January 2024                          LaCarota

Presidents Message:

Hello my fellow Club Paesano Members. How are we all doing? As always, I hope it’s healthy, happy and safe of course! I know that in last month’s newsletter I said that I couldn’t believe that we were already nearing Thanksgiving. Well, this month’s newsletter I’ll say that I can’t believe we are only a few days away from Christmas day. By the time you get this, it may already have passed! I hope that you all have had time to do all of your Christmas shopping and been able to prepare the house with decorations, lights and the greatest tree you could find! If you are hosting Christmas eve or Christmas day, I hope that you all have had time to do your preparation and it turns out to be the best Christmas ever. As a kid, the day couldn’t get here fast enough. We spent all year figuring out what we wanted from Santa Claus, going through all of the store catalog’s toy sections, cutting out the pictures and posting them in a card to Santa or on the fridge for mom and dad to look at and add to their list. It was such a simple time when we were kids. I love watching the “Christmas Story” every year at this time because young Ralphie reminds me so much of myself and how our Christmases were like back then. Very cold and snowy, but it was some of the best times that I can remember. I hope that you all enjoy both Christmas Eve and Day surrounded by your families and friends. In Italian tradition, eat a ton and enjoy and have a Happy New Year!

Christmas Dinner:

Our Christmas Dinner was held on Sunday December 10th. As always, it did not disappoint! We had roughly 240 members and families combined this year. What a fantastic turnout! It was great to see some faces that I hadn’t seen for a while and to see all of the smiles on the children’s faces. They had a blast in the “Kid’s section” and when Santa Claus arrived! The little ones couldn’t contain themselves when the “Big Guy” finally made it into the lodge! Once again, the food didn’t disappoint. We had smoked Tri-Tip, chicken, potatoes, veggies, salad rolls and dessert. What a meal. Our caterers are definitely a keeper. We will make sure to have them back next year. I’d like to thank Chris Calcagno who played good Ol Saint Nick at this dinner and for the last 24 years of having our celebration. I’d also like to thank my daughter Adriana for manning the spinning wheel and the kid’s play section for us. She always has a great time doing it. Also, I’d like to thank the members that came in that morning to help set up and decorate. The Christmas Dinner is also the time that we bring in our newest Board of Directors and say goodbye and thanks to the ones that are leaving.  Thank you to long time board member and Secretary, Jimmy Siri. Jim has spent a long time on the board and always brought a spark and creativity to us, along with his detailed minutes and famous “Weather Report”. “It was a sunshiny day and the temperature was a warm 80 degrees”!  Always great stuff from Jim. Jimmy also never hesitates to help out the club with whatever is needed, whether it be ideas or manual labor. He has also volunteered his heavy equipment for landscaping or whatever else is needed. We also would like to thank Doug Burchak. Dougie has always been a solid contributor to the board and his constant hard work is duly noted. Doug has spent many hours at the club helping with just about anything you could imagine and also donates equipment and knowhow whenever he is asked. A rockstar and a member that any club would love to have on their roster! Thank you, brother! I’d like to welcome Phil Potestio and Marc Battilega as our newest Board members. Marc will be taking on the Secretary’s role. Neither of these fellow members need an introduction as all of you know them already and what they have done and still contribute to our wonderful club. Marc has been a former President on 3 separate occasions and Phil has served as our VP and board member in the past. Both of these members know what it takes to run a board and we all look forward to working with them both. Congratulations goes out to Jim Calcagno for winning us 

“Member of the Year”. Jimmy is always there for the club and never refuses to help. He’s a past winner and continues to bring his love and passion for the club year after year. I know when I call Jimmy for assistance, he’s always ready to lend a hand and his experience. The prototype for a terrific member. The member of the year is always a tough vote, because there are always a good 5 or 6 members that could be awarded the title. The members that are constantly there for the club and that are always there to help out in whatever way they can, without asking or hesitation. I wish that we could hand out multiple awards. Great year Jimmy C! At our Christmas Dinner we also introduce our newest 2024 members that were voted in. Our newest members were interested in the club and had shown the desire to become members no matter what I said to them… LOL!  They would not be discouraged or denied! They all understood what it was going to take to become a part of our club and what we all expect from them. They were all determined and happy to become a part of our growing family. I’d like to introduce Steve Leonetti, Tom Allabastro, Bob Bevilacqua, Donna Sunsiri, and Mike Rossi, the grandson of our very 1st President, Aldo Rossi. I welcome you all and look forward to your participation, ideas, and fellowship. Thank you.

The Fun Committee:

This past Sunday, a very jolly and merry group of Paesano’s gathered and made their way to the “Silverton Christmas Market”. There’s nothing like adding a group of very festive Italians to the mix, and you know how we Italians like to celebrate the holidays, especially Christmas time! It was a “FUN” Time from the word GO, or ANDIAMO! We had a cooler full of holiday cheer, a box full of charcuterie and sweets! What’s an Italian party without plenty of food and drink? Even if we had gotten lost in the woods, we could have survived for at least a week on all we brought! Silverton puts on a great Market, with tons of lights, scenes, vendors, food and a pretty nice lodge to sit and warm up in. A terrific time there, was followed by a fun and tasty dinner at “El Charrito ” in Molalla. Like I said, what’s an Italian party without a tremendous amount of food to be had! It was a great way to end a Fun & Fantastic Club Paesano outing. I would really like to thank Jim Siri. Jimmy volunteered one of his big buses and his driver Ricardo. This was so nice! We had such a fantastic time being able to ride on the bus all together. It was fun to be able to eat, drink and speak to everyone all together without having to worry about driving and having 16 different vehicles to park once we got there. We were all together, from start to finish. Such a great time! Thank you so much Jimmy Siri. You made the trip for all of us! Ricardo and his wife were fantastic too. We adopted them into our Italian famiglia for the evening. I can’t wait to do it again next year! I’m sure that we’ll have more outings lined up for this upcoming year along with other events at the club. Stay tuned for upcoming events here on “LaCarota” and in emails I’ll send out to you all. Our Monday Night Social will be taking a small holiday break and will return on Monday, January 8th. If you have any Fun ideas that you would like to see happen, please let me know about it so that I can help you get it going or at least get the word out to our membership.

Superbowl Party:

Our Club Paesano Superbowl Party will be held on Sunday February 11th. Doors open at noon. No time like the present to start planning on being there. This event is open to the public, so please invite all of your family and friends. It’s one of the best watch parties out there. 3 huge High-Def projection screens, sound system, squares and side bets. Our bar prices can’t be beat, and an all you can eat buffet, for the low, low price of $15, which you can just pay at the door. Where else can you go and get all of this for such a low price. Our club is huge, so you’ll have plenty of room to spread out, relax and have an unobstructed view of the game. We also welcome you to bring your own favorite most comfortable chair as long as it has rubber or smooth feet (don’t want to scratch the hardwood floors). What other place in town would allow you to do that, besides your own home, and furthermore, there’s no mess to clean up, but hopefully some of you will stick around to help clean up. It should be quick and easy. Anyway, make your plans to attend now. I’ll put a reminder in next month’s newsletter too.

Carnevale Dance:

Our Carnevale Dance 2024 will be held on Saturday February 17th. Doors open at 5:30pm. Our Charity will be Calabarzon. They were our last year’s Carnevale charity as well. Their charity raises money to take dentists over to the impoverished towns in the Philippines so that they can do dental work for the children of those towns for free. They did so well and raised so much money that they wanted to come back and work with us again. Of course, we said yes! They liked it so much that this year they have already purchased more tickets than last year’s event. They purchased 10 tables for the event. That is Fantastic! Let’s try to buy up the rest of the tables with our families and friends so we can have another “Sellout” like our Halloween dance. If you plan to attend, I would highly recommend purchasing your tickets sooner than later as some of the other tables are starting to sell as well. If you have a favorite table or section that you like to sit in, get it before it’s gone. That happened to me and many others at the Halloween dance. Tickets are on sale now on our website at www.clubpaesano.org .

They’ll make a great Christmas present! The band will be “Crescendo Skye”. As a band they are new to the club, but several of their members have played at our club before. I heard them at an event and thought that they would fit right in with our style of event and the music that we like to hear. In a couple of months, we’ll all have cabin fever and will be excited to get out and have some fun, so get your tickets now and let’s make it a winter celebration!

Paesano Bocce Club News:

Well, the bocce club is at that time of the year where there isn’t much bocce playing happening, but our Board is always working hard. We are currently having monthly meetings to organize and schedule our leagues, tournaments and fundraising events for the 2024 year. We are still in the beginning stages of obtaining information for our future plans to put a roof over our 4 “World Class” courts. You can go to our bocce website to learn about who we are and what’s going on in our bocce world. Our upcoming events, sign up to play, purchase items or just donate funds to our huge “Raise the Roof” project. If you are interested in joining our leagues next year please go on our website or feel free to speak to one of our board members, Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, or myself. We’ll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. I know that a few of you have joined our leagues in the last few years, and are having a fun time learning and playing the game. It’s a great way to get family members and friends out there to play with you on a team. You don’t have to be a Club Paesano member to be a Paesano Bocce Club member, so you can get family and friends that are non-Italian as well. If you don’t have a team to play on, no worries, we will find you a team to play on. We are all one big happy Bocce Family out there, so if you feel like you won’t know anyone, trust me, you will or you will really soon! We’ll even take you out there to check it out and roll a few games if you’ve never played before but are curious about the game. Stay tuned for more bocce news and schedules in upcoming newsletters.

Club Paesano Dues:

Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you. 

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. 

Cedarville Park Shares: 

If you are interested in owning a piece of this fantastic place and would like to purchase shares, please contact Steve Petruzelli at 503-620-3447 or email him at [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Thoughts & Prayers:

It is with a heavy heart that I share the news of the passing of one of our dear members, Chris Calcagno, our very own Santa Claus. Like me, I’m sure that a lot of you are reacting in the same way. I just saw him and spoke to him or took a family photo with him and told him thanks for always doing it. Chris happily played Santa Claus at our annual Christmas parties for at least the last 35 years. He made our kids so excited and happy to see and be with Santa. He even came back out on stage when he found out that not everyone had taken a picture with him yet. Chris was an easy going, nice guy and I was glad to have had the pleasure of getting to know him throughout these last few years. Chris will be truly missed by his family and his fellow members. Chris is survived by his son Ace, his sister Debra Calcagno Guthrie (our member) and his mother Virginia. I heard from Deb, that his son Ace may want to follow in his dad’s footsteps and play Santa Claus for us next year. I think that Chris would definitely love that! Please pray and keep fellow member Terry Thorud in your thoughts as well. Terry has been going through some health issues lately and could use our support. Please pray for Chris’s family, Terry and all of our members, their families and friends especially in this holiday season. If there is anyone that you would like me to add to this segment, please call or email me with any information.

LaCarota Question:

Well, we had another newcomer to the “Winners Circle” last month. This guy came from out of nowhere to snatch the “Holy Grail” out of the hands of our top 3 who were already getting ready to uncork and pour! Congratulations goes out to Vinny “My Cousin” Curletto! Way to go Vince. You’ve had your name in the running before, but this may have been a first timer for you. I’m glad to see some new names giving the regulars to the “Winner’s Circle” a challenge, once again showing that if you don’t play, you don’t win! Will Vinny start a new streak of his own and get his name up there with the likes of Mario “The Massachusetts Kid” Pompei, Jimmy “Bam Bam” Burch or Chris “Superfly” Siri, or will we get a fresh face in there again? Who knows but let’s find out.

Seeing we are a few days away from Christmas, my question has to do with an old Italian Christmas tradition. “The Feast of 7 Fishes”. This meal served on Christmas Eve usually consists of at least seven different seafood dishes. My question is this, “I want you to tell me what the number 7 is believed to represent? That is, it. The winning answers will be entered to win the Coveted bottle of Paesano Vino! Email me your answer before the start of our next members meeting on Wednesday, January 3rd.

Final Thoughts:

For this last newsletter of 2023, I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year for 2024! As I look back on 2023, and our Club, I truly believe that we had a good year and am happy with the direction that we are heading to and the future of our great club. I see a constant interest of new members wanting to join our family. We are consistently bringing in new members year after year which means a good future and shows that we are a relevant Italian Club in the Pacific Northwest. In a time when old clubs are dying out, ours continues to grow and we have people that want to call themselves “Paesano’s” which is a testament to all of us and our hard work to show this area who we are. In my last year as your President, I want to continue to see growth, some changes and different ideas coming in. I will continue to work hard and will continue to “Kick it up another notch!” I have a lot of new ideas and am looking forward to working with our new and returning board. I also look forward to getting our new and older members more involved, and aiming towards the same goals and rewards. I’m excited to see what 2024 holds for us and am looking forward to all of our events! Let’s remember all of our families and friends both near and far. Have a fantastic time with them over these holidays. Eat, drink, be merry, but most important of all, remember to tell them how much you love them! Life is too short, so take advantage while they are still here with you. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and here’s to a fantastic year to come! Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo!

Salute,

Rick 

Dec. 2023                                                      LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao Tutti. As always, I hope that this edition of our newsletter finds you all happy. Healthy and safe! With the change of the weather and the drop in temperature I hope that everyone has made the change from Tee shirts to hoodies and flip flops to sock tops. Has everyone adjusted to the time change yet? I personally dislike the shorter days and colder weather. I’m hoping that they will get rid of Daylight Savings time once and for all. Some of you may like it and that’s great if it works out for you, but this kid loves the sunsets at 9pm. More time to do and play! I can hardly believe that we are already a few days away from Thanksgiving. Where did the time go? I remember November just getting here. Hopefully most of you have purchased all of your TG dinner items and are getting ready for the big day. The air will be filled with the sweet aroma of all the different meals that will be prepared that day. The calorie counter is about to start. LOL!

Christmas Dinner:

On Sunday December 10th at 3pm, Club Paesano will be holding its annual “Members Christmas Party”. It’s an event that we put on for our members to bring in the holiday season and get our CP families together. It’s also the day that we bring on our newly elected Board of Directors, and our newest members that we have elected to be a part of our growing family. Our dinner will be catered in and wine, beer and soft drinks will be provided. After dinner we will burn off some carbs by singing a variety of our favorite Christmas carols including one of our fan favorites “Dominic the Christmas Donkey”. The “12 Days of Christmas” always gets the crowd in a buzz too, although sometimes it gets confusing! LOL! Last but not least, we all wait in anticipation for the arrival of old Saint Nick himself, Santa Claus! He’ll have gifts for the children and it’ll be a great time to get your Christmas photos done. In a week or so, you should be receiving a call inviting you and your family members to dinner. As always, members, their spouses, partners and any children that are 21 yrs. and younger and are still living in the same household are free. Any other family members or guests that you would like to invite will be charged a fee. This is a great party and has always been a favorite. Let’s bring in the Christmas Season the Club Paesano way!  We will see you and the family there.

