February 2023
President’s Message:
Happy New Year and here’s to a very prosperous 2023! Hopefully everyone got the chance to bring in the new year in a fun and special way, with loved ones all around. As always, I hope that this edition of LaCarota finds everyone doing wonderful. Happy, healthy and safe! We are in the dead of winter now, but our days are already starting to get longer and we are already nearing the end of January. For those of you that enjoy our winters here in the Pacific Northwest, I hope that you are getting out and enjoying it all. Skiing, snowmobiling, hiking, exploring, or just escaping it all for warmer climates, enjoy it while it’s here. Me on the other hand, can’t wait for the warmer longer days of Spring and Summer. Whatever your taste, live it up, have fun and enjoy it all with your families and friends!
Superbowl Sunday Party:
Our Superbowl party is back and will be held on Sunday February 12th. Doors open at 12 noon. Come on out and cheer on your favorite team, that will hopefully take home the coveted “Lombardi Trophy”. I know that there are a lot of options out there for you, but Club Paesano can boast that we have one of the best parties in town. We offer an “All you can eat” buffet with a nice variety of foods. Football squares, side bets, raffles and probably the cheapest drink prices around, plus you will watch the game on 3 huge screens with an audio system to be able to hear all of the game and the halftime show. You get all of this for the low, low price of $10. It’s the best deal in town! Our Superbowl event is open to the public too, so please feel free to invite your family and friends as well. The more the merrier. If you would like to help set up, food prep,
make the football squares and side bets, run the raffle etc. please let me know. Hope to see you all there!
Carnevale Dance:
On Saturday February 18th, we will be hosting our annual “Carnevale Dance”. Tickets are currently on sale now and can be purchased at our Website www.clubpaesano.org . Hopefully you have already purchased, or are getting ready to purchase yours now. Our charity partner “Calabarzon”, has just purchased 80 tickets and hope to sell more. They’re working hard for their charity that raises money to have dental work done for the underprivileged children of the Calabarzon region in the Philippines. Fred and Emily Asa, who are originally from there and own Kuya’s restaurant in Gresham, started this charity, and are going to work hard to make money for it. Let’s do our best to support them, and to support ourselves too. Invite your families, friends and associates. The more the merrier. Let’s do our best to make this a huge sellout!
Sauce Making:
As you all know, one of the best parts of our dances is our “World Famous” Spaghetti & Meatballs! What makes it so special is our homemade sauce that’s made from scratch from an old Italian recipe. Marc Battilega will be in the kitchen on Wednesday February 15th at 8am to whip it up and get it ready for our Carnevale Dance. If you are available that morning, please stop by and give him a hand. There’s a lot to do, so if you can help out, it will make less work for all. Thanks.
Fun Committee:
The Fun Committee is currently working on another event coming up in the near future. As soon as all the details are worked out and finalized, I will let you all know. It should be a “Fun” event. In the meantime, we are still meeting for our “Monday Night Socials”, having a great time and eating some fantastic food together. It’s all about having fun, socializing and getting to know your fellow CP members a little better. If you haven’t been to one of them yet, you owe it to yourself to try to make it to one. You won’t be disappointed! If anyone has any ideas that they would like to see happen or any fun places that you would like to visit, please let us know. We would be happy to help in making it happen. Just try to get all the info that we would need to make it a reality. It’s just a great way to use your club and to enjoy the friendship of your fellow members.
Heritage Night:
Last March, we had our 1st ever “Heritage Night”. It was something that I had been wanting to do for a while. We finally pulled it off and it ended up being a huge success. The reason for doing this was to give some of us newer members some insight into the history of our club, and how it came to be. We got that and more. We had key speakers that came in to give us our history lesson, and to fill us in on the heritage of Club Paesano. Some of our original members came out to speak with us. Augie Giusto, Richard Calcagno, Pete Rebagliati, Marc & Kathy Battilega and Anna (Fazio) Nassib, all gave us a speech on our history. It was great and very informative. We also had a sit-down dinner to go with our night. Greg DeMiestri and his brother-in-law Dennis, volunteered to make us a 6-course meal which was amazing to say the least. Everyone there raved about it and enjoyed it so much. Seeing the night was such a success, we are planning on doing it again and making it an annual tradition. So, save the date: Saturday April 15th! Doors open at 5:30PM. If you couldn’t make it last year, please try to attend this year. You’ll have a nice night out and learn something about our Club Paesano Heritage. This is a member only event. More details to follow.
