Opener

Colleen Turner began the meeting with the reading of a poem which hung on the wall of Mother Teresa’s home in Calcutta, India:

People are often unreasonable,

illogical and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

 

If you are kind,

People may accuse you

of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,

you will win some false friends and

some true enemies;

Succeed anyway.

 

If you are honest and frank,

people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

 

What you spend years building,

someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

 

If you find serenity and happiness,

they may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

 

The good you do today,

people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

 

Give the world the best you have,

and it may never be enough;

Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

 

You see, in the final analysis.

it is between you and God;

It is never between you and them anyway.

Frank Young and another person, plus the speaker, were visiting Rotarians. There were also three guests, including our exchange student Farina. Steve Vincent perfectly recited our hospitality mantra, letting them know they were “all always welcome at the BBRC.”

Fellowship

The club was informed that Sergeant At Arms Wendi Fischer had allowed Paul Chapman a special dispensation to ask everyone to take out their smart phones and cell phones. Members were asked to “please click accept to plan for our Anniversary Dinner on November 11. Clicking, Paul explained, didn’t commit anyone to actually attend the dinner nor did it constitute payment, but did put the event on our calendars.

The event will take place at the Hilton Hotel.

Chris Rasmussen and several others indicated they had already accepted the November 11 date. Then Wendi immediately revoked her indulgence to the club, barking out the order, “Now, put your devices away!” Fearful compliance ensued.

We also have a Third Thursday coming up on September 15 at the Rock Bottom, and our famous florist, John DeWater, has an Oktoberfest scheduled for October 15. We’ll meet in the basement of his florist shop to eat bratwurst and listen to great music.

Rotary Education — New Generation

As it is Youth Emphasis Month, Joellen Monson shared our New Generation Plan, as reproduced here:

BBRC Youth Involvement 2011-12

Rotaract

Interact Student of the month (Sammamish, Bellevue Christian, Newport, and Eastside Academy Student of the Year)

DECCA

Business Week

RYLA Conference

Dictionaries

Scholarships (Sammamish)

Exchange Student Hosting

Exchange Student Outbound (in the works)

Y Partnerships

Bellevue 5-10K Beneficiaries (Children’s Hospital and Kindering)

Newport students on Computers for the World trips

Antigua project with computers, dictionaries, and chess

Joellen encouraged the club, saying, “We’re touching youth from infancy to young entrepreneurs. We’re looking for your participation.”

Sergeant At Arms

The redoubtable club gendarme, Wendi Fischer, being greeted with the customary good-natured boos that are the pain quotidian of her office, gracious said, “Thank you,” in a perky voice. “We’re going to do a little education,” she chirped. “Raise your hand if you know what acrostic poetry is.” No one acknowledge knowing such an arcane fact, though the reporter has it on good authority that many Rotarians were “sandbagging” out of their fear of being seen as “les nerds du club.”

“None of you got through third grade?” she mocked, and then explained that one can make an acrostic poem with one’s name, giving her own eponymous acrostic W-E-N-D-I: Wild-Enthusiastic (very)-Nice-Delirious-Ingenious, noting that the “ingenious” label had been earned “for coming up with this great activity at the last minute.”

Judges were named by the comely constable, including guest speaker Monty Reed and Frank Young. The exercise for the club was for each table to make an acrostic poem based on R-O-T-A-R-Y with the winning entries to be published on the internet for the whole world to see. Each table proudly read its acrostics, and all entries were later declared winners on the basis of the Four-Way Test question: “Is it fair to all concerned?” But, here are the two acrostics chosen by the impartial and judicious club reporter:

Editor's Choice:

 

R-O-T-A-R-Y

 

Ready to serve

Optimistic

Tenacious

Awesome

Relentless

Y-because we care

 

Rotary

Oatmeal

Tastes

Amazing,

Ruffage

Yes!

Other notable entries:

 

R-O-T-A-R-Y

 

Robust

Organization

That

Acts

Responsively

Yearly

 

We are:

Reliable

Outstanding

Timely

Active

Raucous and

Youthful

 

And, in honor of Third Thursday:

 

Rock Bottom

Oktoberfest

Tap a keg

Ale

Red Hook

Y-because we are thirsty

General Announcements

Madeline announced the adoption party on October 1. She informed the club that it is always hard to find enough drivers for all the children, so we need many volunteers. Drivers have to be pre-approved by the State Patrol, which includes filing a form in a timely manner. With state budget cuts, it will be a bigger problem this year for the State to provide drivers. Download the driver background form here.

Norm Johnson announced the New Members meeting next week.

Howard Johnson talked about Rotary First Harvest, the next work party being scheduled for September 10. The members were encouraged to bring mature young people to share the work.

PROGRAM

“The Gift of Walking,” Monty Reed, Founder of theyshallwalk.org and a member of the Rotary Club of Shoreline

Colleen Turner introduced Monty Konrad Reed, a member of Philadelphia Church and the Shoreline Rotary Club. He is also founder of They Shall Walk, a registered non-governmental organization. Mr. Reed has studied biosynthetics at the University of Washington, has been recognized as a Mary Gates Scholar, and has twice received NASA Space Grant Scholar awards. He is a member of the Sigma Theta Phi and Phi Theta Kappa honor societies, and is also a member of the Bequest Society. His topic was The Gift of Walking Project.

Reed began his highly engaging talk with an anecdote about starting a rudimentary business as a child selling items that could be creatively dispensed by a Pez device. Making a profit, he learned the difference between earning a salary and running a business at an early age.

