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

March 2023                        LaCarota

President’s Message:

Ciao Fellow Club Paesano Members. As always, I hope that this edition of our newsletter finds you all doing well. Happy, healthy and safe! Hopefully everyone is enjoying the winter months and are getting things done. Maybe a mid-winter vacation in store to a warmer destination, or do you enjoy the winter with the snow and the colder climates? Maybe a skiing or snowmobiling excursion is in the works. I know that a lot of the airlines are having some good deals right now, so if you do have a vacation planned, hopefully you can take advantage of it. My wife Diane, and daughter Adriana are planning to go down to Universal Studios and Disneyland in California. It was a trip that got canceled due to the pandemic, so we are going to try it again. Looking forward to some warmer weather! Whether it’s a vacation, stay-cation, or just normal life as usual, please take the time to enjoy and pamper you and yours. Get the rest and try to avoid the stress! So like the short month of February, I’ll try to keep this edition short too. I’ll try, LoL!

Super Bowl Party:

On Sunday February 12th, we hosted our Club Paesano’s Super Bowl Party. It was nice to have it again after a 2 year break. The pandemic and a wedding forced us to cancel the last 2 years, but we got it back! We had a decent turnout. Actually more than I anticipated. The last number I got from our paid attendance was about 66 guests. That’s really not too bad considering all the competition out there. You have other bars and pubs plus the house parties that a lot of people go to, always taking some guests away. I would have to say, without a shadow of a doubt, we have one of the “BEST DEALS” in town! We had pizza, wings, chili, sausage with peppers & onions, hotdogs, nachos, chips, dips, peanuts, and wait for it, Trippa! For those of us that love the cow stomach! It was really good! You got all of this with probably the best drink prices around with 3 huge HD Screens, plenty of room to watch, squares and prop bets for the low, low price of $10. Unbelievable! For a lot of people, it was their 1st time at our party and their 1st time at our beautiful club. They told me that they would be back next year and even try to come to our upcoming events. That’s definitely a win, win for all of us! If you didn’t get the chance to come this year, please try so next year and bring a big group with you. No preparing, no clean up, no expensive dishes to make and booze to buy. Easy and simple! As always, I like to thank everyone that came out to set up, prepare the food in the kitchen and promote our event.Working the door, bartending and cleaning up afterwards.  Thank you to Marc Batilegga for going out to buy all the food, preparing it and keeping it coming out before, during and after the game! We couldn’t do it without you Marc!

Carnevale Dance:

This last Saturday night, we hosted our annual CP Carnevale Dance. We packed them in with nearly 300 people in attendance. I will have an exact number of guests hopefully for our next members meeting. Our charity partner was “Calabarzon.” They are a Filipino based charity that helps impoverished towns in the Philippines with free dental work for children that can’t afford to have it done otherwise. A very good charity that was started by Fred Asa and his sister Emily Asa who live in Gresham. Fred owns “Kuya’s” restaurant in Gresham that specializes in Filipino and Hawaian cuisine. The food is outstanding and I highly recommend going there if you have never been before. As with all of our dances, we have partnered up with a local charity. Lately, I’ve tried to keep it more local, meaning Gresham and the east county because of our involvement and membership with the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. Chamber members love to support one another, and I feel that if we want support for our events, we need to support them as well. By partnering with some of the Chamber members and the local charities, we really get some good advertising, attendance to our events and get recognition for who we are. The last 3 charities have all been chamber members, and they have all brought in a good amount of guests for us. Especially at last night’s Carnevale Dance. Fred and Emily really packed them in for us, purchasing just over 90 tickets for their guests. We’ve done pretty good with some of the charities, but this was the best so far! Over 90 tickets!! Wow! I hate to say it, but there were more of their guests at the dance than our own members! These are the types of relationships that we want to form and the charity partners that we would love to work with. They were fun and had a great time. We had tons of compliments and even had a lot of interest in people wanting to rent out Cedarville in the future. It was great! If you know of a charity that is near and dear to your heart, that you think would make a good partner and bring  people out to our events, please let me know. I would love to contact them and see if we can make it work. It’s a great situation to be in and it also helps our bottom line and our cause. After all, we are a “Non-profit” too, so every little bit helps. The band was hot and had everyone dancing and of course our “World famous” Spaghetti & Meatball dinner never disappoints! All in all, a very good night. Thanks again to all of you that turned out for set up and those of you that came back today to tear down. We had a very good turn out for Saturday mornings set up which went quickly and no one had to stay too long. That’s what I’m talking about. More hands make little work, as they say, and it’s true! 

