folks were included at various legs of the trip.The voyage started when the sailboat “Reveille” left the New Bedford Yacht Club at South Dart-mouth, MA, on June 24, 2005. Although some 1000 recreational sailboat passages occur across the Atlantic every year, this trip was unusual because teens were in the crew. The route taken to the Med was not the shortest, “great circle”, route because icebergs were feared. That would have taken four weeks. Instead, the “Reveille” went to the Azores, then to Gibraltar, and then to Barcelona. The non-family crew for the first part of the trip, to the Azores, consisted of John Bell, a naval archi-tect, and his daughter, Marissa. The other two segments used other non-family members to reach Spain. The total voyage took 65 days.Onboard, crew structure was based on time-tested ship organization principles. There were two watches, three crew members on each, and they were alternated. (The boat only stopped when it reached a port.) The daytime watches were four hours each and started at 6 AM. The nighttime watches were three hours each and started at 6 PM. The latter time was special because it was the single social hour of the day, and the two watches could connect. Otherwise, the members of each watch depended on each other and formed bonds. When crew members were off watch, everyone did chores, including cooking, or sleeping. There was no refrigeration and all drinking water was carried, used at the rate of 1 gallon per day per person. Sleeping while underway was especially im-portant because it was the only chance to escape the constant motion and wind / water noise of the voyage. For the 2005 trip, the teenagers needed all the help the adults could give them since they started the trip exhausted, coming off their final exams. Unlike some blue-water recreational sailors, Susie’s family relied on time-tested ship-handling tech-niques as much as on modern electronics. Susie apparently feels that over-reliance on electronics can give one a false sense of security, inducing mental sedation. They used their autopilot only dur-ing dead-calm conditions. They had a Garmin GPS navigator but also had a sextant for “shooting the sun and stars” to get latitude. They had a smart phone for downloading weather maps but they also relied on charts and read currents and winds. They had no radar but, fortunately, met very few ships enroute except near the ports. For talking with the outside world, they had text-messaging through a satellite link. Otherwise, they could send distress calls to passing overhead aircraft with a radio that also gave the GPS-derived position for the boat.Purchased in 2002, “Reveille” is a British-built Sigma 41 sailboat from 1985. It is a 41-foot, 19000 lb. displacement, masthead sloop, with a 36 HP diesel auxiliary. When loading the boat, they biased cargo weight towards the stern to improve performance. A constant worry when underway was hitting submerged abandoned ship containers, more common than one would think. To pro-tect against injuries in case of an impact, sleeping was done with feet facing forward. Otherwise, they had fine winds at one point and used their spinnaker for 18 hours. A storm between the Azores and Gibraltar gave them a good run. They saw many dolphins. They were lucky to have

If you received this bulletin by U.S. mail but would like to receive it in the future by email only, please email your request to [email protected] or AL Pers-son, [email protected]. If you want to receive other email news and notifications from the RMA please send your email address to [email protected]. The e-mail address for the RMA is [email protected].

Continued from page 4

only one stormy night. A 40 foot wave hit the cockpit from behind. Later trips were made around the Mediterranean and more storms were encountered. Storms in the Med can be worse than those in the Atlantic because the distance between wave peaks tends to be shorter. One 60-mile run from Ibizu to Majorca was especially rough, with lots of lightening striking the water.How has the experience changed Susie’s family and friends in the crew? As a group, they grew closer. As individuals, Marissa races sailboats and is working on a PhD in marine biology. Galen was graduated from Colby with concentrations in economics, geology, and cinematography. He has a scuba certification and lots of whitewater kayaking experience. Robbie was bitten by the foreign travel bug and earned an MA in International Relations at Johns Hopkins. He is especially inter-ested in Russia. After proving that they could sail the family across the Atlantic, Susie and Jim have found the “Reveille” fun to sail (for shorter distances) with only themselves onboard. What do Susie and Jim do when they are not sailing? That has always been an issue since they have such passion for the sport. Twenty years ago, Jim got a faculty position at Harvard in the Depart-ment of Health Policy and Management. (They moved from the West Coast to Wayland, MA.) It was tough to find the time to sail back then, and Susie started a career in investor relations to help make ends meet. She travelled around the country giving presentations representing companies to their stockholders. When it came time to make the Atlantic run, Jim could not afford to quit his position. He was able to land a Harvard sabbatical for the year at a French university in Toulouse, going there after landing in Barcelona. Susie and Jim are unusual. They have managed to balance career, family, and a very satisfying sport in their busy lives.

A lady sat on a Montgomery bus whereonly white people were allowed to be.She was arrested for taking that risk.I shook my head in disbeliefbut did nothing to seek redressbecause, you see, I’m a peaceable man.

A Birmingham Baptist church was bombed killing four innocent girls. The bomberwas fined for unlawful possession of dyna-mite.I shook my head in disbeliefbut did nothing to seek redressbecause, you see, I’m a peaceable man.