Fun Committee:

Fun is our name and Fun is what we strive to do. Our Monday Night Socials are alive and kicking! We are there every Monday night unless there is a conflict with an event rental. In that case I will put out an email to let you all know. Food, drink, football and dice, fill the evening but most importantly are the laughs, conversation and comradery that is shared between our members. As I’ve said in the past, it’s a great chance to get to know your fellow CP members in a pretty relaxed environment. A couple of Monday’s ago, we had a mini wine tasting to sample a different variety of wines that we may purchase for our upcoming events. Our members participation and opinions matter to us, so expect to have several more of these in the future. Thank you to our Master Chef, Jim Calcagno for stepping up and making us a great meal for the tasting. Porchetta, bruschetta, charcuterie, loches and many more items were prepared by Jimmy himself. Jim loves to create and take care of his fellow members and we always love and appreciate when he volunteers to cook, which is quite often. Thank you to the rest of you that brought in something to share and for all of the help in the kitchen. It was much appreciated. We want to continue to do more of these types of things, so if you have any fresh ideas, please let me know and I will do whatever I can to make it happen. We are also planning a Christmas outing for our members. Our tentative plan is to get a group of Paesano’s together and head out to Silverton OR. for their annual Christmas Festival. Some of us got together and went there a few years ago. It was a great time with many things to do and very kid friendly. We are currently working on a mode of transportation that can take all or most of us there all together. You will still have the option of just meeting the group there too. If you want to know more about it, please check out their website to see if it would be something that you and your family would like to do. The website is silvertonchristmasmarket.com. We will be finalizing all of our plans shortly. Right now, we are looking at Sunday December 17th. Time to be determined. I will send out an email to let you all know when everything is set. Watch for it.

Bocce News:

I am sad to announce it but our “Fall League” has finally come to a close. It was a very good run of 9 weeks. Thank Goodness Mother Nature cooperated and gave us the opportunity to get a lot of bocce in. It was a fun laid back time which some of us referred to as our “Sunday Morning Church”. We had a lot of new faces and some of our regulars took part as well. It was very nice to see some of our newer members get a chance to play with some of our more experienced members to help them learn the game better. A fun time had by one and all. If you played and want to see the final standings, please go to our Paesano Bocce Club Facebook page. You will get standing pictures and all of our up-to-date news there. You can also visit our bocce website paesanobocceclub.com. We have news, the latest info, pictures, schedules and plenty of apparel, personal pavers, and Family/ Business signs of all sizes that you can order to be placed around our courts and our fencing that will face the Spring Water Trail. It’s a place where hundreds of people a day pass by, whether they are biking, jogging or running. An inexpensive place to advertise a business if you have one. As always, we will always take a monetary donation as well. We’ve made it very easy now. Just hit the “Donate Now” button to be able to donate any amount you’d like. Very cool and simple. Christmas is around the corner so if you are in need of some gifts still, we have some good-looking apparel that you can purchase. A personalized paver would be a fantastic idea too! Some of our Club Paesano members joined forces with our Paesano Bocce club members to play in tournaments out of town this past weekend. One of the tournaments attended by members, Mario Pompei, Ben Meititiro, Antonio Meititiro, and myself was just outside of Dallas Texas at a Horse track. The other tournament attended by Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch and Paul Barasch was held at the Peppermill Casino in Reno Nevada. Although none of our teams fared very well with the heavy competition that was there, we all had a great time and represented Oregon and Paesano Bocce Club well. It was a terrific time and I’m looking forward to getting back there next year. I’m also looking forward to our leagues and tournaments next year. If you are a Club Paesano member that has an interest or would like to play and join a team please go to our website, our Facebook site or speak to one of our board members. Anyone of us will give you all of the info that you will need to get on board. Just let us know. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, or myself.

Club Paesano Dues:

Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you. 

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. 

Cedarville Park Shares: 

If you are interested in owning a piece of this fantastic place and would like to purchase shares, please contact Steve Petruzelli at 503-620-3447 or email him at [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Thoughts and Prayers:

Our deepest condolences go out to Marc Fazio and his whole family. Three weeks ago, Marc lost his wife and partner Kathy to a long bout with cancer. She fought as hard as she could. The Fazio family has been involved with Club Paesano for a long time. If you have a minute, please let Marc know that you are thinking about him and his family. I’m sure that he would appreciate that. Extra thoughts and prayers go out to Geno Benagni, Chris Siri, my parents and in-laws, and the rest of our Club Paesano Members and family. May God bless us all! If there is anyone that you would like to add to our prayer chain, please let me know by mid-month so I have time to add it into the newsletter.

LaCarota Question:

Congratulations go out to Jimmy “Bam Bam” Burch for winning the coveted bottle of vino last month. Jimmy is a constant scrapper that answers about 99% of my questions. I appreciate that and his tenacity trying to take home another bottle to add to his collection. So far he has been the biggest threat to Mario “POM,,,PEI’S” title. Mario is another one that comes out swinging at every question. That’s probably why he is the reigning “Vino Champ of the WORLD”!

So, to give the rest of you a chance to sneak back into this race, I’m going to make this one as simple as can be. This is not a question of right or wrong, just your choice. Seeing that our Thanksgiving Dinner is around the corner, I just want to know this one thing. Turkey or Ham? That is, it. Turkey or ham for Thanksgiving Dinner. It could even be both. Just answer back your favorite protein for TG’ing dinner. ALL answers will be entered to win our “Holy Grail”.

Good Luck!

Club Paesano Board of Directors, New members & Member of the Year:

Like every year end, we have our Board of directors’ elections, we vote in our newest members and we also vote on our “Member of the year” candidates. This year we have a few Board members that are at the end of their terms but may run again along with some new members that were nominated.

Club Paesano Members Click here to print out your Ballot

https://clubpaesano.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2023-Ballot.jpg

Officers that have one year remaining: Rick Cervi – President / Jim Calcagno – VP / John Benagni – Sergeant at Arms / Geno Benagni – Board / Domenic Guisto – Board / Carlos Barajas – Board.

Officers that are at the end of their term: Mario Pompei – Board / Doug Burchak – Board / Chris Siri – Board / John Kern – Treasurer / Jimmy Siri – Secretary

Nominees for 2024 Board of Directors: 

Mario Pompei – Board 

Doug Burchak – Board

Chris Siri – Board

Phil Potestio – Board

Mirella Rizatti – Board

Marc Battilega – Secretary

New Member Applicants:

Steve Leonetti (Jim Siri)

Donna Sunsiri (Mirella Rizatti)

Bob Bevilacqua (Jim Burch)

Tom Allabastro (Rick Cervi)

Mike Rossi (Nick Rossi)

Member of the Year Candidates:

John Benagni

Kelly Barasch

Carlos Barajas

Jim Calcagno

Doug Burchak

Marc Battilega

Final Thoughts:

As we come upon our Thanksgiving Feasts and our day off to spend with our closest family and friends, let us never forget why we need to be so thankful. Your families, your friends both near and far. Your liberties and your freedoms. Your choices, expressions and most of all your voice. The freedom to express your feelings and be heard. Let us not forget the downtrodden and the people in 3rd world countries that have none of the things that we easily take for granted. The people in war torn and terroristic countries that wonder if they will survive another day and what their futures hold. Our military that keeps us safe and free! Let us just remember to give thanks for every day that we have on this great earth and never take it for granted. Tell your family and loved ones that you love them and don’t go to bed angry. Let us always give thanks for our lives, wellbeing and our Club Paesano family too. God bless and Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Salute, 

Rick

November 2023                 LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao, my fellow Club Paesano members. As always. I hope that this edition of our newsletter finds you all doing well. “Happy, healthy and safe”. As we enter into this Fall season, I’m sure that a lot of you are busy raking leaves and cleaning out downspouts. The Fall season is beautiful in the Pacific NW. Those of us who hunt, have either gone already or are getting ready to make the trip into the woods to get that elusive game to fill our freezers and maybe get a trophy as well. Our mushroom hunters are out there making a catch too. It’s definitely a great time of the year to be outdoors! Next week will bring Halloween and the scenes of little ghosts, goblins, other creatures and characters running up and down our neighborhood streets, with the hopes of filling up their pumpkins with some of their favorite candies and sweets. I always love to see the little ones and the creative costumes that people come up with. Always a fun time, just like our very own Halloween Dance we just had. Anyway, enjoy the season and keep an eye out for the little one’s next week. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Dance: 

Speaking of Halloween, this past Saturday, October 21st, we had our annual Halloween Dance. I have to say, it was FANTASTIC! I feel bad for those of you that had to miss it. We had over 300 guests that partied the night away and filled most of our seats. Our board and our Charity “The Pink Sista’s” put a lot of work into this one and it paid off tremendously! We had the “Design Band” entertaining us, and our “World Famous” Spaghetti & Meatball dinner to fill everyone up. Deb Hart and her “Pink Sista’s” worked their magic and were able to bring a “Sellout” crowd. They had a raffle and a silent auction going on during the evening to make money for their charity. We were so happy to announce that they made $10,000 that night! I am so proud that we Paesano’s could be a part of that and a reason that they were so successful. In speaking to Deb afterwards, she told me that it was one of the biggest fundraising nights that they have ever had. Every dollar of that goes back to the breast cancer survivors that come to them in various stages of recovery, looking for support, love and comradery. What a wonderful cause and a blessing that Deb and the “Pink Sista’s are for the survivors. We should all be happy for them and proud that we Club Paesano members helped with that! That is always one of the great things that we do that is so beneficial to our community. We are blessed to be able to help out charities throughout the area. I feel it’s a good thing to keep our charity partners local so we can help our people living here in the Gresham and east county area. If you have a favorite local charity that you would like us to help and feel would be a good partner, please let me know so I can reach out to them and offer our assistance to help raise funds with them. Our next dance will be held on Saturday February 17th 2024. Our “Carnevale Dance” with our charity partner “Calabarzon”, and a new entertainment band to the club, “Crescendo Skye”. Please make sure to save the date. I will let you all know when our tickets go on sale.

Fun Committee:

Our Fun Committee is still having a great time with our Monday Night Socials. A Fun night of food, drinks, football, dice and a whole lot of laughs. It’s a great way to get to know your fellow Paesano’s and get out of the house for a couple hours on a Monday night. The comradery is fantastic! On Monday November 6th we plan on doing a wine tasting at the club. We will sample some local and international wines that we will provide. We are always trying different wines and scoring them to see what we may want to use for our events. If you can make it, please bring a dish to share with our wines or maybe your favorite bottle of wine for all of us to share and critique. Your dish can be an appetizer or some kind of charcuterie plate to go along with the wine. Hope to see you there. 

A few of us got out to the Sons & Daughters of Italy’s (Vancouver) Spaghetti feed and scholarship fundraiser. It was a great dinner and they were very happy that we were there to support them. I feel that it’s a good thing for our clubs to lend a hand and to support one another. Club Paesano will be doing the same thing in the near future. It’s in the works. We are also planning on doing a trip to one of the many Christmas events going on throughout the city and county. We’ve gone to Silverton, Canby and Vancouver to enjoy a night out together, and to get in the mood for the Christmas season. I will let you all know when we have a solid plan and give you all of the details. If you have a favorite place that you and your family like to go before Christmas, please feel free to let us know, and maybe we can plan a visit there in December. I will let you all know. Stay tuned!

Bocce News:

Our Paesano Bocce Club is starting to wind down as far as bocce play goes. A lot of us are still playing in our Fall League. We are now coming upon our 8th week of play and will continue to keep playing as long as “Mother Nature” keeps cooperation. It’s been nice to see our members getting into the season, both experienced and newer players. It’s kind of like our Sunday morning mass. Everyone is being competitive, meeting more members and having fun! All leaving with a smile on their faces. We have updated our Bocce website to be able to purchase our apparel now. Signs and pavers can also be purchased online. The items can be shipped right to your door. You can also make a monetary donation by hitting the “Donate Now” button on the screen. We’ve come a long way folks! We are always trying to keep up with technology. I’d like to welcome our two newest board members. Lori Bass (Fiancée of CP member Greg DeMiestri) and Carol Nielson, a longtime Tuesday night player and former Chamber of Commerce President. Some of our Paesano bocce teams are going to tournaments in Dallas, Texas and Reno, Nevada. Congratulations and good luck to all the teams. I will give you an update next month on how everyone fared.

CP Christmas Party:

Save the date! Our annual Christmas party will be held on Sunday December 10th. Doors open at 3pm and the party will go till whenever the last family leaves! As always, a fantastic night to start the Christmas season off in “Paesano Fashion”! This has always been one of my favorite events for our club and members. Socializing, a delicious meal, Christmas carols, new members and a visit from good Old St. Nick himself. It all reminds me of my youth, growing up in my Italian club back home. A great time indeed. All members, their spouses or partners and any child still living in your home 21 years and younger will be complimentary. If you would like to bring other guests, there will be a price set for them to be determined. Marc Battilega will be calling to invite all members and will have prices set for guests as well. You can expect an invite call around Thanksgiving time. Don’t miss it!

Club Paesano Dues:

Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you. 

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. 

Cedarville Park Shares: 

If you are interested in owning a piece of this fantastic place and would like to purchase shares, please contact Steve Petruzelli at 503-620-3447 or email him at [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday November 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Thoughts & Prayers:

Thank you to all of you for your extra prayers for my family. It is much appreciated. Please continue to keep them in your prayers as their medical issues continue. Thank you! I would also like to add some more of our Club Paesano family to our prayer list. Please keep praying for Kathy Fazio and Becky Cereghino as they continue to recover. Let us also pray for the souls of Viki Cerruti (Wife of Richard Cerruti) and Ron Calcagno (Son of Founding member Bernie Calcagno). Both passed away recently. If you know their family members you may want to reach out to them. If you know of anyone in our family or even a friend that is in need of some support or an extra prayer, please let me know and I will add them to our prayer chain. Let us always pray and think about our fellow members, family and friends. Pray for strength, health and Famiglia!

New Board Members:

It is that time of the year again, where we bring in new CP Members and we nominate new board members to fill in for those that have completed their 2-year terms. New members will be invited into our next meeting to be introduced by their sponsors and to explain to us why they would like the honor of becoming a Paesano. New Board members can be “Nominated”, “Self-Nominated”, or existing 2-year board members can be nominated again. Anyone who feels like they can bring something new or help with the current board is welcomed to apply. As a member who has sat on the board for 3 years as a board member and am now in my 3rd year as president, I will tell you that it is hard work. If you want to join the board to add strength, help the club to grow and pick it up another notch then please apply. If you don’t think that you have the time and can’t put your whole heart into it, then please don’t. We need people that want to contribute and be a part of it full time! We are all at different places in our lives. If it’s not today it may be tomorrow, so please keep that in mind. 