Heritage Night:

As I mentioned last month, we have decided on a date for this year’s Heritage Night. It will take place on Saturday April 15th. Doors will open at 5:30pm (like our dances). Last year was our 1st time doing this and went over really well. I would say that it was a success. It was a nice evening of great food, made up by our very own Greg DeMiestri and his brother-in-law, Dennis Griegn. They made 5 different plates which we served at each table. The food was outstanding and left everyone wanting more! We had an Accordian stroller that played some classical Italian hits, and even took some requests. Besides the great food, the main part of the night was learning about our Club Paesano Heritage. We had guest speakers that gave us an insight to how our club came to be and is what we now enjoy today. A lot of us are newer and didn’t grow up here or in Club Paesano, so it was a great lesson for us all. The night was quiet and it gave us a chance to speak to each other without having to yell over the loud music. A great night all around. Like last year, I would like to invite anyone who has some history with the club and would like to say a few words about it. It doesn’t have to be long or really involved. Maybe some things that you remembered as a child growing up in the club. How it started, what you did or remembered all the members doing to help out etc. Anna (Fazio) Nassib put together a great slideshow video presentation, and we also had stories from Pete Rebegliati, Richard Calcagno, Marc and Kathy Batilegga. We even had Phil Potestio drop in via Italia. He was on his trip over there. It was a good night. I’m also looking for some old memorabilia, pictures, books, clothing or anything you would think that would be interesting for the rest of us to see, or read about. Of course you would get all of your items back unless you wanted to donate it to the club. Please let me know if you would be interested in contributing in one of these ways. Like last year, we will charge a minimal fee to offset some of the cost for all the food we need to purchase, and we will allow you to bring in your own bottle of wine,or two, to share with the group. I am starting a list of attendees, so if you are planning on coming to it, I need to know and have a “head count” so we will know how much food to purchase. I would like to have a final number of guests by April 10th. Like last year, this event is for members and a guest only. Please email me an “RSVP” at [email protected]. Thanks

Spring Dance:

Our Spring Dance will be held Saturday May 6th. Our Charity is the East County Center for the Performing Arts, who are located in Gresham and are members of the Gresham Chamber of Commerce. Our musical entertainment will be “The Big Bad Beat”. They played for our Carnevale Dance last year and were pretty good. No time like the present to start making plans and inviting family, friends, co-workers, and anyone else that you know who would enjoy an entertaining night with us! I will let you all know when our tickets go on sale. Stay tuned!

Bocce News:

Not much to talk about in bocce right now, but if you have any interest at all in playing,please go to our bocce website at www.paesanobocceclub.com to check it out and sign up. Whether you have a team that you can bring in or are just a single player, we have room and can get you on a team if you don’t already have one. We will be having a bocce meeting in March with the date to be determined. Please feel free to stop in to see what’s happening for our new upcoming season and to get some info. You can also speak to any one of our board members for more details about bocce and our leagues.Our current board of Directors is Mario Pompei, Dino Gavazza, Doug Burchak, Kelly Barasch and myself, Rick Cervi. We are still trying to raise money for a roof to cover our “World Class” courts. We are selling advertising signs for both personal and business. Personalized brick pavers, bocce apparel, etc. We also accept monetary donations as well. If you know a company or person that would like to sponsor a tournament, we would love to speak to 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. 

