I joined the Rotary Club because I had heard good things about the organization. My kids’ orthodontist, Larry Henig, was a member and he said he would sponsor me. I had just become a salesman at Discovery Office Systems. I thought it would be a good way to meet people in my community and give me a chance to give back to my community.
A short history of Rotary!
“Rotary on February 23, 1905, was the dream of one man, a Chicago attorney named Paul Harris, who envisioned meeting with business professionals to kindle Fellowship and to perform works of public service. The name “Rotary” was selected from the early practice of meetings being held at members’ offices. “
Today it is customary to have the Rotary symbol on the sign that is usually on the outskirts of towns that have a Rotary club. Usually the time and place for the meetings is posted on that sign or where it is being held. The reason for this is that every Rotarian is encouraged attend a weekly meeting. When it isn’t possible to join your own meeting Rotarians usually go to a meeting where they are visiting.
“Today Rotary International is a world wide organization of business and professional men and women that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards of all vocations, and helps build good will and peace in the world. There are approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belonging to more than 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas. “
“Service above self” is the motto to which every Rotarian subscribes. Rotarians serve both local and international communities, which is perhaps the best reason for becoming a member. Rotary provides the chance to do something for somebody else which in turn brings out a strong sense of self-fulfillment and satisfaction to one’s own life.
Serving others through Rotary has been a life altering experience that is richly rewarding to me personally!
The four way test is what all Rotarians try to practice in their daily lives.
Of the things we think say or do:
Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build good will and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
I was in the Rohnert Park – Cotati Rotary Club for 19 years. I was in this service club more years than I was ever in one job. You might say it was the one constant other than my family. I was a salesman for many different companies selling many different things, customer service representative, limo driver and a photographer.
I did my best to get to the weekly early morning breakfast meetings at the Red Lion Hotel Rohnert Park, and when I was out of town, I would attend at the location that I was at. I’ve always been impressed at the camaraderie and the way I’ve always been accepted as a friend in all my years as a Rotarian.
The Rotary Club was responsible for things like “the wish list”; a list that the teachers gave us from the local high school and middle school the first week of school which included items that were essentials but were not in the budget. We also participated in the “Christmas in April” which was home improvement projects for senior citizens who couldn’t afford to build a fence or fix up the leaky roof. Rotary partnered with the fire department each year and three Santa’s would deliver toys to the kids the week before Christmas. Rotary is credited for almost completely of of eradicating polio throughout the world. Salk gave the world the cure for polio and Rotary distributed it entirely by hard work and monetary contributions. There are many other projects too numerous to mention at this time!
Patrick Parks, the retired police chief of Petaluma and Rotarian from the Petaluma Rotary Club, was in Peru many years before. Chief Parks was teaching a class on how the missionaries could protect themselves against militant leftists and Maoist terrorist who were killing foreigners during the early 1990’s. At that time he ran into a young man who was grandson of a Shipibo-Conibo Tribal Shaman. He was working as a janitor at the Christian Missionary. He, Miguel Harerio-Manenima, was born in the rainforest of Peru in a dugout canoe. His nickname is “Manenima”, meaning “The Traveler” destined to travel to far off places. Chief Parks was intrigued by this young man, his tenacious attitude and his yearning to get an education. He heard him play his “zamponas” (pan pipes). And through a series of events, Miguel found himself at Sonoma State University with a scholarship. If you want to learn more about Miguel you can go to my blog site and look up my story about him which is called (Have You Ever Had A Day When…?) (https.//Redwood-ink.com)
My friend and fellow Rotarian, Vida Jones, a seamstress in our little town of Rohnert Park, was an active member of the club. She had developed a program for the homeless in our area’s own back yard. She got a group of women, like my wife, to make warm quilts and distributed thousands. She also had developed interest in Miguel and his indigenous community.