LaCarota Question:

Well, well, well. Look who’s back in town! The “Massachusetts Mauler & Comeback Kid” The boy from Rhode Island who dreamt that one day, he would be the Club Paesano’s winningest Vino winner to date! Congratulations goes out to none other than our very own, Mario “POM,,PEI”!

That’s right, Mario never lost his focus and came back from the depths of nowhere to take back his coveted title as “The Biggest Winner” of all time! Even when he wasn’t so fortunate, he kept guessing and putting his answers in there consistently till he finally got to add another bottle to his already loaded Club Paesano Wine collection. Shoot, at this rate we might have to start buying bottles from Mario’s collection for our next event. Loll!

Let’s see who can take down the Champ again. It’s happened before, let’s see if any of you can steal it away from him again. Jimmy Burch, Chris Siri, Domenic, Kelly?? This month’s question has to do with Famous Italians that changed their Italian names to help their celebrity in America. I have four famous Italians that did just that. I will give you their Italian names. I would like for you to give me their new names that they changed them to. 1st: “Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla” (No Kidding, a real name). 2nd: “Angelo Siciliano” 3rd: “Randall Mario Poffo”. 4th: “Carol Penelope Masciarelli. That’s it. Just give me the name that they use now and you will be entered to win this month’s Holy Grail. The coveted bottle of Vino. Good Luck!

Final Thoughts:

I just would like to reflect back on this past Saturday’s event. Our Halloween Dance. I was so happy to see so many people at our club, enjoying the dance and everything that we worked so hard to put together! With the help of a great charity partner, the “Pink Sista’s” we were finally able to get over the hump and get a “Sold Out” event. It wasn’t so much that it was sold out, but that there were so many people there having a fantastic evening and enjoying our club and what we all belong to. Many of us are doing our best to keep the club and our events popular and an event that people want to attend. With some changes and different ideas, we can keep it going. Obviously, we need to change with the times and stay relevant. I feel that we have been doing that, and still can do more. It was nice to see a lot of new faces and to hear so many of our guests say what a terrific venue we have. A couple people even told me how lucky we were to have it all! Every one of you should be proud of that and not forget that we are all a part of it. I would really like to see more of you there at our events though. Remember this is all a part of your club. Something to be very proud of and something for you and your families to enjoy. It’s a place to bring your friends and tell them “I belong to this place”! Have pride in it and know that there are very few places like CP. I really feel that we are fortunate to call this place “Home”. Just like your home, you need to participate and work on it or else it will fall apart. I’m not worried about that because we have the best members around. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, please take advantage of what we have here, it’s very special! 

Love and take care of yourselves. Salute, Rick.

October 2023                                 LaCarota

Please Take Note: October’s Membership meeting has been moved to Wednesday October 11th. Same time.

President’s Message:

Ciao Fellow Club Paesano Members. As always, I hope that this month’s “LaCarota” finds you all doing well. Happy, healthy and safe. Just like that, our summer is over and fall has arrived. I hope that you all got your fill of summer time weather, and are ready for the cooler and shorter days. The climate has already started to change. We have rain and temperatures in the 60’s. Personally I’m not ready yet! As some of you know, I love our summers, and the heat. I guess growing up in the Canadian winters really made me dislike the cold! Now it’s time to start putting our patio furniture in and picking up the rest of our veggies in the garden. Hopefully October brings us a long and warm “Indian Summer” so we can all enjoy a few more summer-like days before the fall really comes in. We also get to welcome back our fellow members, Jimmy Calcagno and Dedra Ceglie from their trips to the “Mother Country”, Italia. They have both just returned, so hopefully they will share their adventures and pictures of their trips. Ah Italia, hopefully we all get back there someday. I just love it!

Member’s BBQ: 

On Sunday September 10th, we had the chance to get together and enjoy a wonderful lunch in appreciation of all of our members and all that we do. The weather was fantastic, and the food was great. Our lunch was catered from “Kuya’s Islander Cuisine” in Gresham. We had a whole roasted pig, with a side of Hawaiian Mac-Salad and wasabi noodles with chicken and vegetables. Wine, beer and soft drinks were also provided. It was another great chance to have us all get together and socialize. For our newer members, a chance to get to know our older members and partake in the great things that happen at our club. This BBQ is given to all of the members that have and continue to work hard for our club. It’s for those of you that show up, help out and promote our club. Come to meetings and participate in what we do. Not everyone can be at every event and help out all the time, but we hope that this shows a little bit of appreciation, to those of you that do put the time in. On behalf of Club Paesano, I’d like to personally thank each of you! Thank you for all that you continue to do!

Halloween Dance:

Our Halloween Dance will be held on Saturday October 21st, which will be here in no time. Our Musical entertainment will be the “Design Band” who performed for us last year at our same dance, and our Charity partner will once again be the “Pink Sista’s”. Deb Hart who is their founder has been working endlessly to promote and sell tickets to our event. The “Pink Sista’s” will be holding a silent auction and raffle to raise money for such an important cause. They promote “Breast Cancer” awareness, and also provide retreats and activities for the survivors of breast cancer at no charge to them. What a terrific cause! Let’s all show up to help them bring in the revenue that they need to keep their program running. I am very happy to say that at this point, we are 66 seats away from an official “Sellout”! We have come close several times, but haven’t been there yet. I think this time we will do it! If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, I suggest that you do it real soon or else, you may not be able to get in. We will do our best to accommodate, even if it means adding a table or two. This has always been one of our most popular events, and our partnership with Deb Hart and the “Sista’s” has made it that much better! I always love to see all of the creative costumes in the house that night. I’m always so impressed with the thought and hard work that some of our members and guests put into having an original costume. We always have a costume contest to show our appreciation for all of their hard work and effort. As always costumes are an option and not a must, so for those of you that want to just come as you are, we welcome you too! It’s still not too late to purchase, so get on line and buy your tickets to this fun event today! We’ll see you there! 

New Member Applications:

If you would like to sponsor someone you feel would be a great candidate for membership at our wonderful club, the time to get their application is at the end of September. I will make an exception, if you can either get me their application before or at our next meeting. You have an extra week, so email it to me before the meeting if possible. The cutoff date will be at the October meeting. If you don’t get their application in, then they will have to wait till next year. If you are looking to sponsor in a potential member, please make sure that you know them and that they will be the kind of person that will participate and will want to be a part of our club. They will need to work and have fun. They will need to be social and want to be around fellow members and promote our club. If you feel that they would be a good match for us and us for them, please bring them over and have them come to a couple of our events. I would love to speak with them. At November’s meeting you will have the chance to bring your candidate to the meeting and introduce them to us. They will then get a chance to tell us why they would like to become a part of our family and what they will bring to our CP table. Hopefully we will continue to bring on great new members that will want to grow and keep on developing our great club that we all get to be a part of!

The Fun Committee & our Monday Night Social:

Club Paesano and the “Fun Committee” are happy to announce our 1st ever “Christmas Bazaar”, which will be held at the club on Saturday November 25th and Sunday November 26th. It will be a great way to get some of your Christmas shopping done, with over 50 vendors, and a lot of activities. What a great way to bring in the Christmas Season! This will be a family event so bring out the whole famiglia! We’ll have food and beverages for sale along with music, singing and a whole lot more. We are still in the initial planning stages, but I will send out more information as we progress, along with fliers that you can pass out and share on your social media accounts. This will be a great time! The Fun Committee is also in the midst of planning a couple of other things in the near future, including a holiday get together at one of the Christmas events happening around the area. We will keep you posted. Our Monday Night Socials started a few weeks ago and are always a good time. The 1st Monday of the month is “Bring a Friend night”, which means that you can invite a nonmember for the night. Hopefully a potential member. If not, no big deal, if they are a friend of yours, they’re a friend of ours, Maybe, LOL! It’s a great way to hang out and get to know your fellow CP Members. Laughs, food and fun, is what it’s all about! See you there.

Club Paesano Dues:

Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you. 

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. 

Cedarville Park Shares: 

If you are interested in owning a piece of this fantastic place and would like to purchase shares, please contact Steve Petruzelli at 503-620-3447 or email him at [email protected] . The Cedarville Board of Directors is holding a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday 22nd from 7pm till 9pm. Information about the Lodge and what’s been happening will be discussed. If you are a shareholder, you should plan on attending.

Paesano Bocce Club News:

Our Summer bocce leagues came to an end in August, but our “Fall League” is going strong. We are already into our 4th week of play. Everyone who signed up shows up at 9am every Sunday to compete. The difference between our Fall and Summer leagues, is that for Fall league, you are on a different team every week and keep track of your own points for the league’s standings. We form the teams evenly by skill levels and it’s been a great way for our regular players to get to know one another from our different nights. It has also been a fantastic way for our newcomers to learn the game from some of our more skilled players. We all play 3 games each and at the end of the 3 games you get a chance to “Shoot” 4 times for extra points. This is a great way to get our newer players and those who don’t “Shoot” a lot, to learn the technique and to feel more comfortable using it in a game situation. It’s part of the bocce game and a great skill to have. We will continue to play until “Mother Nature” decides that we can’t play anymore. So, unless it is raining, snowing or 30 degrees out, we will continue to play until further notice. Thank you to all of you that have been coming out there and enjoying Sunday mornings with us. We are currently in discussions about moving forward with our roof that we would love to have built over those beautiful courts. The roof over these courts would add so much more to what we are currently doing. It would put Paesano Bocce on the map!  We are in the planning stages and will be speaking with the Gresham city planners in the near future. As always, we are constantly working on raising funds for our roof. We are selling advertising and personal signs (3 different sizes), Personal pavers, and bocce apparel. We are getting these loaded on to our bocce website so you can purchase right from the site and get the items delivered to you, just in time for Christmas. They all would make great gifts. Go to www.paesanobocceclub.com to check out everything bocce. Bocce news, league standings, tournament results, upcoming events, pictures and of course our items that we sell. We have also added a “Donation” button, so if you are feeling very generous and are in the Christmas spirit, we will always accept a monetary donation as well. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Bocce Board of directors, and all of the members that donate their time to help us out. This could not be done without you all! Mario Pompei, Larry Cereghino, Doug Burchak, Dino Gavazzi, Kelly Barasch, Brad Cotton and myself. Here’s to a great season with many more to come!

Portland – Bologna Sister City Association:

The “PBSCA” will be holding their “Sagra” Fundraising Dinner on Sunday October 15th. The doors open at 6:30pm and it will be held at St. Philip Neri Church. Please go to “portland-bologna.org” for more information and for upcoming events and news. You can also speak with our own Phil Potestio about it. You can reach him at [email protected] or 503-236-6364. They are a great organization helping a terrific cause. Let’s show them our CP support!

The Sons & Daughters of Italy’s Vancouver Branch:

The Sons & Daughters of Italy, will be holding their annual “Spaghetti Feed” on Sunday October 15th as well. It will be held at the 40 & 8 Chateau. Tickets are $15 for adults, $8 for children. This is their only fundraising event for their whole year, so if you’d like to help them out and have a nice lunch while you’re at it, please show them your support and attend. You can contact their president Rosann Grzesiowski at [email protected] for more information. Again, let’s show them our great CP support.

Thoughts & Prayers:

Well, I have a special request for your thoughts & prayers for my family. The heart and souls of both of my family’s patriarchs. My Father Romeo who was diagnosed with a “Spinal infection” and is struggling to walk and get around. My Mother Elisabetta (Lisa), who will be going in for shoulder surgery on October 10th. My Father-in-law Jim Sells, who suffered a stroke and broke his tibia 4 weeks ago and my mother-in-law Geraldene Sells, who also fell and hurt her arm and shoulder. I ask for your thoughts and prayers for them and of course wish them all a speedy recovery. It’s tough when it happens to all of them at the same time. My father always has this Italian saying “La vecchiaia e’ brutta”, which means “Old age is ugly”! I hope that it turns around for all of them really soon. I’d also like to keep Jeanie Burch, Becky Cereghino and Anna Nasib in our prayers too, as they recover from their issues as well. If you have anyone you know that is in need of an extra prayer, please contact me and let me know so I can mention them in this segment. As always, thoughts and prayers to all of our Club Paesano members, past, present and future along with their families and friends. Thank you

LaCarota Question:

Well now, we just added another name into the “Winners Circle”. Congratulations to Domenic “Cha Cha” Giusto on his win of the “Holy Grail” last month. Dom came out of nowhere, like a “Stealth Fighter Jet. He swooped in and grabbed the prize. Ok he didn’t exactly swoop in. It took him a couple of flybys (due to absent members) to nail it, but he finally got it! Will “Diamond Dom” repeat or was it just a fluke. Maybe we’ll have another new name to announce at our next meeting. We will have to wait and see. Seeing that October 31st is Halloween, my question will be about one of our favorite Halloween characters, The Witch. As we all know, the wicked witch has always been a favorite character of Halloween and a costume that has been seen about a million times. In North America, our witches usually come out at Halloween, and are synonymous with the event. Well in Italy they also have a famous witch that comes out around at a certain time of the year too. My question is this. Please give me the name of their famous Italian witch. Tell me what time of the year she comes around and exactly what she does to make herself famous. That’s it. Real simple! I really need to start making these questions harder for you all. My cantina is getting low on vino! Alright then, every correct answer will be entered into the drawing for the bottle of Vino, and as always, “You can’t win, if you don’t play!” Good luck.  

Final Thoughts:

 I mentioned earlier about my family’s health situation. It just makes me stop and think how precious life and time are. As young people we never really think about things like that. You are young, strong and invincible, and your parents, the “Rocks and foundations” of your life. They are also strong, well and never seem to grow old. They are always there for you and never ever let you see when they are troubled, hurt or not feeling their best. They were always there for us with support, advise, a laugh and sometimes a scolding but it was always for our best interest. They were always taking care of us, and you could never imagine them getting old and one day having to take care of them. Unfortunately, that time does come for all of us, whether you’re prepared for it or not. Hopefully we can all be there for our families at all times, but especially for our parents when they need it the most. I, like a lot of you, thought that that time was really far away, but it has crept up on my family too. I accept it, but it’s hard. I’m sorry and not meaning to sound sad and depress everyone, but what I am saying is to love and enjoy your parents, family members and friends. You don’t need me to remind you, but I think that every once in a while, we all need to step back from our busy lives and enjoy the love and all the family that God has given us, including your fellow Club Paesano family! Love each other and stay strong! 