“Some clubs don’t even have a New Generations committee,” commenting on the earlier report given to the club. “I was involved in Scouts as a young boy, and my first contact with Rotary was in a service project. I asked who the adults were and wound up getting an honorary Rotarian patch. When I was invited as an adult to join Rotary, I had been waiting since I was 12. There are a lot of young people who are just waiting to be included. People have had great experiences with Rotary.”

Reed testified that he had grown up in a churched home and “got to know Jesus as a young kid.” Explaining his life of setbacks and victories, he said, “I had lots of challenges, including a learning disability. At one point in my life I had lost everything, but I learned the truth of that poem ‘Footprints.’ The Lord has always carried me.”

“I always expected to be a mad scientist,” he continued, “but my teachers pointed out that my test scores would not get me into college. I had planned out my whole life, but one person changed it [by telling me I couldn’t succeed].” According to his teachers, he said, “I would either work in a factory or other labor. But, I wanted to do something important.” When someone in Europe died in a car bomb, “I went to the military recruiter to sign up to fight terrorists. I wound up enlisting as an Army Ranger, jumping out of perfectly good airplanes just to get to work.”

“I used to be afraid of heights until my first jump,” he explained further. “[I was] trembling in my boots scared to death. They promised that if the light turned green and I didn’t jump they were going to push me out. It worked.” There is a problem with challenging authority, he noted. “Is anyone here in law enforcement? When you break the law there are consequences. Gravity is always going to work. Parachutes? Not so much. Mine didn’t work.” Reed hit the ground hard and broke his ankle. In the hospital, he asked God: “What am I going to do to make my life meaningful?” While in convalescence he read about powered armor in a novel that would let soldiers move specially, doing things like jumping over buildings. He began to dream of creating such a powered suit that would allow paralyzed people to walk. “I talked to engineers who explained [specific reasons] why it couldn’t be done. I kept saying, ‘But, if you could solve that, could we do it?’”

While in the hospital, he began to design a life suit. “I received the gift of the miracle of walking.” Through therapy, he got back his ability to walk. “When I got out of the hospital, I had to lie on the floor. I couldn’t sit or stand for more than 15 minutes. No one would hire me for a job.”

After a while, however, an opportunity emerged. “A friend of mine had a father who owned a convenience store,” he said. The man needed help with bookkeeping, and he said, “You can lie on the floor and count the money. For two hours he trained me to do the books, and then he went to play golf. Imagine the trust of a guy who gives his money to a guy with a learning disability to do his books. I messed them up, but [eventually] learned to do it.”

“So I started a mail order business, and a year later no longer needed to work at the 7-11 store. Some people on the East Coast asked me to come teach them what I was doing. More invitations came. I kept doubling the price and people kept calling me.” He succeeded so much he was able to buy a horse ranch and “played hard” after early retirement in 1998. “In 2000, my wife and I realized that I had been given the gift of walking, so we started They Shall Walk. “I put a request for help on the website of the Seattle Robotics Society,” he said, and someone from the society taught him to do programming.

Since then, he has made remarkable progress on his dream. “We’ve built 15 iterations of the robotic suit prototype. It’s a life suit robotic exoskeleton.” A very entertaining speaker, Reed told an amusing anecdote about winning a weightlifting contest “because no one else had a robotic suit.” Apparently, no one thought about banning such a suit in the contest rules, since no one could conceive of someone might show up with one.

“I’ve been honored twice as a NASA space grant scholar. I’m also a Mary Gates scholar — less than 3,000 people have been chosen for that [award],” he beamed. He also talked about meeting music star Joan Jett (“I love Rock and Roll”). “I got to meet her and she’s agreed to help with a They Shall Walk event.”

“When I got out of the hospital and couldn’t work, I wanted to take an art class, and they made me take tests. Three hours later they told me I had a learning disability and that I needed to do four things differently than other people. Once I had those marching orders, I knew what I needed to do,” he said. Waxing philosophical, he continued to say, “Freedom is best when the boundaries are clearly defined.” Despite the predictions of teachers who said that he would never be able to go to college, “I got a 2-year degree from a community college and then went to the UW. I’m almost finished with a B.A. degree.”

The future version of the life suit will be living muscle tissue, because it is the best motor,” he said. To illustrate, he showed a brief video about how electricity can make lab-grown muscle tissue move. “Biosynthetic tissue has nerves in it,” he explained. “You hit it with electricity and it activates. In the future we expect to be able to grow the muscle fibers in a dish and combine them with other technology. Clamshell panels secure the suit around the paralyzed person. They push a button and the suit stands up, carrying them with it.” A joystick lets them control where they walk.

The future life suit will include a brain-computer interface. “It’s like science fiction come true,” he said. “It can literally read your mind. Paralyzed people will be able to just think, and the suit will move to where they are and put itself on them.” He further explained.

The Rotary Club of Vellore, India, and the Shoreline Rotary Club are doing a joint project to get robotic suits into a hospital in India. “So many paralyzed people coming through the door that the India government has given us immediate approval for the suit instead of putting us through a long approval process [like the FDA would require in America].” Speaking of his Indian partner, he said, “Dr. Jacob John is a hero in the Indian medical community. I didn’t know he was so famous when I started working with him. The project is about Rotarians at work together.”

There is no working model of the suit yet, but it is expected in February.

After the presentation, the venerable Frank Young — no longer dressed in his summer shorts — spoke up: “As the appointed judge for this club today, I’d like to award Monty as the best speaker of this year.” The club roundly applauded its assent to Young’s sentiment.