Hope you had a good holiday and wishing you all a healthy and joyous 2012. It seems that just the other day we celebrated the year 2000. How fast time flies. So the message is - enjoy each day and take that additional class.
Carl Curtis served as president of OLLI for 4 years and 8 months. He did an outstanding job. We now welcome a new board: Malcolm Green-President, Bill Fitzpatrick-Vice President, Arlene Rees-Secretary, Betty Hutchens-Member-at-Large, and Karin Covey continuing as treasurer. We wish them the best of luck.
Our president, Malcolm Green, was invited to go to Qingdao, China as a member of the Long Beach-Qingdao Sister City Association. The two sister cities have exchanged many cultural and educational projects such as the Long Beach Ballet and middle school children visiting each other’s cities. Malcolm and his wife Sheila traveled to Shanghai and Beijing where they saw tremendous growth in housing, education, and the economy. They had a wonderful experience.
The Press Telegram’s 2011 “Amazing Woman” award went to Theresa Marino for her many years of dedication in the health department. She is the co-chair of our advisory committee. An award was also given to Kim Masoner for her work on the environment. She is a craft instructor at OLLI.
Michele Roberge, our Shakespeare instructor, won a grant to fund a series of lectures and films regarding censorship in the United States. The first film and lecture was “Spartacus,” held at the Art Theatre on 4th street. Well over 200 people attended.
Classes at Leisure World are doing extremely well. The SHORT STORIES ABOUT AGING class, taught by Mona Panitz at the downtown campus, is also very successful.
This last session over 700 students registered for classes.
Congratulations to Jack Blecher on the birth of his great-grandson and to Carl Curtis on the birth of his third grandson.
And super congratulations to Otto Ross, our most venerable student, who celebrated his 99th birthday. What a fabulous achievement.
I consider my attendance at last session’s U.S. Constitution class given by Roger Lafontaine to be a very fortunate choice.
I was pleasantly surprised that there were many others at OLLI who considered that this was an appropriate time for a review of our constitution considering the serious attack by the right wing forces on our basic freedoms.
Mr. Lafontaine’s unusual approach to this subject was nothing less than brilliant. I expected the usual lecture, question and answer method. Rather we found ourselves in a latter day revival of “You are there,” namely at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. After Mr. LaFontaine described in detail the horrible conditions in the hall (security required closed windows and doors resulting in stifling heat and poor air quality), we were each given a card containing a delegate’s name and biographical material. I became James Wilson, a Scotch lawyer from Pennsylvania. We then proceeded to reenact the day by day and hour by hour process of the meeting.
After a great deal of contentious discussions, differences were resolved, a resolution was accomplished and our new constitution was signed.
This remarkable method put an unusual human face on the iconic document we call our Constitution. We all felt a new respect and appreciation and responsibility to see that it remains inviolate.
JOHN DONOHUE
October 11, 2011
