ISSUE NO. 13
OCTOBER 6, 2000
OUR 79th YEAR
http://RotaryClubofSantaMonica.org
For more than 25 years John Pinero kept busy as an actor, director and
producer. He worked on stage and screen and television. But show business is
precarious. Most people in it are forever looking for their next vehicle.
Wouldn’t it be nice, Pinero thought, if he could create and star in a
one-man play? If it went well, he could repeat it all over the country, year
after year.
People sometimes told him that he looked like the late Vince Lombardi,
a Fordham football player who planned to enter the priesthood but instead won
six state championships as a high school coach, then became assistant to the
famed Red Blaik at West Point, and finally took the cellar-dwelling Green Bay
Packers to the first two Superbowl championships. Players often played better
for Lombardi than they had for other coaches.
Pinero got to thinking about a one-man play based on
Lombardi’s career. He’d never met the coach, who died in 1970, but he
began collecting books about Lombardi’s life, and going out of his way to
talk with those who had known him well.
Eventually he read every book and magazine article
published about the coach, and met dozens of his players and acquaintances. He
found a writer who helped him create a full-length play, “Vince.” It
premiered in Wisconsin in December 1996, and was such a hit that Pinero soon
realized he had the role of a lifetime. He has been playing it ever since.
After seeing it in Los Angeles, the veteran Times sportswriter
Mike Downey wrote, “I know my program said Lombardi was being played by John
Pinero, but I didn’t fall for that. That was Vince up there on stage.”
The character onstage showed the same inspirational qualities that Lombardi had. Honda Motors, Nissan, and about two dozen other corporations have hired him to play the Lombardi role in motivational talks to their employees. As we listen to him this Friday, maybe we’ll not only get an idea of how Lombardi inspired players, but will catch a spark of zeal ourselves.
October 13 – Cato Fystdal,
Agricultural Commissioner: “Fire Ants, Killer Bees, and Other Pests”
October 20 – Lauren Fair, Josephson
Institute on Ethics: “Character Counts”
October 27 – Dr. Mark Scholz:
“Prostate Cancer”
November 3 – Craft Talks
November 7 – (Tuesday) Rotary Golf
Tournament, Sterling Hills
November 10 – Dick Sawyer:
“Veterans’ Day”
November 17 – Samohi Marching Bank
– UCLA-USC Game Day
November 24 – DARK – Thanksgiving
Weekend
It was painful to see President John rebuke his sponsor, Bill
Fritzsche, for slight inexactitudes in his recollections about Jim Cayton
published several weeks ago in Rota-Monica.
On the other hand, Jim’s accomplishments are so phenomenal that nothing less
than a full favorable, and complete account should be published. Therefore, we
thank John for judging with candor, admonishing with friendship, and
reprehending with justice. No doubt this was well worth the $160 it cost Bill.
Congratulations,
Bob Sullivan! Your dinner with Colin Powell was an example of dining at
its finest. (For the information of newer members, we should note that Bob has
served this club, city and area with distinction. He is a strong supporter of
the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, and also active in his business, representing
property owners throughout the Bay Area.) We are proud of you, Bob, and rejoice
in your distinction. Thanks for the $75.
--- Lionel Ruhman
“As
Rotary heads into the 21st century, facing the membership decline common among
all service groups, attendees at the 91st R.I. Annual Convention in Buenos Aires
brainstormed and exchanged ideas on how to increase membership and improve the
organization’s effectiveness.”
(Page 33)
“R.I.
President Carlo Ravizza urged Rotarians to ‘have the courage to change.’ He
told the audience: ‘Our organization can no longer afford to remain rooted in
outworn traditions that have little relevance . . . The council should enact
changes in outdated attendance and membership rules that are causing Rotary’s
membership to decline.’ ”
(Page 39)
(One
of a series on new members of our club)
Our
returning member William C. Bullock has been chairman of seven different
fund-raising drives in San Pedro and Santa Monica, including campaigns for the
Red Cross, Salvation Army, YMCA and Community Chest. This sounds as if he must
be a supersalesman. But on first acquaintance Bill seems mild and quiet.
And truly he has been diffident at times. At high school in San Pedro he crossed
the street to avoid talking with girls. He might never have met Mildred, the
girl he married, if his mother hadn’t led him over and introduced him in
church.
Nor did he captivate prospective employers. In the depression year of 1935, when
he married, he thought he was assured a job with Metropolitan Life, replacing a
friend who was supposedly leaving – but the friend decided to stay, whereupon
Bill found work only as a grease monkey and soda jerk (despite education at USC).
In 1936 he did catch on with Southern California Gas Company, but not by
charming interviewers. He was the only applicant.
His job was to keep the office open at night, alone. He swept floors, hosed the
yard, and answered the phone. He soon observed that self-starters rose in the
company. So he found extra chores to do. He set a goal of becoming a division
manager by 37, and achieved it on schedule. When he retired in 1976 he was
division manager, supervising 400 employees who served a million customers, with
an $8 million budget.
He was a joiner, and an eager beaver on projects that came his way. When the
company transferred him to Covina he enrolled in the Junior Chamber of Commerce,
was made membership chairman, and genially coaxed colleagues into recruiting 106
new members. Joining Rotary in 1946, he became program chairman, and found
strings to pull that brought Congressman Richard Nixon, the Rose Tournament
Queen, and the president of the Wall Street Journal as speakers.
The company moved him back to San Pedro, where he was again a Rotarian and
President in 1956-57. Transferred to Santa Monica, he joined our club and served
on its board in 1965-66.
His success in fund drives was noticed. Asked for secrets of fund-raising, he
shrugged. “I just liked people. In finance campaigns I met lots of nice
people.”
Three civic organizations voted him “Citizen of the Year” in various years.
Superior Court Judge Edward Rafeedie, active in our club, took notice of Bill
and persuaded him to serve on the 21-person county grand jury in 1962. Bill did
so without stinting gas company work, by rushing to his office early each
morning and in late afternoons. In 1980 Rafeedie tapped him again for the grand
jury. This time it was easy, because he had retired from the gas company and
from Rotary.
Despite travel and golf, Bill has found time passing slowly in recent years.
Last February he asked his friend Bill Fritzsche, “Do you think
they’d let me back in Rotary?” The club was happy to welcome him back.