Dublin-Worthington News Stories

February 3, 2021 Virtual Club meeting

By Friday, February 5, 2021
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President Jim Miller opened the morning meeting at 7:31a.m. This is the 23nd meeting of the 46th rotary year. George Norris gave the invocation and led the Pledge of Allegiance.

President-Elect Steve Payerle called for any “Happy Dollar” announcements:
  • Steve was happy that he had saved his Nintendo game system all these years so that he could now play Duck Hunt with his son, who loved it. They are now playing other games on the system as well.
  • Joe Patchen was happy that his son, a TWHS wrestler, won his match last night.
  • Tim Shear was happy that, in light of Steve’s happy dollar announcement, he moved recently which forced him to get rid of a lot of old stuff. Anyone need an old Apple computer?!
President Jim Miller then called for announcements:
  • President-Elect Steve Payerle reminded us that he is offering training via Zoom to committee chairs and board members tonight from 5:00-6:00 p.m. He will showcase the different tools and technologies that we have available to us to make our lives easier.The focus will be on DACdb and Zoom.
  • Don Mottley, Co-Chair of the Community Service Committee, announced that there will be a strategic planning meeting for the committee this Friday, Feb.5, at 3:00p.m.
President Jim Miller then asked member and Program Committee Co-chair, Joe Patchen, to introduce our speaker. Gerhard Maroscher spoke to us about his memoir, Why Can’t Somebody Just Die Around Here? As Joe prefaced, Gerhard’s life story will make us realize that our lives aren’t nearly as challenging as we once thought. The author first recounts a pretty normal life in Romania where his parents, of German descent, married in 1939 and started a family. He and his older brother enjoyed life on a farm, and his father was a teacher. It wasn’t long before his father, who had been drafted into the Romanian army, was off fighting in WWII, and his family was in great danger as the Russian army broke through to occupy the Kingdom of Romania.  His mother made the difficult decision to flee with her children in order to save their lives.  Her sister, who had married a German man and was living in Germany, agreed to shelter them. Thanks to their heritage, they were able to obtain “Safe Passage” certificates to guarantee protection and traveled on a Red Cross train full of wounded soldiers and cattle for 3 weeks. Their journey ended at a refugee camp where his mother was hospitalized with diphtheria, and young Gerhard was slowly starving. When they finally made it to his aunt’s home, there was no rest for the weary as the few soldiers left behind when the war ended (April 1945) were raping, looting and drinking every night. Meanwhile, his father had become a prisoner of war. There is a happy ending- after 2 years and 4 months, the family of 4 was miraculously reunited.  

In 1952, they were able to immigrate to the United States where Gerhard and his brother attended public school. His father started as a janitor and his mother worked as a housemother at Capital University. At 9 years old, this is the first time that Gerhard experienced food security, and he was amazed every time they went to the grocery store. After serving in Vietnam, he obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from OSU and became an aircraft engineer with secret clearance. He retired at the age of 59 from DuPont then went on to teach German to high school students. He has certainly proved that the “American Dream” is possible. His is such a beautiful story of perseverance and love that touched us all.  I know it made me want to read the book to experience the entire journey. https://www.amazon.com/cant-somebody-just-around-here/dp/0981607969/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460397448&sr=8-1&keywords=gerhard+maroscher

Click image to play the video


President Jim Miller thanked Gerhard for sharing his inspiring and important message and closed the meeting at 8:30a.m. by leading us through the Four-Way Test.

Join us for our next club meeting on Wednesday, Feb.10th at 7:30a.m. Our speaker will be Steve Fine of the Melanoma Education Foundation.
 

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