Bocce News:
Our Bocce League is on vacation for now, but our board continues to work on our upcoming season and league nights. We are planning on having 4 league nights again and are working on possibly getting a 5th night. How cool would that be? Our board is working hard to make this a reality and to do it, we need more players. If you are interested in the game and are thinking of playing or forming a team, please don’t hesitate, go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com to sign up or talk to one of our board members. We’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have and even get you out on the courts to roll a few if you are wanting to get to know the game better. Our current Board of Directors are: Mario Pompei- President / Myself- Treasurer / Dino Gavazza – Officer / Doug Burchack – Officer. We will be holding our 1st meeting of the year in the next month or 2, to go over this year’s leagues, so if you are interested in playing you can come and join us. A date will be announced soon. As always, we continue to work on ways of getting a roof to cover our “World Class” courts. We have a variety of items for sale on our website to fundraise for this undertaking. It’s a huge project that will cost us a fair amount of money, so we can use all the help that we can get. If you have any “Fundraising” experience or ideas, please let us know. We welcome any ideas and all the help we can get. Thanks. (Side Note) We would like to have a winter cleanup of the Bocce Courts and surrounding area. This will make spring clean-up that much easier. *Side note: mother nature has not been nice to the Bocce area. There is so much debris to be cleaned up you think a tornado went through the area! That said, we’re looking for volunteers to come out to help! Bring rakes and a wheelbarrow if you got one. When: Saturday February 4th, 9AM. Please come out and give us a hand!
Cedarville Shares:
If you are interested in owning a piece of this beautiful Lodge and Park property, please contact Steve Petruzelli at [email protected] or 503-620- 3447 to purchase Cedarville Shares. Property located at 3800 W Powell Loop, Gresham, OR 97030. Cedarville Share.
Cedarville Lodge & Park Rentals:
If you or someone you know are in need of a beautiful venue to rent for an event, please think Cedarville Lodge first. The club’s bookings are finally starting to pick up again, after this pandemic, but we can still use a little help. Please contact our Venue Director, Maria Duong, at 503-577- 8471 and she will be more than helpful and gracious in getting you all the info that you may need, and to also help you with coordinating your event.
Thoughts and Prayers:
Let’s keep all of our members and their families in your thoughts and prayers, especially those that are recovering and may need a couple more prayers.
Sebastiano Rebagliati, Joe Castellano, Ken Gemma, Carlos Ponta and anyone else that is currently sick or in recovery. For all of our members that have passed and are in the Kingdom of heaven, may we someday meet again. If you have anyone that you would like to give an extra prayer to, please let me know and I will add them to our list.
LaCarota Question:
Just when we thought the King was back and comfortable on his throne, he got pushed off of it again. Mario was ready to change the name of this segment to the “Pompei Invitational”! In his eagerness to win the next coveted bottle of wine to add to his cellar, (Supplied by LaCarota), He didn’t pay attention to the up and comer waiting in the wings. This guy has started to make a name for himself on the winning column as well. Congrats go out to Chris “Superfly” Siri for swooping in and winning that bottle. Just goes to show, if you don’t play, you can’t win! Seeing we will be celebrating Carnevale, with our upcoming dance, this question is about the holiday itself. My question this month is, what is the” Italian” definition of the word “Carnevale”? That’s it. Pretty simple. Let’s see how many people we can get on that win column. All correct answers emailed to me at [email protected] before our next meeting, will be entered to win that Coveted bottle of Vino!
Final Thoughts:
In my final thoughts, I just want to relay and discuss what I touched upon at our last meeting, for those of you that couldn’t make it. Club Paesano is an Italian/ American Social club that was founded by a group of people that wanted to be together to celebrate their Italian heritage, their families and their familiarities. They formed the club, bought the lodge and park so that they could have a place to meet, celebrate and have a place to call their own. With that, came a lot of work, sweat, volunteering and time. That is how this club was formed, how it all came together and has stood the test of time and remains together. It’s not an easy feat as a lot of things have changed. The family dynamic has changed. Sons and daughters have moved away and don’t get together like they used to. It’s a part of life and moving on. All that being said, you have all joined this club to be a part of something special. Some of us weren’t born into this club. We sought it out and came looking for it or were asked to join because an exciting member saw some potential in you as a good candidate to be a “Paesano”. To me, that’s a pretty high compliment! I just want to reiterate the fact that this club can’t run with just a handful of members. It takes all of us to build and keep the village intact and moving forward. We all need to do our part to keep it going. Like the old saying goes. “You work hard, you play harder!” Reap the reward of your hard work. Take pride in knowing that you helped this club by using some “Elbow grease” you promoted, you brought guests in to enjoy who and what CP does. We need each and every one of you to do your part no matter how big or how small it may be. Please contribute and do your part, cause without you, we will become just another Italian Club that went by the waste side again. We still have so much to do and so much potential to do great things, so please keep involved and please help out where and when you can. We will all benefit from it. I know that we have been somewhat easy on our meeting attendance and not adhering to our rules because of the pandemic, but moving forward, all of our policies are now back in place. In order to remain a “Member in good standing” you must attend at least 3 membership meetings a year and I personally would like to see more members become involved with our events. Volunteer a few hours to set up/ teardown, promote and advertise, bring guests etc. Do what you can! Sorry to go on about this, but it’s an issue that needs to be looked at and addressed. Let’s enjoy and celebrate being Club Paesano Members!
Thank you and Salute.
Rick