Thoughts & Prayers:

Please keep all of our members and their families in your thoughts and prayers. The power of prayer is alive and well, and our very own Joe Castellano is proof of that! I’ve seen Joe a couple of times now. He’s been slowly getting out and getting back to his normal routine. Joe’s obviously still taking precautions but is looking and feeling great! Keep up the fight Joe, we are all praying for your full recovery! If you have anyone who you would like to add to our “Thoughts & Prayers” segment, please let me know and I will add them to our list. Thanks

LaCarota Question:

Well the list of winners keeps growing. Congratulations goes out to Bill Mallon, for winning last month’s coveted bottle of vino. No one saw it coming. He went into “stealth mode”, swept in and won the bottle from some of our regulars. I’m glad to see more and more of you putting your answers in to get your chance at winning. You can’t win if you don’t play! This month’s question isn’t a question. It’s a feeling. Here it is. In a couple of words or a short sentence, I want you to tell me what being a “Paesano Member” means to you. All answers will be entered in the drawing to win. Email me at [email protected]

Final Thoughts:

I wanted to touch on something that I noticed at our Carnevale Dance that took place this past Saturday. We had a great turnout and I would consider it successful, but I didn’t see a lot of members there. The reason it was a success was because of the number of guests our charity partner brought in, which was over 90 people and of course our guests from other sources such as the Chamber, etc. I was approached by a couple of our members who came asking me, “Where are all of our members at?” and “I don’t recognize a lot of faces.” I realize that not all of us can make every event, everytime. Life happens! I also realize that our “Carnevale Dance” is traditionally a tougher one to draw people at, maybe because of the time of year, I’m not sure, but we did have more people come to last year’s event. All that being said, I would encourage you to give or sell your tickets to someone if you know that you won’t be able to attend an event. Anyone you think that would enjoy our events, and potentially want to come to more of them. Hopefully becoming a regular guest and spreading the word and inviting more people for us. It just makes sense. Easy way to advertise, and a good way to have someone enjoy the tickets instead of them just going to waste. Whenever I do a donation that involves one of our events, I always make sure to tell the winner, to give the tickets to someone else if they can’t make it. Some of you may already do this, and we thank you. If you need help giving or selling your tickets, let us know. There are always members that bring in a bigger group of people so perhaps we can get rid of them for you. Anyway these are just my thoughts but ultimately I think that it’s for the good of our club. Take care of you and your loved ones and we will see you at the next meeting.

Salute,

Rick

February 2023

President’s Message:

Happy New Year and here’s to a very prosperous 2023! Hopefully everyone got the chance to bring in the new year in a fun and special way, with loved ones all around. As always, I hope that this edition of LaCarota finds everyone doing wonderful. Happy, healthy and safe! We are in the dead of winter now, but our days are already starting to get longer and we are already nearing the end of January. For those of you that enjoy our winters here in the Pacific Northwest, I hope that you are getting out and enjoying it all. Skiing, snowmobiling, hiking, exploring, or just escaping it all for warmer climates, enjoy it while it’s here. Me on the other hand, can’t wait for the warmer longer days of Spring and Summer. Whatever your taste, live it up, have fun and enjoy it all with your families and friends! 

Superbowl Sunday Party:

Our Superbowl party is back and will be held on Sunday February 12th. Doors open at 12 noon.  Come on out and cheer on your favorite team, that will hopefully take home the coveted “Lombardi Trophy”. I know that there are a lot of options out there for you, but Club Paesano can boast that we have one of the best parties in town. We offer an “All you can eat” buffet with a nice variety of foods. Football squares, side bets, raffles and probably the cheapest drink prices around, plus you will watch the game on 3 huge screens with an audio system to be able to hear all of the game and the halftime show. You get all of this for the low, low price of $10. It’s the best deal in town! Our Superbowl event is open to the public too, so please feel free to invite your family and friends as well. The more the merrier. If you would like to help set up, food prep,

make the football squares and side bets, run the raffle etc. please let me know. Hope to see you all there!