Salute & Ciao.

Rick

September 2023                      LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao my fellow Club Paesano Members, as always, I hope that this month’s newsletter finds you all doing well. “Happy, healthy and safe”. Summer is flying by and it’s hard to believe that we are looking at our Labor Day holiday, and September. I hope that you are all having fun and enjoying the season. We start a fresh week and before you know it, we’re looking at the weekend! I don’t remember time flying by so fast. Is this what happens with age? Some of our older members, do you have an answer? LoL! We get to welcome some of our members back that have been on vacations or extended vacations, like our own Phil Potestio. He’s been gone since April. Back to the Mother Country again. Can’t wait to hear some of his stories of his stay in Italia. Hopefully we all have some good stories of this past summer and the year, and can share some of what we’ve done with our fellow members. It’s been a busy month for Club Paesano and Paesano Bocce, so here’s to a good rest of the summer!

Concert in the Park:

Our annual Concert in the Park was held on Saturday August 5th. The 1st Saturday of August every year. “5 Guys Named Moe” was our musical entertainment, and had the crowd up and dancing all night. Speaking of crowds, we had around 325 to 350 guests through our gates, and from the people I spoke to, they all had a great time. I would have loved to have seen more people, but we did good. Summer is a busy time for most and there is a lot of competition as far as things to do and different events to go to. Our concept worked out well with an entrance fee and the ability for our guests to purchase food when and as many times as they wanted to. Thank you to Marc Battilega, his family and our members that helped him in the kitchen that night and for those of you that came in on the Wednesday before to help create our famous sauce. A big thanks to all of you that came in that morning to help set up and get things cleaned up and organized for the event. Thank you, Doug Burchack, Kelly Barasch and Mario Pompei,for coming in to set up and staying to tear down. Our brothers John and Geno Benagni for making sure that our WIFI stayed up and running and our POS System stayed onall night. Thanks to all of you that came out to help.  Jim Burch, Carlos Barajas, our VP, Jimmy Calcagno, and Treasurer John Kern. Secretary Jimmy Siri, Mike Potestio, Chris Siri, Chelle Ordway and all of our members that showed up and worked a shift or 2 at a designated position to make sure that everything ran well. We can’t do it without you all! Thank you, and here’s to making next year even better.

Festa Italiana:

On Sunday August 20th, Club Paesano and Cedarville Park once again hosted the “Festa Italiana”. This has been our 3rd consecutive year being their host. As always, a special thanks goes out to Cedarville Park for allowing this event to happen again. Without Club Paesano and Cedarville stepping up these last 3 years, I hate to say it, but I think that the Festa would have not happened. It wasn’t our event, but we should all be proud and happy that we were able to step up and help out our Paesano’s at the Festa. I really feel that it’s so important that as Italians, we don’t let this event, our “Festa Italiana”, go away. If it ever does, I know that it will be tough to revive and bring it back! It’s been 32 years that it’s been a staple for our Italian community here in the Portland /Vancouver area. I hope that we can someday bring it back to its glory days of a multiple day event. Whether it’s still being held at Cedarville Park or if they decide to move it elsewhere, I feel that we Italians need our own party! Like most of the other ethnic communities that have their own celebration, we definitely need to keep ours going. Once again, I thank all of you that came in to help and volunteer at the different positions. I want to give a huge shout out to our own Greg DeMaestri, for stepping into the kitchen and putting out a fabulous menu for our guests to enjoy. It was a couple of weeks in the works, making fresh Bolognese sauce, and everything else that he created. Our guests loved it, and I heard nothing but great things from them. Thank you to all that helped in the kitchen, prepping, cooking, working the food booth and then all of the clean up after the fact. Special thanks to all of you that spent multiple hours in the kitchen helping to make it a success. Lori Bass (Greg’s fiancé) Jimmy Calcagno, Carlos Barajas, Jimmy Burch, Diane Cervi. Geno Benagni for pulling double duties, keeping the internet and POS System going along with frying Arancini (Italian rice balls). A lot of you multitasked to make it a success. All of you that stayed to help clean up later. Chris Siri who stayed behind the bar to make sure that things ran smoothly. I’d also like to thank Chelle Ordway for being our “Volunteer Coordinator” for both our Concert in the Park and the Festa Italiana. Once again, none of this could be done without the help of our members and our volunteers. This is a huge thank you to all of our CP Members and all of the other volunteers that came out to help make it great! THANK YOU!

Italian Farmer’s Picnic:

On Sunday August 6th, Joe Rossi and “Rossi Farms” hosted their 2nd annual Italian Farmers Picnic. Joe brought this event back last year as homage to the Farmers picnic of a time gone by. The Farmers and Ranchers picnic used to be held on the 1st Sunday of August and ran for many years. Unfortunately like a lot of other traditions, it went away. Joe graciously picked it back up last year, and has held it at his own house. All Italians were invited, especially Paesano’s and Joe hosted everything for us. What a fantastic host!! He had an array of food once again prepared by our own Greg DeMaestri. The Peroni beer and Italian wine was flowing along with a live musical group for our listening and dancing pleasure. What a fantastic event and one that I hope never goes away again. Thank you once again Joe Rossi for being such a gracious host and for reviving this very special Italian event. See you all next year!

Members Appreciation BBQ:

This year’s Members Appreciation BBQ, will be held on Sunday September 10th, starting at noon. We have a special menu this year. It will be a roasted rotisserie pig that we are getting from Kuya’s Islander Cafe in Gresham. Fred Asa the owner will be preparing it and bringing it in for our lunch. I’ve had it from his restaurant before and trust me, you’ll be in for a treat! We’ll also have Hawaiian Mac with a veggie side. I’m sure that none of you will walk away hungry. I’d like to have a head count so that we know how much of our side dishes to order so please send me an “RSVP” with how many of you will be coming. As always, this appreciation dinner is for members and their spouse, partner or a friend only. It’s not for the whole family. We will allow you to bring in your own wine as well if you would like. If the weather is nice, we will hold it outside under the Pavilion, if not it will be inside the lodge. Please let me know if you plan on being there. Email, call or text me at [email protected] or 503-891-7374

Monday Night Social:

Our Monday Night Social will be making its return on Monday September 11th. The Monday after Labor Day. As always, we will have food, drink, football, Left, Right, Center and a whole lot of laughs! If you haven’t been to one yet or it’s been a while since you’ve been there, make a plan on checking it out. We always have fun and you never know what gourmet meal you will be enjoying that night. All of our participants take a turn at preparing or bringing in a dinner to feed the group. Trust me, we’ve all been treated to some fantastic dinners. Sometimes it’s a collaboration of a couple different members combining their talents to serve us a masterpiece of culinary magic! How does that sound? LoL! This isn’t a mandatory night that anyone has to attend, but it’s voluntary and a great chance for you to get to know and spend time with your fellow CP members. You’ll be surprised what you’ll get to know. A lot of good history of the club, but more important, the chance to really spend time and converse with some of your fellow friends. We welcome everyone and nothing is set in stone, we can do whatever we want. Mondays are for members only, but we welcome you to bring a nonmember in on every 1st Monday of the month. This includes spouses, partners and friends, hopefully potential new members too. Hope to see you there! 

New Members Applications:

It’s that time of the year again. If you have a potential candidate that is interested in becoming a member and that you feel would be a good fit for CP and us for them, then please have them fill out a membership application and turn it in to me by the end of September. That is the cut off day, but I may make an exception depending on the circumstances. I already have 3 turned in. 2 of them were in May. These people are serious and want to be a part of this special place. I’ve had the chance to speak to each of them and made it clear what we expect from them to be a CP Member. They have all agreed. We really want to make sure that our potential members are quality people who want to participate and want to really be a part of this. We don’t need any more members that are “Part time” members. We want members who love the club and want to be here. We want members who will participate and promote the club wanting to take it to that next level. We want members that will work hard, but will also take the time to come out and have fun with us too. Out of club events, ideas and new ways of thinking are more than welcomed. These are the type of people that we need and I would love to have as members. If you have someone in mind, that’s great, but please take all of these characteristics into account, and please make sure that they have a majority of them. We have plenty of room to grow and if we start to get near the 100-member mark, then maybe we can consider getting that bylaw changed to accommodate more members, but we need to get there 1st. Get your apps in soon. Thanks

Members’ Dues & Payments:

“Same as last month”

Cedarville Lodge & Park Shares:

“Same as last month”

Cedarville Lodge & Park Rentals:

“Same as last month”

Halloween Dance:

Saturday October 21st will be the night of our popular “Halloween Dance”. No time like the present to start planning on what costume to wear, and how many people you will be inviting. Our Charity Partner will be the “Pink Sista’s” and our musical entertainment will be the “Design Band”. I’ll have more info on next month’s newsletter, but why not start to plan?

Paesano Bocce Club:

Well, it’s hard to believe, but our 4 nights of bocce leagues have come to an end, with our championship Sunday that took place on Sunday August 13th. It was really 4 nights of enjoyment, challenge, improvement, winners, losers, and a whole lot of fun! The most important thing was that everyone had fun but also learned the skill of bocce. From our most skilled night on Mondays to our “Rookie” night on Thursday, it was on! Our competitors were for the most part, in it to win it! They had a great time, but took the game seriously when they needed to. It was fantastic to see the improvement of everyone’s game, even some of our most challenged players came through and added skill to their game. So many players are coming back next year, with a lot of them already signed up and going to play in our Fall league coming up on Sunday morning, September 10th. Sign up at 9 am. August was a busy month for our bocce club. We had our annual “Gresham Ford” sponsored “Mixed Doubles” Tournament, which I’m very happy to say that my partner Stephanie Kyle (Domenic Giusto’s Fiancé) and I took 1st. It was the 2nd time in two years! We had our Championship Sunday for all 4 league nights. Our annual” Festa Tournament” was held last Sunday the 20th and we are holding our “Singles” Championship for both Men and Women this coming Sunday the 27th. As I said, a busy month. On Sunday September 10th at 9am we will start our “Fall Season”. It will be played as an “Il Sacco” format which means that you will be randomly selected to teams which will include all skill levels. Every week you will be on a different team, but your points will be accumulated on your wins for that week. We will also give you a chance to learn or hone your shooting skills. At the end of your 3 games played (each to 12) you will get the opportunity to shoot or “Hard Lag”, 4 times to accumulate even more points for your day’s tally. The cost will be $25 for the league and we will play until the weather tells us that we can’t anymore. Too wet or too cold. If you are interested in coming out to play and want to join, please contact our Competition Chair, Brad Cotton at [email protected] by Friday September 8th. We now have an official Paesano Bocce Club Facebook page that you can go on and join to check out what’s happening in our bocce world. Upcoming and past events. Pictures, videos of games, etc. It’s really nice. Go on to join and check it out. Of course, we have our website too where you can go to check out standings, league and tournament outcomes, and you can sign up and pay your dues as well. We also have pavers, apparel and advertising signs for sale too. You can also make monetary donations to our “Cover the Courts” campaign to raise money to put a roof over our courts. Anything will help. Check it out. www.paesanobocceclub.com. Thank you to our Bocce Board of Directors for all of your hard work this season and for making it a complete success! President: Mario Pompei / Treasurer: Rick Cervi / Competition Chair: Brad Cotton & Kelly Barasch / Officers: Doug Burchak & Dino Gavazza. Special thanks to “IL Capitano” Larry Cereghino for all of your back breaking work around the courts especially laying all of our pavers. Thank you all for all that you do!! We will continue to have meetings on the off season and throughout the winter. If you would like to become involved, please contact any of us for info or questions. The more ideas and help, the better. Here’s to some more BOCCE!

Thoughts & Prayers:

Our thoughts and prayers this month go out to Becky Cereghino who just had a successful knee replacement surgery and is now at home recovering. Please keep her recovery in your prayers and reach out to give her a call to let her know that you are thinking of her. I know that most of you know Becky. Also let’s give a prayer to Debbie Calcagno, Jimmy’s wife, who is having some hip issues and just went in for a shot of cortisone to help ease the pain. Many of you know Deb as well so I’m sure that she would love to hear from you too. If you have anyone else that needs an extra prayer, please let me know and I will mention them in this segment. Of course, many thoughts and prayers to all of our members and their families, past present and future.

La Carota Question:

Once again, Jimmy “Bam Bam” Burch was the winner of last month’s bottle of Vino. Jimmy has been a constant in answering the questions. His tenaciousness and his “Never give up” attitude have put him on the map for winning the “Holy Grail”. I really think that he is catching up to the all-time winner, Mario “The Punisher” Pompei, that’s “Pom-pei”! I’ll have to look at my records to see how close Jimmy is getting. It’s got to be close! Jimmy is just proof that, “you can’t win if you don’t play”! Way to go J.B.

Seeing we just got done with the 32nd Festa Italiana Portland, I’m going to stick with the Festa theme. This month’s question is, “What major Italian Festival is held in September?” This should be another easy one as this Festival is also huge in the Italian communities of the United States too. All winning answers will be entered to win the coveted bottle of Vino. Let’s see if anyone can knock the “Tenacious” one off of his winning ways!

Final Thoughts:

I want to dedicate my “Final Thoughts” segment to two very special people who have been instrumental and very involved with all things “Italian” in the Portland area. These two have been involved with the Festa Italiana for so many years helping them to fundraise and have been on their committee, to keep the wheels from falling off of said bus. 2 years ago, they joined our club and became members. They’ve helped us and have done a lot of promotion for us too. I got to know them a lot better since they became members and consider them both friends and friends to many of you. These two friends are Anna Salanti and Frank Cook. Anna and Frank exemplified being part of our Italian community and did whatever they could to try to help and make it better for all of us. They really enjoyed our Italian family and wanted to be around it. When they asked to join CP, I was more than happy and honored to have them come on board and join our Famiglia. It’s been great having them with us as they are great people. Unfortunately for us, Anna and Frank have decided to move out of Oregon and will call Texas their new home. They will be moving in the next week. If you didn’t know and you’d like to wish them well, I’m sure that they would love to hear from you. I know that with the days of social media and all, it’s easier to stay connected, but it’s never the same as being in person. Anna and Frank, I want to wish you all the best in your new home and state, and want to thank you for all that you both did for the Italian community in our area. You will truly be missed, but you will always have a home with us here and our CP Family. I hope that you will come to visit us when you come back to Portland and please don’t forget about us. We will always be here for you both. Hopefully I’ll get to see you in November!  Lots of love to you both and all the best from your Famigla!

Ciao & Ti Salute!