An NAACP leader was murdered.The prime suspect was released and hailedfor his defense of white supremacy.I shook my head in disbeliefbut did nothing to seek redressbecause, you see, I’m a peaceable man.

On a bloody Sunday on the Pettus Bridge,police used dogs and clubs to subdue peacefully marching civil rights champions.I shook my head in disbeliefbut did nothing to seek redressbecause, you see, I’m a peaceable man.

Then Martin Luther King’s dream was shat-teredby a bullet from a 30-06 Remington Game-masterin the hands of a mindless drifter.I shook my head in disbeliefbut did nothing to seek redressbecause, you see, I’m a peaceable man.

Now, a half-century later in my reflections,on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s dream,I pause to ponder: could I have found a wayto act on my indignation – to do something to seek redresswhile remaining a peaceable man.

- Robert Mainer

a peaceable man

Annual DinnerOctober 16th

$45.00 per personCash Bar

Send checks and Reservations toRMA Box 261

Wayland, MA 01778

Anniversariesin

September

Day Year Years

Larry Vifquain Carol 15 2012 1Mark Lupien Marie 23 1967 46Bradford Conant Mary 3 1966 47

Douglas Gifford Jan 7 1963 50Edwin E. Larsen Betty 9 1961 52Dan McCarthy J.M. 14 1957 56Michael Patterson Kay 13 1957 56Joseph Bausk Jacqui 15 1956 57John Blair Connie 10 1955 58Robert Curtiss Dolly 4 1954 59Harry Ainsworth Mary 12 1953 60Russell Fraleigh Jill 15 1953 60

THOSE IN GREEN ARE OVER 50 YEARS

Ray Atkins and the raft Ron Riggert n Karl Geiger

The raft floating out into the night with candles on board

Camp ErinBereavement Camp

for Parmenter

Camp ErinBerevment of Parmenter

Day Year Age

Septemb

er

Birthday

s

Charles Woodard 24 1945 68Keith Sims 5 1940 73T. Nelson Baker III 17 1937 76Ronald Riggert 14 1937 76Barton Skeen 25 1936 77Barry David 22 1934 79Gerald Morse 11 1933 80Robert Trocchi 11 1933 80Ray Fryer 24 1932 81Stanley Waugh 30 1932 81Gail V. Drake 25 1930 83George Wiedenbauer 17 1930 83Clifford Card 21 1929 84Robert Curtiss 10 1927 86Ed K. Thomas 4 1926 87Charles Pepper 21 1925 88Ken Slowman 12 1924 89Gerald O'Neil 15 1922 91

In courses on American history the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3rd 1783, is cited as the official legal document that made The United States a separate country. This is true but what is not mentioned is that the Treaty of Paris ended a world war. It set the boundaries of the US from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River, from northern Florida to the Great Lakes. The document was signed by representatives of Great Britain, France, Spain and the United States and ended disputes between all four countries. The main dispute started in Lexington, MA in April 1775 and led to the adoption of the Dec-laration of Independence on July 4th 1776. During the next five years the colonists fought the Revolutionary War with the help of France. Spain was part of the treaty because it had gained control of Florida. Although it is considered one treaty it is really several treaties clumped together. Each nation was suspicious of the others and negotiated separate terms that were then recognized by the others. There were 10 key points in the treaty. The most important and the only one still active today is that Great Britain recognized the United States as a free and separate nation with defined boundaries. The Continental Congress originally named a five man committee to represent the United States: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson and Henry Laurens. Hen-ry Laurens was captured on the high seas going to the meeting and was held by the British in the Tower of London while Thomas Jefferson had travel delays. Jefferson arrived after the talks had been held.

Benjamin Franklin wanted the Province of Quebec to be part of the United States but the British re-fused. It is of interest that there is no mention of the Native Americans or the fact that all the territory in dispute really belonged to them. Also of interest is that one of the articles dealt with restoration of property of those who remained loyal to the British Crown and had their property confiscated during the war. All was to be returned or compensation given. This included slaves. The same was true con-cerning goods and property owned by the British

Army. None of the property of the British Army was to become property of the United States government. All prisoners of war were to be freed but many opted to take Washington’s offer of 40 acres and a mule and become a citizen of the United States. This same offer was made to black slaves who freed themselves during the Civil War. by Al Persson

First Class Mail

web site RMenA.orge-mail [email protected]

R.M.A.Box 261

Wayland, MA 01778

Friday, October 10, 2013

Marcia BartusiakAn enthusiastic champion of discoveries about our universe in astronomy and physics.

She plans to have fun speaking to our group

Retired Men’s Association Cigar Box Bulletin · Ray Atkins led us in the Pledge of Allegiance,...

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Transcript of Retired Men’s Association Cigar Box Bulletin · Ray Atkins led us in the Pledge of Allegiance,...