THE SENIOR MEN'S CLUB OF NEW CANAAN
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of June 21, 2002
President Bob Witt opened the meeting with 134 members present. Membership is 498 with 2 invitees and 30 on the waiting list.
Announcements: Health Chairman Dick DePatie announced that Rod Aspinwall was at home recovering from double bypass surgery .President Witt gave the summer schedule. Meeting
dates are 7/12,7/1, 7/26, 8/9, 8/23, and the first Friday after Labor Day in September. Mr. Witt also requested that we clean up the coffee cups after the meetings.
Activities: 4Fs luncheon is next week at Woodway Beach Club. Golfs next outing is July 15 in Ridgefield. Bring $37 for the privilege. Tennis continues 3 days a week, racquetball had a mysterious number of players, trailblazers will hit the trail June 26 at Devils Den, and bridge is flourishing during this fine weather with three tables last week.
Couth: 7/27 is the Connecticut Jazz Festival; 8/15 Sagamore and the Port Jefferson ferry; 9/19 they race at Belmont, and the couth committee guarantees that everyone will be a winner; 10/9 Oklahoma and II/9 West Point are sold out; and 12/4 is the Newport mansion trip.
Jester: John Berg told the story about two "Rubes" from Louisiana who were visiting a friend in Texas and had trouble distinguishing a dry cleaning shop from a retail clothing store.
Speaker: Vice President Jack Murray introduced Carter Wiseman, an architecture critic and author of quot;I.M. Pei: A Profile in American Architecture." Mr. Wiseman covered the book at length with many slides showing the development of Mr. Pei's work. Mr. Pei came over from Canton, China, and graduated from MIT as an engineer. He then started working for William Zeckendorf where he gained his first organizational skills. The first building he designed was in Boulder Colorado but what really put his name on the map were the Kennedy Library and the Dallas Municipal Building. His original designs were very sharp angled geometric, but as time went on he began changing to more fluid and curved works, taking advantage of natural light. The new designs started with the east wing of the National Gallery of Art. From there he went on to his latest phase, completely redoing the Louvre Museum in Paris where his glass pyramid caused quite a sensation. He dramatically opened up an the inside galleries, and took a parking lot and made it into a sculpture courtyard. After finishing the Louvre, he designed museums in Luxembourg and Berlin. His last famous work was a museum built into a hillside in Japan, the entrance of which is a tunnel built through a mountain and accessible by golf carts. Mr. Pei turned 85 in April and is still very active with many projects under way. He sounds like the perfect candidate for the SMCNC.
Eric Musa, Secretary