Rick & Our CP Famiglia

August 2023                            LaCarota

Presidents Message:

Hello my fellow Club Paesano members. As always, I hope that this edition of the newsletter finds you all well. “Happy, healthy and safe”! I hope that you are all out there getting things done and having fun. This weather has been fantastic, and has me wanting to be outside all of the time. We are blessed with the climate that the Pacific Northwest has to offer us. Very little to no humidity in the summer is always nice along with usually mild winters, compared to where some of us are from. Has anyone booked a trip, or have gone to Italy yet this year. I’m looking at flights, but the prices still seem pretty high right now. I know that they usually drop a little in the fall. Italy is a great place to be in the summer time though. There’s multiple Festa’s going on practically every week. Every little town is celebrating a Saint’s Day, or the mushrooms being ready, to a person picking up an accordion and saying, “Hey, let’s have a Festa”! It’s fantastic. I wish that we could adopt a little more of that kind of lifestyle here in North America. In Europe it’s Family, friends and Festa. Here in North America, it’s Work, money, family, friends and festa. We need to remember to stop and smell the roses sometimes. Earn a living, but remember to step out and have a good time too. Go out on the town, throw a party and have a great time with your loved ones. Life is short my friends, Play hard!! 

Concert in the Park:

Saturday August 5th is our Concert in the Park. Gates open at 4pm. “5 Guys Named Moe” will be our musical entertainment for the evening. At this event your ticket allows you access into the concert, and you’ll have the option of purchasing a variety of food offerings from our kitchen. Of course, we will offer our “Non host” bar with all of your favorite libations as well. Please help to make this concert a success by attending and inviting everyone and anyone that you think would enjoy this event. We need to have a big push of tickets sold as we are only 2 weeks away. So far, we are still in need of guests. We are not limited to the amount of people we can have here as our park is huge, so invite, invite, invite! Being that the Concert is our biggest event, we ask our members to help out by volunteering some time to run some of our booths, gates, food etc. We have different shifts, and different tasks, so please help us out. Chelle Ordway and myself are trying to fill some vacant spots. Chelle sent out an email recently outlining our shifts and where people are needed so, please look it over and get back to one of us. Chelle’s email address is [email protected] or email me to let us know. Let’s all take part in making this a successful event. Thank you. If you would like to help Marc, make sauce on Wednesday August 2nd at 8am, please show up at the club, ready to lend a hand. If you’re lucky, maybe he’ll make you some pasta too! 

Festa Italiana:

For the 3rd year in a row, Cedarville Park and Club Paesano will be hosting the “Festa Italiana” 2023. It will be held on Sunday, August 20th. Our bocce club will also be holding our annual “Festa Bocce Tournament” that morning.  We are excited about it and are ready to dig in to help the Festa. I’ve sat on their committee for the last 2 years along with Mario Pompei. We’ve done our best to work with all that are involved to produce a great event. Our club’s goal is to help out in whatever way we can, to keep this longtime Portland tradition alive and going strong for the next 50 years. This is a big event and with all big events we will be asking for volunteers to help out to make this a huge success. This is not a Club Paesano event, but an Italian event. It’s being held at our club to help to support the Festa, but it is an “All Italian Club” and an “Open to the public” event. On that day, everyone becomes Italian!! I’m hoping that Club Paesano members will represent well and volunteer to help. Our own Chelle Ordway, will be sending out “Volunteer request” emails, and will have a signup sheet at our next members meeting on Wednesday July 5th. There will be many shifts to fill at different times as this event will start at 11 am and go till 9pm. Be the 1st to sign up and pick the shift of your liking. If you can work multiple shifts, that would help out tremendously too. The sign-up list will have the shift function along with the time slots that are available. These types of events can only happen with the help of our volunteers so let’s do our CP best to help out in whatever way we can! I thank you all in advance, and would like to thank our very own CP Members that sit on the Festa Committee and attend monthly meetings to help keep the Festa alive and moving.  Special thanks go out to Ed Ferraro – Festa President / Mirella Rizzatti Vice President / Chelle Ordway – Secretary & Volunteer Coordinator / Mario Pompei – Committee member/ Myself, Rick Cervi– Committee member. The committee is always looking for more ideas, input and help, so if you are interested in joining, please let one of us know so that we can add you to the Festa email and “Zoom” meeting invites. Like I always say, “Let’s do our best to make it a GREAT ONE!”

Chamber of Commerce Event:

On Wednesday July 12th, Club Paesano hosted the “Unofficial Happy Hour”, in conjunction with the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. All chamber members get a chance to host a happy hour to bring other members in and to show off our wares and what we have to offer. It was a good opportunity to show off our park, cantina area, bocce courts and the lodge as well to potential future customers. We had a decent crowd that came through along with our bocce members that happened to be playing on Wednesday nights. We offered 3 different kinds of food for purchase along with our “No Host” bar. Our guests loved the food, and more importantly, loved our venue. Most of the chamber members do! Every time I go to a chamber event, I always hear nothing but great things about us. Our venue, our food, and most importantly, our hospitality. We do everything possible to make our guests feel like our Famiglia, and they notice it. Kudos to all of you that showed up and helped get it going! Special thanks once again to Greg DeMeiestri for setting up the menu, getting all of the food, then preparing it like he knows how. So good! His fiancé Lori Bass, for being his chef’s assistant in the kitchen the whole time. I’d also like to thank all of the members that came out to help set up and stayed to tear down and clean up afterwards. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, John Benagni and Chris Siri. A quick shout out to my wife Diane, who also came out to help too. Events with the chamber do everything to help us out. It gets our Club Paesano name and footprint out there, which gets us noticed and it makes people want to get involved with us as well. It’s helping with lodge and park rentals too. Many chamber members have approached me about Cedarville info or wanting to rent it out. I refer them to Maria Duong, our Venue Director, and she gets it done. We make a good team! LoL! We need to continue our membership with them and we need to continue to get recognized. Many people still don’t know exactly who we are or what we do, including Cedarville Lodge & Park. With all of your help, we will continue to strive to make CP and Cedarville a household name, and a place to want to be at.

Paesano Bocce Club:

 It’s hard to believe, but our summer bocce season is already 3 quarters of the way done. We will be starting our playoffs next week in all 4 nights. I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing a lot of great bocce being played this year, and the talent level keeps getting higher and higher. It’s been fantastic seeing how much our members have been enjoying each night. Everyone having a great time, but also being competitive and wanting to win. It has been one heck of a season. Teams are now jockeying into positions to make their playoff run, with hopes of being crowned the 1st place winners of their respective nights. Our final day will be held on Sunday August 13th. It’s our “Championship Sunday”. We will play our playoffs for each night, then ultimately crown a champ for each night. We went with this format last year and it proved itself to be a success and popular. Doing our championship this way allows for different nights and different players to get to all watch the great bocce played that day, but it also allows our players from different nights to get to meet one another too. If you don’t play bocce, please feel free to come to the courts that day, to cheer our members on to victory and have a great time doing it. We will have a “Potluck” lunch, so please bring out your favorite dish and drink to share with your fellow members. More info to follow. At our “Concert in the Park” on Saturday August 5th, Club Paesano has partnered with our Paesano Bocce Club, to be our Fundraiser. As you all know, our bocce club would love to put a roof over our 4 beautiful “World Class” courts. The Bocce club needs every penny it can raise as this project will be expensive. At the concert, our bocce club will have a booth set up to help make money for our “Raise the Roof” campaign. We will offer the “Wall of Wine”, a raffle & silent auction. If you have any wine bottles or gift items that you can donate for any of these fundraising activities any help will be appreciated. Vacation homes, Sporting event tickets, services, tools, gift cards etc. will all be accepted. Please contact Mario Pompei, or myself if you have something that you can donate to this well worthy cause! Another great reason to come out to the Concert in the Park, to help support 2 great causes. If you would like to follow our bocce club, please go to www.paesanobocceclub.com. There you will find league standings, upcoming tournaments and results, bocce news or to make donations or buy a paver. Thank You!

Club Paesano Dues:

Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you. 

Italian Farmers Picnic:

On Sunday August 6th at 5pm, Joe Rossi will be hosting his 2nd Annual “Italian Farmers Picnic”. The event will be held at his house which is located at 3701 NE 122ND.Portland. He has graciously invited all CP members to it at no cost. Some of us were lucky enough to go to it last year, and we had a great time! Our very own Greg DeMeistri will put together some nice Italian dishes for us to enjoy, and Joe will provide wine, beer and soft drinks too. There will also be a live band for our dancing and listening pleasure. This is a great way to bring the Club Paesano members together with the Farmers and Ranchers too just like they did in the old days. A fantastic way to keep our heritage alive and well. Thank you, Joe, for putting this wonderful party on once again. We appreciate you and all that you do for the Italian community in the Portland area.

LaCarota Question:

Well now, it looks like our field of winners is starting to expand a little, although one of our winners was on a tear not that long ago. Last month we had 2 drawings because of LaPolenta dinner in June. Congratulations to our member who keeps fighting every month and just about answers every question. Jimmy, “Bam, Bam” Burch kept relevant by winning June’s bottle. Now for July’s winner, we had a bright new face that came on the scene. I think that they will be a member that fights and claws her way up to the top rankings very soon. A rookie with some great potential. July’s winner was none other than Kelly “Catch me Outside” Barasch. Way to go Kelly! Hopefully you can get a streak going like some of our other veteran players. This month’s question is about our coveted prize. VINO! Seeing it’s what we fight for every month, I might as well have a question about it. Here’s this month’s question: In Italy, they enjoy 3 very popular wines that are known as the “Killer B’s”. I would like you to give me the names of all 3 of them. That’s it. All correct answers will be entered in the drawing to win. Just remember, you can’t win if you don’t play. 

Club Paesano Dues:

Our Club Paesano membership dues were due in June. If you haven’t paid John Kern as of yet, please make plans on paying him soon. You can mail him a check, or pay him at our next meeting. John will accept Credit cards, cash or checks. John’s a busy man, so please don’t make him chase you. If you need to pay your dues or any other payments, please take care of it. Thank you.

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 & Prayers:

We’re sending our thoughts and prayers, for the speedy recovery of our own Kelly Barasch. Kelly had major back surgery a couple of months ago, and she is currently starting her rehab. Kelly is doing well and as always, is in great spirits. Let’s continue to wish her well in her recovery. Also please keep Marilyn Burchak (Doug’s Mother) in your prayers too. Let’s keep all of our members and their families in your thoughts and prayers. We all could use a prayer! If you would like to add anyone you know on our prayer chain, please let me know and I will add them to our next newsletter. Thanks.

Final Thoughts:

I know that you all have heard me beat this drum before, but I feel like I need to reiterate it every now and then. You are all members of a FANTASTIC thing here. CLUB PAESANO! It was a club that was founded by a group of immigrants from our Motherland that came here without anything, but wanted to keep their Italian traditions alive, and wanted to be around like-minded people. A lot of it may have been to be able to communicate as well. English was foreign to them but they got together and learned the language and worked hard in their new found homeland. They also got together and formed Club Paesano. Incorporated in 1955, our club still remains strong and is still growing while others are folding and closing their doors. This club is still open and active, because of the work that our members put in and give back. Just like our founders, we need to share the load to keep this going. We need to bring in new members that want to be a part of what is so special here and want to work hard to keep it moving forward. We need our current members to volunteer, and to help support our events. Anyway, will do, whether it’s physical labor, working a booth, bringing in guests, etc. we need everyone to step up and help. The hard work can’t always be done by the same 12 people all the time. We have a membership of 85, I’m sure that a good percentage of our membership is still active enough to lend a hand every once in a while, and can come out when needed. I’m doing my best to give back more, to our members. I strongly believe that we deserve some added benefits and bonuses for being a member of Club Paesano. “Heritage Night”, the” Hawaiian Luau”, “Fun Committee Nights Out”, etc. I want us all to enjoy these things, but I would also like to see a little more participation when it comes to getting things done for the club. Come to our events, promote, sell tickets, help set up in the mornings. The more people we have makes for lighter work. I do appreciate the membership, and would love to see it grow and to keep our club going for another 100 years. Be a proud Paesano, and enjoy this great thing that our ancestors built for us. Let’s make them proud!

Salute!

Rick.

July 2023                            LaCarota

Presidents Message:

Ciao, my fellow CP Members. As always, I hope that you are all doing well. “Happy, healthy and safe!” Well, we finally made the leap from Spring to Summer and it’s looking like we are going to have a good one this year. As much as I wanted to see Summer get here, it seems to me like this year is just flying by! We are at the end of June, looking at July. They say that time flies when you are having fun and that’s great, but if “Father Time” would like to slow it down a little, I would be good with that too! I hope that you all are getting out and enjoying the weather and are getting to do things. I know that it’s graduation season, and many of us are either hosting a party or being invited to one. Vacation season is here too. Whether you are going away, or having a “Stay-cation”, please enjoy! 

La Polenta Dinner:

In lieu of our June’s regular Membership meeting, we celebrated a great “Italian” tradition. We invited all Italian clubs, and Italians in the area to our “La Polenta Dinner”. This has become one of our annual events and traditions. It’s getting bigger and better every year. How nice is it to get together with your fellow members and others to enjoy one of the most traditional Italian dinners there is. We got to mingle and socialize, drink some nice wine, and eat! All of the things that we all love to do! The polenta was fantastic and the sauce was exceptional. Thanks to Marc Battilega for making the sauce, and to everyone that helped him in the kitchen to put the meal together. I also want to thank all of you that came early to help set up and stay later to tear down. We had members from the “IBC”,” The Sons & Daughters of Italy” and the “Portland Amici Club” come to celebrate with us. We also had some Italians who were not affiliated with any clubs show up too. Maybe potential CP Members? Claude Bonafilio from the “IBC”, presented 3 of their scholarships to 3 very fortunate students. My daughter, Adriana, was fortunate enough to receive one of them! It’s a great thing that they do and I’m hoping that Club Paesano will follow suit and set up our own to offer to our CP Scholars in the near future. All in all, a great night and a tradition that we will enjoy for a long time to come.

Concert in the Park:

On Saturday, August 5th, we will be having our annual Concert in the Park. It will be held outside in our beautiful “Fred Siri” Amphitheater. It will be in our park under our huge cedar trees. The gates will open at 4pm and our musical entertainment for the night will be “5 Guys Named Moe”.

