Welcome
Fourteen Rotarians and two guests joined President Caroline in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the Four Way Test. She then welcomed today’s guests Riley and Lena, Emily’s daughters.
Social Time Interruptus 
Socializing while enjoying our lunches was next on the agenda, only to be interrupted by super-excited Tony with a Happy Dollar as he expressed the joy he felt babysitting his grandson, Miles; changing his diaper twice, feeding him and having him sleep on his chest. He was not alone, however, his mother was monitoring the situation on the baby cam. Jan added a HD when she quipped “because he (Miles) was unsupervised.”
Hear ye! Hear ye!
President Caroline read an email from Sarah Avery, a member of the Berlin Elementary School’s PTNA, requesting to use our grills and staff them for the Annual BES Picnic. We agreed to honor the request and Eddie volunteered to head up the Grill Brigade
President Caroline informed us that Amanda Vincent has resigned from the District Governor track and so we will be voting on a new nominee in the near future.She also reported on recent actions of the Rotary Council on Legislation: fifteen members will be needed to start a charter club; as of July 2025, president-elects or a designee will be required to attend their district’s PETS and District Training and if they don’t attend, they cannot serve as president.
Tony reported that the tents have been secured for the Breakfast; tickets and posters have been ordered; have not heard from McKenzie or Hood regarding their potential donations.
Since Last We Met
Birthdays: Ted Goulette May 16; Carol Dawes May 21
Club Anniversary: George Milne May 19, 1959 66 years
On this day in history: American aviator Charles Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean on this
day in 1927, traveling from New York to Paris in the monoplane Spirit of Saint Louis in about 33.5 hours.
On this day in history: In 1932 American aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to pilot an airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
A Few More Dollars
Doug rose to give a Happy Dollar in recognition of George’s sixty-six years as a Barre Rotarian.
Eddie had a couple of Happy Dollars for golfing stuff.
Tom proposed a fine of one-and-nine on Tony for scaring the kids. Passed.
Dandelions and Drag Car Races President Caroline introduced Karl Rinker, here today to give a Reclassification Talk.
To say his entrance was unexpected, would be an understatement. His emergence from the Children’s Room hallway evoked reactions of surprise, laughter, awe and fear (Emily’s daughters, Riley and Lena reported it as scary). Speculation of what his getup represented ranged from a Star Wars character to a welder to a skier to a drag car racer. I suspect one or two of the latter because he was making an identity statement, part of his persona.
He shed the “costume” and announced the title of his talk--”Dandelions and Drag Car Races.” And so his saga began with his recalling growing up in Barre and launching the beginning of the first of his entrepreneurial endeavors. At the age of eight he collected dandelion greens, dried them and put them in bags. He then peddled them to residents in an apartment building on Seminary Street for $.50 per bag. In 1953 that was a lot of money. While his attempts at sales, door to door, were more often rejected than accepted, he persevered. Lesson: Don’t be discouraged, keep going.
Flash forward to 1960. Karl took to drag racing on the streets of Barre and at Washington Flats. He recalled an incident when a group of dragsters were gathered at a turnoff near the East Barre dam when they spied a state trooper vehicle approaching. His fellow dragster, Buddy Rousse, hopped into his Corvette and drove into the brushes to hide. The state trooper admonished the dragsters for dragging on the streets of Barre and asked them to cool it. Turns out that Buddy didn’t want to be identified because he had submitted an application to become a state trooper.
Karl went on to compete on the “drag racing circuit” at dragstrips between NJ and Montreal and won most of the races, admitting it
was not in the professional ranks. In between having race cars, he ran the dragstrip in Milton, VT, doing the line-ups and the announcing while his girlfriend ran the Christmas Tree. A Christmas Tree at a drag strip is a series of lights (red, yellow, and green) that are used to start the race. When he entered the next level of A, Superstock cars, which included racers sponsored by car dealers, he didn’t do so well. 1969: Time to move on. He married his high school sweetheart (Charlene) and operator of the “traffic light” at the Milton Speedway. He told us about his wrecker business and Mobil stations. Wrecker drivers had to have phones in their homes 24/7 in order to respond to calls. He saw a need for a better way to communicate and so he created a communications business offering dispatch services, paging services, two-way radios and towers. And, as he said, “you know the rest.”
Great talk, thanks Karl!
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