THE SENIOR MEN'S CLUB OF NEW CANAAN
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of July 26, 2002
President Bob Witt opened the meeting with 112 members present. Membership is 500 with 33 on the waiting list.
Announcements: Dick DePatie announced that Hugh Toumey is recovering at Waveny. Wally Richards is in Norwalk Hospital but will be also at Waveny Shortly. Bill Schulhof is now the proud possessor of a new knee. Father Pickering announced that the Episcopal Church has been designated as a "hard hat" area and is therefore quite a dangerous place. STAY AWAY. President Witt requested that any members taking pictures during couth trips please save them so they can be used for the SMC directory.
Activities: 4Fs luncheon is today at Stamford Yacht Club. Golf, Bob Moylan gave out awards for the Ridgefield outing to Dick Davies, Stan Stanziale, and John Ross. Next event will be 8/14 at Whitney Farms. Trailblazers will advise their next outing. Bridge and tennis continue as usual.
Couth: Next trip is 8/15 to Sagamore Hills and home on the Port Jefferson Ferry. Bert Liebelt guarantees that Teddy Roosevelt will spend some of his valuable time chatting with us. 9/9 you can make some money at Belmont, 10/9 Oklahoma is sold out, as is 11/9 West Point. 12/5 Newport trip is also now on a waiting list basis.
Jester: Bob Dalury told of a conversation between God and St. Francis about how we earthlings are quite mixed up in handling our daily gardening and grass mowing chores.
Speaker: Vice President Bert Liebelt introduced fellow member and astronomer Mike DeLeanordis who spoke to us about life outside of our own little world. He is strongly convinced that there is life out in the universe, but doesn't know in what form. Mike said that the five elements necessary for life are oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, phosphorus, and sulfur, and they are all present on other planets or in other areas of our solar system. Water is also necessary to sustain life. Hydrogen and oxygen are the most important elements because they form polymers, which form chains, which eventually form amino acids and therefore life. Comets and dust grains are transporters of particles of life-giving particles. Many years ago a four-pound meteor fell in the Antarctic. Careful analysis showed that it contained carbonate molecules that contained bacteria showing it to be 4.6 billion years old. It probably came from Mars, which at that time had water. A bacterium is a very extreme form of life because it can exist in very high or low temperatures. Mike's speech also covered many other topics of astronomy. He spoke of Viking and Voyager, the two Mars probes. Today it takes about two years to get to Mars, but when the new "Ion Propulsion" technology is perfected, it should take about six months. Voyager has gone past Mars and has taken pictures of "Europa," a moon of Jupiter containing ice floes, which means it contains water, and therefore could contain life. Another interesting subject was the life and death of stars, which change color throughout life. Most stars have a life span of 11 billion years. Our sun has about 5 billion years left, after which the earth will simply burn up. So in one day, Father Pickering told us not to go to church, Bob Dalury told us that God considers us to be fools, and Mike DeLeanordis told us that we had better get our affairs in order.
Eric Musa, Secretary