They have played for us on numerous occasions and performed at last year’s concert. They’re an 11-piece band that has everyone up and dancing! Like last year, we will have an entrance fee and food will be sold separately. Tickets will be $10 for general seating which is lawn seating (bring your own chair) or $15 for a chair at a table, and are now available to purchase on our website at www.clubpaesano.org. We will offer a variety of food for purchase. Please invite everyone and anyone you can. This is a family friendly event so children are welcome. Due to the fact that it’s held outdoors and is our biggest event, we will need volunteers. This is Club Paesano’s only event that we ask our members to volunteer at, so if you are coming, please be able to donate an hour or 2 for a shift. We will need volunteers to come in early that morning to help set up tables and chairs outside. We will need help in the kitchen, and at the bar. Ticket takers, security, raffle sellers etc. I will have a volunteer signup sheet out, at our next meeting, so you can pick your shift and time. I know that we all want to enjoy the party and have fun with guests and fellow members, so if we get enough volunteers, we can spread the work out evenly and you’ll have fun too. Again, let’s get out there and promote this event. Tell everyone, pass fliers out and advertise on your social media. It’s a big event and it costs us a lot of money to put on, so we need guests. Let’s try to make the biggest Concert yet! We’ll see you there!

Fun Committee:

Our last Fun Committee event at “Gather Arts” was great! Getting out with fellow Paesano’s is always fun, so we are looking to do it again! For the last 2 summers, we have gone out to have dinner together at a specific restaurant. 2 yrs. ago it was “Spinella’s” Italian restaurant and last year it was “Kuya’s Islander Cafe”. They both provided us with our own menu and allowed us to bring in several people. It was a win, win for both CP Members and their businesses. We had a chance to help out these restaurants after the pandemic and we also had a chance to get together for a night away from the club to have some fun. We would love to do that again this summer, so if you know of a restaurant owner or a place that you frequent and would like to have us gather there, let me know so that we can set something up. It’s always nice to help the community and people that we know. We are always looking for something to do, so if you have any suggestions or ideas let’s try to make it happen. Get all the information you can and run with it. It doesn’t have to be a restaurant gathering, it could be anything. It’s all about the “FUN!”

Chamber of Commerce Event:

On Wednesday July 12th at 5pm, Club Paesano will be hosting the “Unofficial Happy Hour” brought to you by Club Paesano and the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. This event is open to all CP Members, Chamber members and the public. We will have the Happy hour outside near our beautiful Cantina area and park under the shade of our great cedar trees. What a beautiful setting, and a great way to showcase CP, and Cedarville Lodge & Park. Hopefully the lodge can get some future bookings out of it. CP will provide a “No Host” bar and some food to purchase. Our food offerings haven’t been chosen yet. If you are free that night, or don’t feel like cooking please come. Enjoy a night out and meet some of our Chamber members as well. All are welcome, so bring your family and friends. Let’s show the Chamber and the East County how Club Paesano represents, and let’s show off our beautiful venue and what we have to offer! Something to be proud of for sure!

Paesano Bocce Club:

Paesano Bocce is alive and doing well in Gresham and our leagues have started. We are happy to be running 4 league nights once again this year. Monday through Thursday. Monday nights being for the more advanced, all the way to Thursday being our “Rookie or Beginners” night. A lot of our regulars have returned, but we also have a crop of new talent that have never played at our club before. We have some from the public and some being our very own Club Paesano Members. I’m there all 4 nights, and have witnessed some very good bocce being played. Even our newest players have been doing well. The most important thing that I see the most, is that our players are having fun and being competitive. They are getting into the game and want to learn it, but at the same time I see them laughing, talking and smiling. The camaraderie is fantastic! That is the most important thing. Come out and enjoy! We had a great “Meet & Greet” tourney, back in May and had a great turn out. Bocce is definitely a sport that is on the move and taking off in North America. The beauty of this sport is that anyone can play. Young and old, male or female, athletic or not. Everyone has a chance to be competitive. With some practice and concentration, anyone has a chance to be a very good player. Please go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com for all the information, instructional videos, sign up forms for our leagues and our upcoming tournaments too. I recommend checking it out. You can also purchase items to help us raise funding for our “Raise the Roof” project. As most of you know, last year we finished construction of our 4 “World Class” bocce courts. Now we would like to build a roof to cover them. This would allow us to play all year long and help to maintain the integrity of the courts. We put a lot of money into them, so it would be nice to be able to preserve them for many years to come. The roof would also make for some good, “Big Money” tournaments, attracting very good players from around the country. This would not only benefit our bocce club but Club Paesano and Cedarville Park as well. It would also bring money into the Gresham and East County area as well. If you are interested in playing, or being involved in our club, please contact one of our Board members. Mario Pompei – President / Myself- Treasurer / Dino Gavazza, Doug Burchak and Kelly Barash – Board of directors. Anyone of us will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. As always, we have items to sell. Personal pavers, advertising and personal signs of different sizes that will hang on our fence that runs along the Spring Water trail, (BTW, Hundreds of people a day would see them), t- shirts, hoodies and hats. Of course, we will always be willing to accept monetary donations too. If you own a company or work for one that would be willing to donate to a tournament or purchase an advertising sign, please let one of us know. Our next tournament will be held July 8th & 9th. The 8th will be our annual Oregon vs Washington Ryder Cup tourney for bragging rights and the coveted trophy. The 9th will be our annual Aldo Rossi tournament. We are still accepting teams for the Aldo Rossi Tourney, so if you would like to sign a team up, you still have a little time. Go to our website and register your team to play. You can also contact our “Competition Chairperson” Brad Cotton at [email protected]. There will be cash prizes and medals going out to the top 3 teams. If you are interested, please don’t hesitate as it’s first come first served and once, we get the needed number of teams we will no longer accept any more. Even if you are not playing, you can still come out to watch and enjoy some great competitive bocce for the day!

Festa Italiana:

For the 3rd year in a row, Cedarville Park and Club Paesano will be hosting the “Festa Italiana” 2023. It will be held on Sunday, August 20th. Our bocce club will also be holding our annual “Festa Bocce Tournament” that morning.  We are excited about it and are ready to dig in to help the Festa. I’ve sat on their committee for the last 2 years along with Mario Pompei. We’ve done our best to work with all that are involved to produce a great event. Our club’s goal is to help out in whatever way we can, to keep this longtime Portland tradition alive and going strong for the next 50 years. This is a big event and with all big events we will be asking for volunteers to help out to make this a huge success. This is not a Club Paesano event, but an Italian event. It’s being held at our club to help to support the Festa, but it is an “All Italian Club” and an “Open to the public” event. On that day, everyone becomes Italian!! I’m hoping that Club Paesano members will represent well and volunteer to help. Our own Chelle Ordway, will be sending out “Volunteer request” emails, and will have a signup sheet at our next members meeting on Wednesday July 5th. There will be many shifts to fill at different times as this event will start at 11 am and go till 9pm. Be the 1st to sign up and pick the shift of your liking. If you can work multiple shifts, that would help out tremendously too. The sign-up list will have the shift function along with the time slots that are available. These types of events can only happen with the help of our volunteers so let’s do our CP best to help out in whatever way we can! I thank you all in advance, and would like to thank our very own CP Members that sit on the Festa Committee and attend monthly meetings to help keep the Festa alive and moving.  Special thanks go out to Ed Ferraro – Festa President / Mirella Rizzatti Vice President / Chelle Ordway – Secretary & Volunteer Coordinator / Mario Pompei – Committee member/ Myself, Rick Cervi– Committee member. The committee is always looking for more ideas, input and help, so if you are interested in joining, please let one of us know so that we can add you to the Festa email and “Zoom” meeting invites. Like I always say, “Let’s do our best to make it a GREAT ONE!”

Thoughts & Prayers:

Please keep Terry Thorud in your thoughts and prayers. He’s been a long-time member and informed me of the passing of his wife Chris. Chris passed away on May 13th. He would like to invite us all to her “Celebration of Life” which will be held on Saturday July 1st between 1:30pm and 4:30pm at the Gresham Elks which is located at 3330 N.E. Division St. in Gresham. Please help support both Terry and his family if you can. Let us also keep our own Kelly Barasch in our prayers. Kelly went through a major back surgery about 3 weeks ago which was a success. She is currently recovering and is gaining positive momentum. Kelly is a warrior and a trooper, so this will only help her to get stronger and to have a better well-being without all of the pain that she has experienced in the past. We miss you Kelly and can’t wait to see your smiling face and brilliant personality back at the club and on our bocce courts! Thoughts and prayers to all of our Club Paesano members, past, present and future!! If you have anyone that you would like to add to our “Thoughts & Prayers” list, please let me know and I will make sure that they are included in our newsletter.

LaCarota Question:

Due to last month’s meeting being our La Polenta dinner, June’s question winner will be selected at July’s meeting next week. We will see if we can get a new winner or will Chris Siri continue his new found domination over the coveted bottles of wine. I think that he’s stocking his wine cellar at home with all of these wins. Can the “Comeback Kid” Mario Pompei sneak in to regain his dominance, or will we have a new winner. Will we have a fresh face, an up and comer, someone who can get their name in there with the elites of this game? We will wait and see. You can’t be in the “Winners Circle” if you don’t play, so let’s see how many of you will be in the running for July’s “Holy Grail”. This month’s question is another easy one. My question is this. What annual Club Paesano Event was canceled and replaced by the “Concert in the Park”? Simple. I should receive tons of correct answers for this one! As always, you can’t win if you don’t play, so email me with your answers before our next meeting. Good Luck!

Club Paesano Dues: 

June is fast approaching, and our CP Membership dues need to be paid by the end of June. Try to stay ahead of the game, and if you can, send a check, or pay John Kern, the next time that you see him. He takes cash and credit cards. Please don’t make him chase you. He’s a busy man, and has a lot of other things to take care of. Our annual dues are still $100.

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. 

Final Thoughts:

As we move into the summer season, we have also moved into “Graduation Season”. Many of us have celebrated one for a child or been invited to relatives or friends’ graduation. They are fun and exciting not only for the graduates themselves but for the proud parents, grandparents, relatives and friends. It’s a look at our new leaders, CEO’s, government powers to be, and our future workforce. The future is in their hands as a lot of us get ready for the next chapter of our lives, “Retirement!” As we have raised them and nurtured them to become the best that they can be, I can only imagine that the best is yet to come. The future is bright and we will depend on them to take over the reins and lead us into the next dimension of our lives. We will continue to support and give guidance as most of our parents did with us, but soon they will be leaving the nest and carving out their own destinies and careers. I’d like to take this segment of the newsletter to recognize some of our families who have graduated this year and what their goals are for the near future. I apologize if I missed anyone, but these are the Kiddo’s that I know about. Bryce Vandervort. Grandson of Mario & Jayne Pompei. Bryce just graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Marcom and a minor in business. Bryce is planning on heading down to Ashland to study at the Shakespeare festival. Perhaps acting or production is in his future. Skylar Benagni, daughter of John & Monica Benagni. Skylar just graduated from Tigard High school and plans on going to PSU & PCC to acquire a business degree. Skylar would love to own her very own Event planning business in the future.

 Adriana Cervi, Proud Mom, Diane Cervi and extra proud Daddy, ME! I’m very happy to say that my “Babes” Adriana just graduated Central Catholic with straight A’s and made the “Honor Roll”. Adriana is planning on starting at PCC and would like to start a career in multi-Media. We are all proud parents, relatives and friends of all of our graduates. Here’s to their futures and here’s to them! Let us all give them the strength and support that they need. Hopefully most of them will become Club Paesano members some day and help to keep us going well into the future and beyond. Te Salute!

Rick.

June 2023                              LaCarota

Hello my fellow Club Paesano Members. As always, I hope that this newsletter finds you well. Healthy, happy and safe! Looks like the weather has finally changed for the better, and we are drying out. Summer may finally be here. I hope that you are all enjoying it and getting things done. From what I heard in conversations at our last meeting, a lot of you are getting busy with a multitude of different things happening in your everyday activities. Some are selling houses, moving, refurbishing, etc. Most of us have our annual “Spring Cleaning” going on too, so that’s always a task that keeps us busy. Let us know if you are up to anything exciting or changing, or if you are in need of any kind of help. We have a lot of members that are more than willing to lend a hand. Like a huge family, all you have to do is ask. We have a great membership that is always willing to work. We have a lot of terrific people here, so do your best to get to know one another. Here’s to a fantastic summer ahead!

Spring Dance:

On Saturday May 6th we celebrated our annual “Spring Dance”. It was a great time and it looked like the people that attended the event had a fun time. The band was jumping, and as always, the dinner was fantastic! Our charity partner brought some people in and raised money for their cause. They were very happy and thanked us for giving them the opportunity to partner with us to make them some money. I don’t have a number as to what they made but when I get it I will post it. My one major concern was that we only had 166 guests that came out to enjoy our party. There weren’t a lot of CP Members on the guest list, either online or sales at the door. I realize that it was a busy weekend with other events going on around town, or that some of you may have had other plans already, but that was a very low CP representation. The board and I have decided to move the event to a new date next year, so we don’t have to compete with Cinco de Mayo celebrations, or the Gresham Jazz Festival. Both have resurfaced, and are trying to attract guests as well. We will do what we can to avoid this conflict next year. Hopefully we will make up for it at our “Concert in the Park”! Let’s do our best to fill the park. Start making your plans now!! Saturday August 5th, Concert in the Park. Put it on your calendars!

The Fun Committee:

The Fun Committee enjoyed a couple of back to back events in these past few days. On Saturday May 20th we enjoyed an event at “Gather Arts” in Brush Prairie WA. This event was hosted by Bridgett and Mike Merrill, the owners of Gather Arts and whose father is our long time member, Jim Merrill. We all arrived there and were welcomed by both Bridgett and Mike. Their sons were there to help out too. It was out in the countryside, a very nice way to get out of the city. Bridgett and Mike were the ultimate hosts! The wine and soft drinks were flowing right away, as they took the time to tell us about the farm, what they do and show us around the property. They also had a very nice shop with some great items and gifts for purchase. We started out with some very good appetizers and our 1st activity. We learned how to make a salami rose, and some “Heart” cherry tomatoes to display if you were making a charcuterie board or tray. As we learned to make these, we kept eating and drinking, like good Italians do! We munched on a tray of salami, cheese, fruits and crackers, with little biscotti . But wait, there’s more! As we continued to create, the food kept rolling out. Shrimp, ravioli , meatballs and focaccia bread, more wine, soft drinks and a speciality “Club Paesano” drink, made especially for us! Our main event was our Wine glass painting class. That’s when all of our “Micheal Angelo’s” got into the mood and began to get creative! Mike Merrill, was our art professor and showed us, step by step how to create this masterpiece. We each were given a stemmed wine glass with a palette of paint and a brush. Mike described how to start painting it, then basically let us get our own creative juices flowing. I have to tell you, I don’t think that I saw one bad art piece. They all looked great and showed off each other’s character. I didn’t realize that we had so many artistic members in our pack. They were all fantastic in their own right. Very creative pieces. I would have taken all of them to have my very own personalized Club Paesano stemware! LoL! It was a fantastic night, and I would like to thank Bridgett and Mike once again for being such great hosts, and hopefully will become future members of our club. They both would fit into our membership perfectly. They do different classes, so I’m hoping to be able to set up another event with them in the future. I’d also like to thank all of you that came out to it and enjoyed a nice Fun Committee event together with your fellow members! We also enjoyed our last Monday Night Social for the season, this past Monday night. Once again we enjoyed great food, drink, fun, games and comradery with our fellow CP Members. Never fear though, our MNS will return the 1st Monday after the Labour Day holiday in September. That would be Monday the 11th. If you still haven’t come out to one, do yourself a favor and come out this coming September, you’ll have a blast! Thanks to all of our regulars who show up week after week, have made dinners to share and have partaken in the Fun, which is our Monday Night Social! Ciao till September.

