I was very happy to see our recent rains that cleared up our skies and provided much needed help to our very brave and hard working firefighters. It made me so happy I kind of wanted to do a little dance!! I thought about that for awhile and thought perhaps our bulletin and parting shots that have been music focused, should also include some dancing!! Here’s something in that vein at the end of the bulletin sent by my Coast Guard Academy classmate “Tiger!” So when you send me parting shots, maybe they should include dancing or humor. Better yet maybe dancing and humor! Keep them coming!! I also need some more volunteers for inspirations, just email me if you want to help.

This weeks program will be the second on the upcoming election for the 4th congressional district and feature challenger Alex Skarlatos. As I said 2 weeks ago, (and I repeat verbatim), I want both programs to meet the 4-way test and most of all be “fair to all concerned.” Although we cannot control what the candidates say, we can be sure that our questions to the candidates are “fair to all concerned.” Our questions should be about issues and not be partisan in nature. More importantly, they should focus on the solutions the candidates think they can bring to the table on a given issue. As a wise man once told me “a problem without a solution, will always be a problem.” To that end, we will be taking questions from the floor only through the chat function, so if you have a question, please put it in chat and be sure it meets the 4-way test. Last week I asked you for some question topics. Some of you gave me some good ones and they will be included as generic questions to both candidates. I have put together a panel to come up with some canned questions around the issues, that will ask for the candidates solutions. I thank Jerry Harris , Liz Ness and Jennifer Geller in advance for helping me with this endeavor. I hope you will see that our questions stick to the issues and are “fair” to both candidates. We all have our political views, but fairness to others (regardless of their views) should be paramount for Rotarians.

Tuesday is also the Autumnal Equinox, which should even us all out (that pun was for Geoff). Many ancient civilizations celebrated both the 2 equinqox and solstices. I had 4 courses in Navigation in college (not many can say that, or would perhaps would want to say that) and learned how to find out where I was by the heavens (that was past tense, which means I could a long time ago). I learned what the equinox and solstice were and how they helped navigators from the beginning of sail. So my question to you, without using Siri or the internet (the 4-way test applies here); what is the other equinox called and when is it?? A prize will be awarded for the first complete answer to me by email.

I hope you all are enjoying seeing the stars again,

Tom