Carnevale Dance:

On Saturday February 18th, we will be hosting our annual “Carnevale Dance”. Tickets are currently on sale now and can be purchased at our Website www.clubpaesano.org . Hopefully you have already purchased, or are getting ready to purchase yours now. Our charity partner “Calabarzon”, has just purchased 80 tickets and hope to sell more. They’re working hard for their charity that raises money to have dental work done for the underprivileged children of the Calabarzon region in the Philippines. Fred and Emily Asa, who are originally from there and own Kuya’s restaurant in Gresham, started this charity, and are going to work hard to make money for it. Let’s do our best to support them, and to support ourselves too. Invite your families, friends and associates. The more the merrier. Let’s do our best to make this a huge sellout! 

Sauce Making:

As you all know, one of the best parts of our dances is our “World Famous” Spaghetti & Meatballs! What makes it so special is our homemade sauce that’s made from scratch from an old Italian recipe. Marc Battilega will be in the kitchen on Wednesday February 15th at 8am to whip it up and get it ready for our Carnevale Dance. If you are available that morning, please stop by and give him a hand. There’s a lot to do, so if you can help out, it will make less work for all. Thanks.

Fun Committee:

The Fun Committee is currently working on another event coming up in the near future. As soon as all the details are worked out and finalized, I will let you all know. It should be a “Fun” event. In the meantime, we are still meeting for our “Monday Night Socials”, having a great time and eating some fantastic food together. It’s all about having fun, socializing and getting to know your fellow CP members a little better. If you haven’t been to one of them yet, you owe it to yourself to try to make it to one. You won’t be disappointed! If anyone has any ideas that they would like to see happen or any fun places that you would like to visit, please let us know. We would be happy to help in making it happen. Just try to get all the info that we would need to make it a reality. It’s just a great way to use your club and to enjoy the friendship of your fellow members.

Heritage Night:

Last March, we had our 1st ever “Heritage Night”. It was something that I had been wanting to do for a while. We finally pulled it off and it ended up being a huge success. The reason for doing this was to give some of us newer members some insight into the history of our club, and how it came to be. We got that and more. We had key speakers that came in to give us our history lesson, and to fill us in on the heritage of Club Paesano. Some of our original members came out to speak with us. Augie Giusto, Richard Calcagno, Pete Rebagliati, Marc & Kathy Battilega and Anna (Fazio) Nassib, all gave us a speech on our history. It was great and very informative. We also had a sit-down dinner to go with our night. Greg DeMiestri and his brother-in-law Dennis, volunteered to make us a 6-course meal which was amazing to say the least. Everyone there raved about it and enjoyed it so much. Seeing the night was such a success, we are planning on doing it again and making it an annual tradition. So, save the date: Saturday April 15^th! Doors open at 5:30PM. If you couldn’t make it last year, please try to attend this year. You’ll have a nice night out and learn something about our Club Paesano Heritage. This is a member only event. More details to follow.

Bocce News:

Our Bocce League is on vacation for now, but our board continues to work on our upcoming season and league nights. We are planning on having 4 league nights again and are working on possibly getting a 5th night. How cool would that be? Our board is working hard to make this a reality and to do it, we need more players. If you are interested in the game and are thinking of playing or forming a team, please don’t hesitate, go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com to sign up or talk to one of our board members. We’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have and even get you out on the courts to roll a few if you are wanting to get to know the game better. Our current Board of Directors are: Mario Pompei- President / Myself- Treasurer / Dino Gavazza – Officer / Doug Burchack – Officer. We will be holding our 1st meeting of the year in the next month or 2, to go over this year’s leagues, so if you are interested in playing you can come and join us. A date will be announced soon. As always, we continue to work on ways of getting a roof to cover our “World Class” courts. We have a variety of items for sale on our website to fundraise for this undertaking. It’s a huge project that will cost us a fair amount of money, so we can use all the help that we can get. If you have any “Fundraising” experience or ideas, please let us know. We welcome any ideas and all the help we can get. Thanks. (Side Note) We would like to have a winter cleanup of the Bocce Courts and surrounding area. This will make spring clean-up that much easier. *Side note: mother nature has not been nice to the Bocce area. There is so much debris to be cleaned up you think a tornado went through the area! That said, we’re looking for volunteers to come out to help! Bring rakes and a wheelbarrow if you got one. When: Saturday February 4th, 9AM. Please come out and give us a hand! 

Cedarville Shares:

If you are interested in owning a piece of this beautiful Lodge and Park property, please contact Steve Petruzelli at [email protected] or 503-620- 3447 to purchase Cedarville Shares. Property located at 3800 W Powell Loop, Gresham, OR 97030. Cedarville Share.

Cedarville Lodge & Park Rentals:

If you or someone you know are in need of a beautiful venue to rent for an event, please think Cedarville Lodge first. The club’s bookings are finally starting to pick up again, after this pandemic, but we can still use a little help. Please contact our Venue Director, Maria Duong, at 503-577- 8471 and she will be more than helpful and gracious in getting you all the info that you may need, and to also help you with coordinating your event. 

Thoughts and Prayers:

Let’s keep all of our members and their families in your thoughts and prayers, especially those that are recovering and may need a couple more prayers.

Sebastiano Rebagliati, Joe Castellano, Ken Gemma, Carlos Ponta and anyone else that is currently sick or in recovery. For all of our members that have passed and are in the Kingdom of heaven, may we someday meet again. If you have anyone that you would like to give an extra prayer to, please let me know and I will add them to our list. 

LaCarota Question:

Just when we thought the King was back and comfortable on his throne, he got pushed off of it again. Mario was ready to change the name of this segment to the “Pompei Invitational”! In his eagerness to win the next coveted bottle of wine to add to his cellar, (Supplied by LaCarota), He didn’t pay attention to the up and comer waiting in the wings. This guy has started to make a name for himself on the winning column as well. Congrats go out to Chris “Superfly” Siri for swooping in and winning that bottle. Just goes to show, if you don’t play, you can’t win!  Seeing we will be celebrating Carnevale, with our upcoming dance, this question is about the holiday itself. My question this month is, what is the” Italian” definition of the word “Carnevale”? That’s it. Pretty simple. Let’s see how many people we can get on that win column. All correct answers emailed to me at  [email protected]  before our next meeting, will be entered to win that Coveted bottle of Vino!

Final Thoughts:

In my final thoughts, I just want to relay and discuss what I touched upon at our last meeting, for those of you that couldn’t make it. Club Paesano is an Italian/ American Social club that was founded by a group of people that wanted to be together to celebrate their Italian heritage, their families and their familiarities. They formed the club, bought the lodge and park so that they could have a place to meet, celebrate and have a place to call their own. With that, came a lot of work, sweat, volunteering and time. That is how this club was formed, how it all came together and has stood the test of time and remains together. It’s not an easy feat as a lot of things have changed. The family dynamic has changed. Sons and daughters have moved away and don’t get together like they used to. It’s a part of life and moving on. All that being said, you have all joined this club to be a part of something special. Some of us weren’t born into this club. We sought it out and came looking for it or were asked to join because an exciting member saw some potential in you as a good candidate to be a “Paesano”. To me, that’s a pretty high compliment! I just want to reiterate the fact that this club can’t run with just a handful of members. It takes all of us to build and keep the village intact and moving forward. We all need to do our part to keep it going. Like the old saying goes. “You work hard, you play harder!” Reap the reward of your hard work. Take pride in knowing that you helped this club by using some “Elbow grease” you promoted, you brought guests in to enjoy who and what CP does. We need each and every one of you to do your part no matter how big or how small it may be. Please contribute and do your part, cause without you, we will become just another Italian Club that went by the waste side again. We still have so much to do and so much potential to do great things, so please keep involved and please help out where and when you can. We will all benefit from it. I know that we have been somewhat easy on our meeting attendance and not adhering to our rules because of the pandemic, but moving forward, all of our policies are now back in place. In order to remain a “Member in good standing” you must attend at least 3 membership meetings a year and I personally would like to see more members become involved with our events. Volunteer a few hours to set up/ teardown, promote and advertise, bring guests etc. Do what you can! Sorry to go on about this, but it’s an issue that needs to be looked at and addressed. Let’s enjoy and celebrate being Club Paesano Members!