Polenta Dinner:

Our annual Polenta dinner will take place on Wednesday June 7th. It will be in lieu of our regular monthly membership meeting. We’ve been doing this for the last several years now. Instead of our June’s meeting, we are inviting all other Italians, whether they are members of another club or not, to partake in this wonderful celebration of an Italian staple, wine and socializing. As we all know, Italians love to eat and celebrate for any reason. It could be the day that the sun came out, a day that the mushrooms started to grow, etc. for any reason, which is fantastic to me. Any reason to Party! So, a few years ago, the idea was born to have all of the clubs and Italians in the area come together for this dinner. A place where Italians thrive! LoL! Like all big Italian dinners and Festa’s we are all expected to participate and help out. That being said, we will need volunteers to help set up tables and chairs, to help in the kitchen, cooking & serving, and of course to clean up and tear down at the end. As I said, this dinner is open to all Italians, so if you know of any Italians that you would like to invite, please do so. Please “RSVP” back to me, so that we can have a head count and know how much food to purchase. We are always looking for volunteers to cook a roast for our sauce to go over our Polenta. 5 to 6 will be enough. If you would like to cook one for the sauce, please let me know that too. You can bring your own wine to drink and share. Club Paesano will supply soft drinks and water. Come and join us for this traditional Italian get together. It will be great! Doors open at 5:30pm (unless you are coming earlier to help in the kitchen or to set up tables).

Paesano Bocce Club:

Our Paesano Bocce Club is on the verge of starting our 2023 season. We are all very excited and we’re looking forward to a very competitive yet enjoyable season. Our goal is to have 4 nights again. We are good to go for our Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but are still in need of some players / teams for our Thursday night league, which is our “Rookie & Beginners” night. We would ultimately like to have 8 teams, but could settle with less if we have too. If you are interested in playing or forming a team, please let someone on our board know, or please go to our website to enroll. Our board members are ; President- Mario Pompei / Treasurer – Rick Cervi / Competition Chairperson – Kelly Barasch / Board Officers – Doug Burchak & Dino Gavazza. Our website is www.paesanobocceclub.com This past Sunday, we had our annual “Meet & Greet” Bocce day, which brought out over 50 players. Some were regulars but the most of them were new to our club which was great to see. Everyone had a terrific time and it looked like we had some good talent out there. Hopefully we will obtain some new members that want to come out, be competitive but most of all, have a fun time out there! We hope to see you on the courts. As always, we have bocce apparel, signs, pavers and advertisement opportunities for sale. We would also be happy and grateful to receive monetary donations as well to eventually be able to build a roof that would cover the courts for an all around season and the opportunity for bigger events and rentals.

Club Paesano Dues: 

June is fast approaching, and our CP Membership dues need to be paid by the end of June. Try to stay ahead of the game, and if you can, send a check, or pay John Kern, the next time that you see him. He takes cash and credit cards. Please don’t make him chase you. He’s a busy man, and has a lot of other things to take care of. Our annual dues are still $100.

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 & Prayers:

Let’s please pray for and think about our members that can use an extra prayer this month. Ari Sardo Masi (Daughter of member Daniela Sardo).

Merilyn Burchak (Doug Burchak’s mother). Our very own, Kelly Barasch. Kelly will be sidelined for a bit having to have back surgery next week. She’s a trooper and will come through this with flying colors I’m sure! Kelly is one of our newest members, who most of you already know and brings a huge amount of positive energy into our club and to our members. Kelly has not only helped me and the club but has also settled into her role as our new “Competition Chairperson and Membership Services” of our bocce league. Kelly, you will be missed but I know that you will be back soon and better than ever. We will all pray for you and your speedy recovery so we can see you, your smiling face and your positive personality real soon! If you have anyone that you would like to include in our “Thoughts & Prayers” section, please let me know, so I can include them in our next newsletter. 

LaCarota Question:

Well, well now, it looks like we have another member challenging our “Wine Winning G.O.A.T” – (Mario Pompei). Chris “Superfly” Siri, has won yet another bottle of our coveted Vino. Chris is dominating the wins this year so far. He again proves that if you don’t play, you can’t win. Will Chris continue his reign, or will we get a new winner in the mix. Will Mario “The Masher” Pompei, pick himself up, dust himself off and get back in this race, or is he officially retired and on the shelf? Will we hear from Jimmy “Bam Bam” Burch, who was on a tear earlier, but has dropped off the map as of late? Will we have a fresh face rookie breaking the ranks? We will see what happens. So this month’s question is about  Club Paesano and a historical year in our history. My question to our members is, “What happened to Club Paesano in 2005? That’s it. Pretty simple! If you would like to derail “Superfly Siri” then throw your answer into the hat. Let’s see if we can get a new winner. All correct answers will have a chance to win the “Holy Grail”. Good Luck. *Note*- Due to our LaPolenta Dinner in lieu of our June’s meeting, this winner will be drawn at our July’s meeting along with July’s winner.

Final Thoughts:

As I mentioned earlier in the newsletter about the Spring Dance, I noticed that our attendance was down at the dance. In fact it was a bit lower at the Carnevalle Dance too. It seems like we have had to depend on our Charity partners and our outside attendees to bring in guests. I know that we are all busy and that our events can’t always be our number one priority, I totally understand that. We can only be in one place at one time. If you can’t make it, try to give your tickets to someone that you think will have fun at our events and hopefully become a regular guest of ours, maybe even a member. It all helps us in a positive way. You are paying for those tickets anyway so try not to let them go to waste. If there are some changes or ideas that you would like to see implemented, please don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m very easy to get a hold of and welcome any feedback that you may have. Anything that you feel may make our events better or draw more people. We’ve bounced back from Covid and have had some very successful events since that, and as president and a member, I would love to see all of our CP events do well! Obviously life happens, and they can’t all be as good as the last, but let’s do our collective best to make them the greatest! We have a fantastic club that we belong to. In speaking with other Italians, that belong to other clubs, believe me, we have something terrific here! There are a few Italian clubs in the Portland / Vancouver area, but none of them can boast of the things that we have. A beautiful Lodge built on a huge park with an amazing amount of property. None of the other clubs have that and trust me, from all of the conversations that I have had with other club members, they all have told me how lucky we are to have what we have. I know it and I know that a lot of you get it too. Let’s do our best to take advantage of it. Enjoy your club, use your club and take the time to get to know your fellow members that are around you. You just might be surprised at who you get to know and end up becoming friends with. Let’s all do our best to enjoy our CP Famiglia and everything it has to offer! Enjoy and take care of yourselves!

Sempre Italiano e ti Saluto

Rick

May 2023                          LaCarota

Presidents Message:

Ciao, my fellow Club Paesano members. As always, I hope that you are all doing well. Happy, healthy and safe! How fast is time flying by? I feel like I just sat down to write April’s newsletter. It’s getting to be like “Groundhogs Day”! I feel like Bill Murray in the movie. Waking up every morning just to start typing “LaCarota”! LoL! I try to keep it fresh for everyone. Sounds like we may start to move on from this wet wintery weather. The forecast is warmer and dryer. Hopefully they are 100% right this time. This part of Oregon should have enough water to last us a while. I hope that everyone has been able to get out and get things done and have some fun too. My family’s trip to California for Spring break was nice. The weather wasn’t what you would expect from Cali in the spring, but we made the best of it. Disneyland, California adventure, and Universal Studios. We covered a lot in a short period of time. Feeling the joy and the smile on my Adriana’s face, made it all well worth it! We all had a good time, but my senior really deserved it. Graduating this year and on the “Honor Roll” has made Diane and I very proud and happy!! She deserved a great “Spring Break”! I know that a lot of our members have children, grandchildren and relatives that are going through school and may be graduating too. Give them all the love and support that they need. They are our future. Our future leaders, representatives, and workforce that will keep this country running smooth. Here’s to all of them and their futures!

Heritage Dinner:

Last Saturday night we celebrated our 2nd annual “Heritage Dinner”. I have to say that it was another huge success! We had 12 more people than last year. There were close to 60 members and guests. It was a great night of socializing, eating and celebrating our Club Paesano Heritage. It was so nice to mingle and make our way around the room talking and laughing with one another. The night started with drinks and socializing followed by a fantastic dinner. Once again, our very own Greg Demister stole the show, with a magnificent 6 course meal that included, antipasto, Caprese tomatoes, tortellini, stuffed pork tenderloin, fingerling potatoes, and a cream and fruit filled tart for dessert. My goodness it was all so good! If you couldn’t make it, I feel bad that your taste buds missed it! My hats off to the chef! I’d also like to thank his brother-in-law Dennis Grieng, for helping to put the meal together. Greg’s son Gianni and his girlfriend Jania for helping in the kitchen and for serving the meal to our tables and also Greg’s fiancé Lori Bass for tending the bar for us. Special thanks to our very own Phil Potestio for sending us a video feed from Bologna, Italy. It was so nice of him to take some time out of his vacation to say a few words and to wish us well.  I’d like to thank our members that showed up in the morning to help set up, Jimmy Calcagno, Jimmy Burch, Dino Gavazza, John Kern, Debra Ceglie. As always, our member that keeps them checked in at the door, John Kern. Thank you again for all of you that came, and were involved in this. By the looks and sounds of it, our Heritage Dinner is popular and a fan favorite of our members, so I’m hoping that we will keep it going in the years to come. Let’s keep our CP history and heritage alive and well! Cheers.

Spring Dance:

This year’s “Spring Dance” is just around the corner. It’s exactly 2 weeks away! Have you purchased your tickets yet? As of today (04/21/23) we have sold 63 tickets. 63 tickets! That’s it! Come on now, my blood pressure is rising! Seriously, I know that a lot of us wait till the last minute to buy, but it’s getting to be “crunch time” now. Please invite your family and friends. The more the merrier as always! Bring anyone you know that would love to have a great time for a very low price! Our musical entertainment will be the “Big Bad Beat”. They played for us at last year’s Carnevale Dance and had the place rocking. Our Spring Dance is usually one of our bigger dances, so let’s do our best to continue that trend. Do what you can to promote and invite. Our charity partner for the dance, will be the “Center for The Arts Foundation” in Gresham. They have been helping our youth that are involved in the arts, and are local. For the last year, I’ve been trying to stick with our local charities. I feel that we need to help and keep the fundraising close, for the benefit of our nearest communities. We all need to help each other’s causes. Let’s all do our best to help them and of course, help ourselves. Let’s make it a “SELLOUT”! See you all there.

Fun Committee:

The “Fun Committee” will be having an outing on Saturday May 20th in Brush Prairie WA. We will be going to “Gather Arts” Farm” which is owned and run by Bidgett and Mike Merrill. Their dad, Jim Merrill is one of our members. We hope to make Bridgett & Mike members real soon too! We will meet at their farm at 5pm, which is located at 16523 NE 170TH Ave, Brush Prairie, WA. 98606.  We will start at 5pm and it will go until they decide that they have had enough of us, LoL! For only $25 per person the event will be a “Wine glass painting “and “Charcuterie board” making class that will include, sipping on wine and nibbling on cheese, crackers and dellies. But wait, there’s more! Bridgett will also include a Special Italian drink that she will prepare, just for us. Now how good is that? This will be an amazing event, but the spaces are limited. She told me that they can accommodate about 36 people, maybe a few more, so if you want to be included, I “RSVP” me no later than May 15th!  Seats are already starting to be reserved. I will have to start turning people away after 36 to 38 people, so don’t delay if you want to come. Please check out their “Gather Arts” website, Facebook and Instagram sights too. We continue to have our “Monday Night Social” but are starting to wind down to our summer break. We have 6 more Monday nights left, so if you haven’t been to one yet, your time is running out. Come on out and enjoy a night of fun, food and laughs. Who knows, you may even win a little money to boot. It’s a fun time and I welcome you all to come and check it out. We still have a couple other events in the works, so please stay tuned!

Polenta Dinner:

Our annual Polenta dinner will take place on Wednesday June 7th. It will be in lieu of our regular monthly membership meeting. We’ve been doing this for the last several years now. Instead of our June’s meeting, we are inviting all other Italians, whether they are members of another club or not, to partake in this wonderful celebration of an Italian staple, wine and socializing. As we all know, Italians love to eat and celebrate for any reason. It could be the day that the sun came out, a day that the mushrooms started to grow, etc. for any reason, which is fantastic to me. Any reason to Party! So, a few years ago, the idea was born to have all of the clubs and Italians in the area come together for this dinner. A place where Italians thrive! LoL! Like all big Italian dinners and Festa’s we are all expected to participate and help out. That being said, we will need volunteers to help set up tables and chairs, to help in the kitchen, cooking & serving, and of course to clean up and tear down at the end. As I said, this dinner is open to all Italians, so if you know of any Italians that you would like to invite, please do so. Please “RSVP” back to me, so that we can have a head count and know how much food to purchase. We are always looking for volunteers to cook a roast for our sauce to go over our Polenta. 5 to 6 will be enough. If you would like to cook one for the sauce, please let me know that too. You can bring your own wine to drink and share. Club Paesano will supply soft drinks and water. Come and join us for this traditional Italian get together. It will be great! Doors open at 5:30pm (unless you are coming earlier to help in the kitchen or to set up tables).

