ASSIGNMENTS

March

Greeter . . . . ….. Neil Thoman

50/50 . . . . . ……. Ruby Vages

50/50 . . . ………. Lynn Van Adder

Set-Up .. . . . …… Dave Whitlock

Set-Up . . . . . ……Bob Cameron

Clean-Up ...... John Clark

Clean-Up ...... Joe Fontanazza

Gear Scribes…… Chuck Collins

& Bob Dodds

April

Greeter . . . . ….. Bob Freudenrich

50/50 . . . . . ……. Raj Gandhi

50/50 . . . ………. Henry Ingrassia

Set-Up .. . . . …… Knarig Khatchadurian-

Meyer

Set-Up . . . . . …… Jackie Kort

Clean-Up ...... Mike Lanni

Clean-Up ...... Tom Ludwig

Gear Scribes…… Bill McGuire

& Bob Miller

Caring & Sharing

Please note: Let Henry Ingrassia know if you are aware of the need for a sympathy or get well card to one of our fellow Rotarians. Henry’s contact info: r (973)636-2594.

For Donations to Our Club’s Foundation

Please make your check payable to:

Rotary Club of Ridgewood Foundation

and give to Joe Shannon.

Upcoming Speakers:

  • March 14 – Tim Sun – “Modern China”
  • March 21 - Paul Platek – “Rotary Foundation”
  • April 4 – Judy Isaacson Schaffer – “Heroes to Heroes Foundation”

In History:Hula-Hoop Patented

On this day in 1963, the Hula-Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company’s co-founder, Arthur “Spud” Melin. An estimated 25 million Hula-Hoops were sold in its first four months of production alone.

In 1948, friends Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr founded a company in California to sell a slingshot they created to shoot meat up to falcons they used for hunting. The company’s name, Wham-O, came from the sound the slingshots supposedly made. Wham-O eventually branched out from slingshots, selling boomerangs and other sporting goods. Its first hit toy, a flying plastic disc known as the Frisbee, debuted in 1957. The Frisbee was originally marketed under a different name, the Pluto Platter, in an effort to capitalize on America’s fascination with UFOs.

Melina and Knerr were inspired to develop the Hula-Hoop after they saw a wooden hoop that Australian children twirled around their waists during gym class. Wham-O began producing a plastic version of the hoop, dubbed “Hula” after the hip-gyrating Hawaiian dance of the same name, and demonstrating it on Southern California playgrounds. Hula-Hoop mania took off from there.

The enormous popularity of the Hula-Hoop was short-lived and within a matter of months, the masses were on to the next big thing. However, the Hula-Hoop never faded away completely and still has its fans today. According to Ripley’s Believe It or Not, in April 2004, a performer at the Big Apple Circus in Boston simultaneously spun 100 hoops around her body. Earlier that same year, in January, according to the Guinness World Records, two people in Tokyo, Japan, managed to spin the world’s largest hoop–at 13 feet, 4 inches–around their waists at least three times each.

Following the Hula-Hoop, Wham-O continued to produce a steady stream of wacky and beloved novelty items, including the Superball, Water Wiggle, Silly String, Slip ‘n’ Slide and the Hacky Sack.

In History: Five Letters Pass Between Abigail and John Adams

On this day in 1777, Continental Congressman John Adams writes three letters to and receives two letters from his wife, Abigail. He is with Congress in Philadelphia, while she maintains their farm in Braintree, Massachusetts.

The remarkable correspondence between Abigail and John Adams—numbering 1,160 letters in total—covered topics ranging from politics and military strategy to household economy and family health. Their mutual respect and adoration served as evidence that even in an age when women were unable to vote, there were nonetheless marriages in which wives and husbands were true intellectual and emotional equals.

In the second letter John drafted to Abigail on March 7, he declared that Philadelphia had lost its vibrancy during Congress’ removal to Baltimore. This City is a dull Place, in Comparason [sic] of what it was. More than one half the Inhabitants have removed to the Country, as it was their Wisdom to do—the Remainder are chiefly Quakers as dull as Beetles. From these neither good is to be expected nor evil to be apprehended. They are a kind of neutral Tribe, or the Race of the insipids. By contrast, Adams described the Loyalists, who prepared their Minds and Bodies, Houses and Cellars, to receive General William Howe should he attack, as a Pack of sordid Scoundrels male and female.

In the letters John received, which Abigail had written in February, she bemoaned not only the difficulty of correspondence during war, but also of the lack of military fervor demonstrated by the New Englanders around her. She wrote that she awaited greater patriotism, greater prosperity and future correspondence from her beloved husband to his devoted Portia. (Portia, Adams’ nickname for his wife was likely a reference to the intelligent and devoted heroine of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.)