She found out about three Rotary clubs in Peru that were building a hospital in one of the barrios of Pucallpa, Peru, a town of 125,000 people on the outskirts of civilization. She had gotten together a 20 foot sea train cargo container and had been collecting medical supplies and equipment that she wanted to get to Pucallpa. There were a bunch of problems getting getting a container that far away from civilization. The other much bigger problem was that Americans were not allowed in that part of Peru according to the State Department. Through her research she found another Rotary Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There was a man there who not only was a Rotarian, but he belonged to a Air National Guard Medical Team and sold state of the art x-ray equipment to hospitals in the United States. He would take the out of date equipment and donate them to third world countries. He was able to get permission from our State Department and Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori to allow us and the National Guard Medical Team to go that far into Peru.
(Hopefully I will be able to come up across my notes so that I can use his name. This month I’m planning to get into my storage that has all of my negatives and prints and notes.)
Vida knew of my situation with the detached retina and seemed to been brewing a plan that included me. At our weekly Rotary meetings she would wonder how my eye was healing. And then one week she asked do you have a passport. Of course I did not. I was not a world traveler.
We always had an international project of some sort, going on. But in the past there was not a chance for me to go anywhere. Two kids in high school and college and a sick wife we were always living from hand to mouth. No money to go international for sure.
I was reluctant, beside just getting over the detached retina, I didn’t have any money and at best, my business was struggling. I had no business traveling to Peru and yet it had been a dream of mine to go out of country on a photo assignment. I couldn’t think of the better opportunity to do what I always wanted to do! Although she was worried about me, my wife said yes, I should go! So over the next couple of weeks I went about getting my shots and passport.
New tires supplied by another Rotarian, Tommy Sullivan of “Big O”, and several mechanics, also Rotarians, and I was ready to set out on my trek. The last thing Police Chief of Cotati Bob Stewart and Vida gave me was a big thick book which had all the telephone numbers of all the presidents and board members of every single Rotary club in the world. That turned out to be probably the most important book I could’ve had on such an adventure.
I left with a promise to my wife that I would be safe and would stop on my way south and try to have dinner with my daughter, Vanessa, who was going to the University of Santa Barbara. Although I was on a short time frame I didn’t get to see Vanessa often enough. We had a nice but hurried lunch, I kissed my daughter and was off on an adventure to the unknown.
Unfortunately I am remembering this story with all my notes and names and dates packed nicely with my photographs. I’m hoping to find them in the next couple of months.
The next thing I remember from this trip is when I was driving down the freeway much in my speed limit and I looked out of my side view mirrors and saw a California Highway patrolman right on my tail. The first thing I did was look down at speed. 62 I remember. Then he came up beside me. I noticed he had a full load of passengers. He was on a training mission with rookies. Then he got back of me and then he came up on the other side. They were getting up big kick out of me for some reason. Then the driver made a signal with his hand and open and closed gesture which I didn’t get for a minute then it dawned on me that when I had put my baseball cap on the seat beside me. I had accidentally turned on the emergency lights. When I figured out how to turn them off he waved at me and went on his way.
I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary until I got to the exit for the Grand Canyon. I remember it was cold and I got out and took a picture of the sign. There was snow on the ground. And of course then it hit me. I had packed my bag with two sets of shorts three T shirts and three sets of socks thinking ahead to the sweltering heat of the Amazon rain forest that I had envisioned. I also added 65 pounds of camera of equipment.
The next thing I remember without my notes is engine trouble. I was out around Route 66 I wasn’t able to go more than 30 miles an hour and I was out in the middle of nowhere.
I chose the freeway instead of Route 66 which I believe was Interstate 40. I found a big truck stop. There wasn’t cell phone service there. I remember getting coffee and seeing a whole bunch of shiny pay telephones. There must’ve been 50 of them.