Bocce News:

Our 2023 Bocce Season is just around the corner, just like our Spring Dance! Our league nights will be starting the 1st week of June. We are very proud to say that we will again be supporting 4 nights of bocce leagues. All nights are filling up again, in fact I believe that Monday and Tuesday are filled. We started everything off with our annual “Kick off” meeting that took place April 6th. I’m glad to say that the turnout was fantastic. We welcomed back both veteran and new players. There were actually a lot of new faces that I’ve never met before which is terrific for our league. We explained a couple of our new rule changes and answered some questions from the group. It was a nice start to the league and made me excited to see that the Paesano Bocce Club is still growing by leaps and bounds and still has more room to grow in the future. If you are interested in playing, and still haven’t signed up, our league nights are filling up very quickly, but there may be some spots that are still open. Please go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com or contact one of us on the board. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Dino Gavazza, Kelly Barasch, or myself. Anyone of us can help you out. On Sunday, May 21st, we will be holding our 3rd annual “Meet & Greet”. This event is open to anyone who is interested in bocce and especially to those who are wanting to learn the rules and the game itself. It will be a great opportunity for returning members to play and teach some of our newer members and guests. Mario, will be out there with his microphone, telling us about the history of the game, the rules, and will probably be doing some of his famous “Play by Play”. The Day will start out at 8:30am, so if you are interested in playing, please be there by 8:15 am so that we can sign you up and get you on a team. We’ll provide coffee and doughnuts in the morning and hotdogs and chips for lunch. Please feel free to bring whatever beverage you’d like, including adult. The day usually lasts until early afternoon, or whenever you’d like to leave. If you are a current member, or interested in playing in some of our upcoming tournaments, please visit our website for our tournament schedule, rule changes, registration, donations, or anything else that is bocce related. As always, we are always looking to raise money for our future roof that we would love to build. We have plenty of merchandise, advertisements, pavers, etc. to sell and of course we will never turn down a monetary donation. If you or your company would like to sponsor the league or a tournament, we are always looking for that too. The courts are also available for rentals. Whether it be for hourly play, or an all-day company function. Let’s do what we can to support our Paesano Bocce Club!

Thoughts & Prayers:

The Club would like to send out our deepest condolences to our Mario Pompei and his family. Unfortunately, his mother, Theresa, who was 96 yrs. young, passed away. A beautiful woman with a lot of energy and a love for life and family. Fortunately, Mario and his siblings, Wayne, Gary, Patricia and Francine, were able to be by her side as she passed into heaven. Rest in Peace. I’d like to send out some prayers to my in-laws, Jim and Gerry Sells and to my wife Diane, who continues to amaze me in everything that she does on a daily basis. Taking care of my in-laws, making sure that Adriana’s on point for school, work and anything else that may come up. May God continue to give her the strength. Joe Castellano, continues to amaze, in his recovery! The cancer is in remission, and he is looking and feeling awesome. The power of prayer folks! Here’s to all of us CP members, both present and past. May God keep us all safe and healthy. If you have anyone that you would like me to add to our prayer chain, in the future, please reach out and let me know.

Club Paesano Dues: 

June is fast approaching, and our CP Membership dues need to be paid by the end of June. Try to stay ahead of the game, and if you can, send a check, or pay John Kern, the next time that you see him. He takes cash and credit cards. Please don’t make him chase you. He’s a busy man, and has a lot of other things to take care of. Our annual dues are still $100.

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. 

LaCarota Question:

Congratulations goes out to Chris “Superfly” Siri for answering last month’s question. Chris has been answering on a regular basis, and it’s been paying off for him. I believe he’s won 2 out of the last 4 questions. Not bad! Once again proving that if you don’t play, you can’t win! Seeing that our annual Polenta dinner is coming up in June, my question will refer to our traditional dish. It’s a 3-part question: “What was the year that the grain came into use, what was Polenta originally cooked for, and in what part of Italy was it originated in?”. Pretty easy eh? Answer those 3 questions correctly, and win this month’s coveted bottle of vino! All correct answers will be entered to win. Good Luck.

Final Thoughts:

With all of the negativity and divisiveness that has surrounded us in this great country and world of ours, I’m hopeful that we can all stay together and not let our differences get in the way, or divide us as a nation and as a people. We have always strived to be a powerful nation and for the most part tried to run our lives in a way that showed respect, humility and a deep caring for our fellow citizens and nation. I hope that one day we get back to a “normal” sense of being and that all of these devices go away. I know that we have our club and that our members care deeply about it. That is one of the reasons that I go and partake in being a Club Paesano member. It’s the comfort of being together like a family and the sense of being with people that you like, love and respect. As I’ve said probably 100 times, you are involved in a great thing here. It’s a fantastic membership of beautiful people that bring so much to the table. Everyone brings something a little different, but all in all, things that we can use and take advantage of in our everyday lives, and with our own families. CP is my 2nd family and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Please be proud and get involved. You have a fantastic club here, don’t take it for granted. 

Take care, God bless, and te Salute!

Rick

April 2023                              LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao, my fellow Club Paesano Members. As always, I hope that this month’s newsletter finds you all doing well. Happy, Healthy and Safe! Well, we finally hit the 1st day of Spring this week, but it seems that winter is trying to leave like a Lion! We’ve had snow and below average temps. I hope that it’s not a sign of things to come for this summer. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it’s a normal Spring and a normal Summer. The family and I are taking off to California for Spring break, so I’m hoping to have some nice weather while we are there. I hope that everyone is able to get out and enjoy themselves. Let’s put this winter behind us and look forward to the outdoors and our upcoming events and activities at the club.

Heritage Night:

Our Heritage Night will be held on Saturday April 15th. Doors will open at 5:30pm like our dances. Just like last year, our very own Greg DeMiestri has volunteered his talents and will cook us another fantastic meal. It will be served at your table and we will have multiple courses. If you came to our event last year, you know how delicious it was. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it! Like last year, I will be putting out some of our old Club Paesano memorabilia that we have up in our attic. I would also ask any of you that may have some old pictures or literature about the club or anything “Italian”, to please bring it in to share so we have more to read or view. I’d like to have some volunteers that would like to speak about the history of the club as well. Last year we had some speakers that told us about our CP history. How the club started and how it evolved into what we have today. Something to be very proud of for sure. Like every one of you, I’m so proud of my Italian heritage and would like to share it with my daughter and younger Italians too. We would never want to lose that! I know that we are all busy, and get caught up in things, but so far, I haven’t received any “RSVPs” yet. I know that we still have a few weeks to go, but I would like to get a head count by Sunday April 9th (Easter), so that Greg will have time to purchase the food. The price will be $15 per person (to cover some of the expense). You can bring in your own bottles of wine and the club will supply beer and soft drinks. This event will be for members and their families. Please let me know if you are able to say a few words as well. Send your RSVP’S to my email at [email protected] or feel free to call or text me at 503-891-7374 if you have any questions. Thank you and I hope to see you all there.

Spring Dance:

This year’s SPRING DANCE will be held on Saturday May 6th. Doors will open at 5:30pm as usual. Along with our “World famous” Spaghetti & Meatball dinner, our musical entertainment for our listening and dancing pleasure will be the “Big Bad Beat”. They performed for us at our Carnevale Dance last year, and had everyone out on the dance floor. Looking forward to having them back. Our charity partner will be “The Performing Arts Association” who are in Gresham. Tickets are on sale now on our website at www.clubpaesano.org so if you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, what are you waiting for? Don’t let your favorite table slip away. Buy your tickets now! This dance is pretty popular, so don’t delay. Please invite your families, friends, coworkers and anyone that is looking for a great night out. I will be promoting it at the Gresham Chamber as well. They have been a great partner, and they are always looking to help fellow chamber members. Let’s try to have a better Club Paesano member showing, then we did for the Carnevale dance. It’s Spring time! The weather will be great and it’s time to get out and enjoy the longer daylight. What a better way to break out of the winter blues, then to come and share a fun evening with your fellow CP members, family and friends. Like I mentioned in the last newsletter, if you can’t make it to the dance for some reason, then please give or sell your tickets to someone who you think would enjoy our event. Perhaps someone who has never been to one, but could potentially become a regular to our events. All it takes is that one time, and “Bam” they’re hooked! I’m looking forward to a sold-out event. Let’s do our best to make it happen! Thanks.

Fun Committee:

The Fun Committee is alive and well and still having our “Monday Night Social”. As I’ve stated in the past, if you haven’t been to one yet, you really should try attending if you can. You never know what may come out of it. We are always looking to try something new and for some ideas. For example, this past Monday night, we had a wine tasting. We all sipped on different wines and everyone brought some food to share. It was fantastic! Like I’m always saying, if you have a certain idea of something that you would like to see happen, come and speak to us and we’ll see if we can’t make it happen. The wine tasting idea stemmed from an idea that Chris Siri had. He wanted to purchase some different wines, both white and red to see if we couldn’t change up our offerings for our CP events. Chris purchased the wines and made comment sheets for all the wines, so we could tell him what we thought. We can now narrow it down and purchase what everyone liked. With the wine tasting, we asked everyone to bring a light dish that we could share and eat while sampling the different wines. We had different cheeses, cold cuts, prosciutto, salami, capocollo, veggies, polenta, boy was it good! It was an idea that came to be because someone took charge and spoke up. You can do the same. If you want to see an event happen with the Fun Committee, please bring us the idea, and be willing to put in a little leg work too. We are open to just about anything.

As you know, the “Fun Committee” is not restricted to just doing things at our lodge. We have done things outside of Cedarville too. Dinners at local restaurants, Christmas bazaars, Music venues, etc. We already have a couple of outings planned. Mark your calendars. Saturday May 20th, we will be heading to “Gather Arts” in Brush Prairie WA. This is a small farm that is owned and operated by Bridget and Mike Merrill. Jim Merrill’s son and daughter. Both of them grew up at the club. At their farm, they hold events for groups and clubs like ours. Some events that they do include painting, candle making, wine glass painting, charcuterie boards, etc. Our event will be “Wine glass painting” with arranging a charcuterie board. I thought that it would fit well with our Italian theme. This outing will be for members and a guest. The cost will be $25 per person which includes the painted glass that you will create, a charcuterie board, wine and snacks to munch on as we paint, and a specialty “Italian” drink created by Bridget just for us. She can fit about 30 people in her facility, so please “RSVP” an email back to me if you would like to go. This is 1st come 1st served so please don’t hesitate. I will remind you in the next newsletter and also send out a reminder email as the time gets closer. Other events that are being planned are, a “Vino Casino” outing, and a “Lemoncello” making class. There will be more info to follow on the last 2 events as we figure out all the details. Fun & Camaraderie is what we do, so if you want to have some, jump on board! 

Bocce News:

For those of you that are current members of our Paesano Bocce Club, and for those of you that may be interested in playing, I’m happy to announce that we will be holding our 2023 Paesano Bocce Club’s Annual Kick Off Meeting on Thursday April 6th at 6:30pm. The meeting will be held at the club. We will be going over new rules, tournaments schedules, signing up teams and individuals. We would also like to welcome potential new members, and answer any questions that you may have. This meeting is open to anyone that is planning on playing and for those that are even just curious about playing. Our goal is to sign new members up and to grow our league, so even if you have never played before or don’t have a team to play with, we can help you with all of that! If you want to see what it’s all about, please go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com or feel free to speak with one of our board officers if you have any questions. Mario Pompei, Dino Gavazza, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch, or myself, will be more than willing to help you. We will be accepting membership dues that night as well, so if you can bring your payment to the meeting, we would appreciate that. You also have the option of paying your dues on our website too. Our beautiful courts are available for rentals as well, so if you know of any party or any business that would like to have a function using our courts, let us know, we can get you a price for the event. As I’ve mentioned several times, our bocce club is looking to put a roof over our 4, “World Class” bocce courts. This roof will be expensive, but is necessary so we can extend our play to all year, and we would be able to offer the courts up to many more events and potential rentals. We need your help. We have signs, banners, pavers and apparel for sale. All of these would make great gifts too. We will also accept any monetary donations of course. If you have, or work for a company that would like to donate, or even sponsor one of our tournaments or other bocce events, please let us know. Anything would be greatly appreciated! 

LaCarota Question:

Well once again, we welcomed a new winner to the elite. Congratulations goes to “Pistol Pete” Rebagliati for winning our “Coveted” bottle of vino. His answer to my question was chosen as the winner. I wanted a comment on “What being a CP Member meant to you”. Of course, there were no wrong answers and I was impressed with the comments that I received and will share them in my “Final Thoughts” segment. With that, who will be our “Top Dog” this month. Will we again have someone new, or will the King return? Looks like Mr. Pompei is letting our fellow members back into the race. Can someone make an attempt at catching him? Jim Burch was getting close, but has been unlucky the last few months. Let’s see who will have the chance to win this month. So, here’s my question: “What are the top 3 Italian last names in the U.S.?” and they need to be in order. That’s it. Simple! All correct answers emailed to me will be entered to win. You can’t win, if you don’t play!

Thoughts and Prayers:

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mario Pompei’s mother, Theresa Pompei. At 96 yrs. young, she is scheduled to have a pacemaker installed. She is in great spirits and is looking forward to hitting the ripe old age of 99. She says that she still has a lot of living to do! Amen to that! Please keep her in your prayers and here’s to a successful procedure and recovery. I’d also like to give a shout out to my dad, Romeo Cervi, who just turned 92 yrs. old, on the 20th. He is feeling great and is getting ready to put in his big garden and to go for his spring turkey hunt. I hope that I got those great genes from him and can still do that at his age! Joe Castellano, keep up the great job! He’s looking great and getting his life back to normal. Thank God and he thanks everyone for all the prayers and well wishes. If you would like me to add anyone to our prayer chain, please let me know, so I can include them.

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. 

Final Thoughts:

As I mentioned in my “LaCarota” question, Last month I asked you to comment on “What being a Paesano member means to you?” I received some great comments that I would like to share. “Pride, support and participation”. Another was, “Club Paesano is an island of common sense and community”. “Enjoy events and camaraderie with people of like minds and common backgrounds and not having to take crap from anyone”. I thought that was funny! “A need to be around people socially. My world is not just family but is also about exploring other people, discovering mutual interest, having an adult beverage and living some fun moments with friends. That is what Club Paesano offered me. A chance to talk about my Italian heritage, play some bocce, meet and dance with friends and to go on adventures with people of mutual interest. And, if given the opportunity, share some of my expertise to help the club grow!” “My second La Famiglia”. “Pride, heritage and a sense of belonging”. These are the messages I get out of being a Club Paesano member too. Being with people that have common backgrounds and ideas. We are not always going to agree on things, and see eye to eye. Like big families, we may have a disagreement or even an argument, but like big loving families, we always hug and make up, and we don’t go to bed angry! Like a lot of you, this club has become a second family to me too. I have met some great people and have formed some fantastic friendships that I feel will last forever. We have a great membership, and I hope that it continues to grow. In good times and in bad, Club Paesano has stood the test of time by changing and advancing and we should all be grateful for being a part of it! I’m grateful that CP came into my life 7 years ago when my wife Diane signed me up to play bocce. I will continue to make it a part of my family. I hope you all do too.

Salute,

Rick