Then I remembered the book of numbers and names of Rotarians. I thought that’s the only thing I can think of right now. I thought it was 4:30pm. But I had crossed a time line so it turned out to be 5:30 PM. I remember putting up folding chairs around five pay telephones. Then I opened up to the section that had Albuquerque Rotary clubs. Now what am I going to say to them if I get anybody was the question that kept going through my mind. Although I had lots of experience in telephone sales, I figured this was going to be one of my most difficult sales pitches that I had ever done. “Hi, I’m Tom Patterson. I belong to a Rotary Club in The Bay Area of California. I’m trying to get an ambulance to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I’ve been experiencing engine trouble. Is there anything you can do for me? I need help”. On about the 15th phone call I finally got somebody that I could talk to. She was a nice lady but I’m not sure she believed me. The first thing she said was who is this really. Because of course with all the good work that we do in Rotary, there’s no doubt about it that we have fun. I finally got her to believe me and she said well I’ve got a couple of ideas. Let me make a couple of phone calls and I’ll call you back. I gave her the last pay telephone number in my little corral of folding chairs and got back to the phone calling.
It wasn’t but 10 or 15 minutes when the telephone rang. I hope I am able to find my notes because this man saved my adventure. He said that his brother owned the Ford dealership in Del Norte and if I could get the ambulance to the dealership he could help me. I was about half 100 miles from Albuquerque on Highway 40. I arrived at the dealership around 10 PM.
Most people in the car business are home with their families at 10 PM. When I got to the Ford dealership there was a guy with a tie on and a guy in overalls who had obviously been there all day. Hopefully I will find my notes and be able to mention these lovely people’s names. We greeted each other and the owner’s brother took the keys from me. We said good night to the mechanics, took my camera gear, my sleeping bag and my knapsack and drove off into the night. We talked like old friends. Our common interests were our families, our businesses, and Rotary. We must’ve driven for 45 or 50 minutes when we arrived at his home. His wife had prepared dinner and we immediately sat at the table. I learned that his kids were off at University and although he had to work the next day they had called members of my Rotary club. They called ahead and had reserved a flight on a plane to get me to Dallas, Texas, where I would meet up with Vida for our flight to Lima, Peru. He sent me to his kid’s room with a promise that he would get me to the airport on time. I don’t think either of us got two hours of sleep that night, however, when I heard a knock on the door, I woke up without a problem. His wife said that I had time to take a shower and handed me a couple of towels.
I will forever be thankful to the Rotary club of Del Norte for helping a complete stranger the way that they did. The Ford dealership got our Chevy ambulance working again and got it to the National Guard plane on time.
I remember frantically looking for my next flight, which turned out to be on the other side of the airport. The airport had shuttle cars on tracks to get travelers from one place to the other. I found Vida, we loaded the plane out on the run way there was a problem with the plane and after about 45 minutes we returned to the boarding dock. Had to deplane and starts the process over up again. Since there was only one flight to Lima I couldn’t have imagined how we were going to make it. As it turned out most of the flights that day were late.
From that point forward it was an uneventful flight to Lima. It was late in the day by the time we got there. There were a group of young people there to greet us. Then we were led to a car and a young man with very broken English said he was going to take us to where we were going to stay the night. I remember wanting to put the window down as it was hot. The young man cautioned me that that wouldn’t be a good idea. I had my camera equipment on my lap and he said people will just take it right out of the car at the intersections. We traveled for what seemed to be an hour when we made it to a house or hostle. The neighborhood I remember to be white with large wooden gates. Cars were kept inside of the court. I got the impression that you had to keep your eyes on things that you considered valuable.
There, Vida was taken one direction and me in another direction. I remember a tiled courtyard. The tiles were colorful and everything but the tiles seems to be white. I was exhausted and I slept the night through. Tomorrow we would catch a small commuter prop airplane. It would fly us over the Andes Mountains to our destination, to Pucallpa, on the outer edges of the civilization. This is the longest chapter that I’ve written so far it’s almost 3000 words. I hope I’ve kept you interested.
Stay tuned in for the next chapter which hopefully will be out next week.
Tom Patterson – Photographer – Writer – and Seeker 