Thank you and Salute.

Rick

January 2023

President’s Message:

Hello and Happy Holidays to you all. As always, I hope that this “Holiday” edition of our newsletter finds you all, happy, healthy and safe! I feel like I was just talking about summer time and all of the activities that we were involved in. Vacations, bocce and our outdoor fun. In the blink of an eye, we are looking at the 1st day of winter, a winter storm on its way but most importantly, the birth of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ. It’s Christmas time y’all! I hope that you’ve all had a chance to get your trees up, decorations put out and your gifts purchased. Hopefully your Christmas dinners are planned and your guests invited. For those of you that are traveling, I wish you a safe trip, lots of fun and a safe return. We also get to bring in the New Year, just a week later. 2023! Where did the time go? Well, they say that time flies when you are having fun, so I guess for me, I had a fun year! I hope that you all did too and here is to a Fantastic 2023 for everyone.

Christmas Dinner:

On Sunday December 11th, we got to celebrate a “Club Paesano Christmas” once again. With over 200 members and their families, we gathered at the club to bring in the Christmas season. What a great turnout! It was nice to see so many members and their families, gathering together and enjoying the evening. Many smiling faces and laughs. The children enjoyed games and play time while waiting for the arrival of the “Big Man” himself, Santa Claus. We started with a terrific dinner that our caterers made especially for us. Everyone I talked to loved it. We said thank you and good-bye to our old board of directors, and welcomed our new board members in. 

I’d like to thank Dino Gavazza for his 2 years on the board and his hard work and dedication to our club and our cause. I would also like to welcome Carlos Barajas who was elected in and will be our newest member of the board. I know Carlos, and the amount of positive energy he brings. I really look forward to working and having him on our board. We were fortunate enough to bring in 3 new members to the club as well. We welcome Kelly Barasch, Lori Caldwell and TamRea Calcagno- Foster to our membership. I had the opportunity to speak to all of them and they are all willing and eager to help and be involved in our club. They all want to do as much as they can. I am happy to call them all “Paesano’s”. We also nominated and announced our “Member of the Year”, Congratulations to Doug Burchak. This is always a tough vote as there are so many Paesano’s that help the club and put themselves out there for us, but this year I couldn’t think of anyone that deserved it more than our friend Doug. There’s not enough space in this newsletter to describe all of the hard work and time that this man has donated and dedicated to our club. Not only “Club Paesano”, but the “Paesano Bocce Club” and “Cedarville Lodge & Park” as well. He exemplifies the true meaning of membership! As always, we got to sing our Christmas carols including the ever popular and Don Filippi/ Mario Pompei endorsed, “Dominic the Christmas Donkey”, and real fan favorite “The 12 Days of Christmas” That one always seems to get the crowd going and always a great way to burn some dinner carbs, LoL! The night could not be complete, without the arrival of old “Saint Nick” himself. He had all of the little ones excited and anxious to sit on his lap and tell them what they wanted for Christmas! Special thanks to Chris Calcagno, for being “The Man” every year! What a fantastic night and a great way to bring in the Christmas holiday and spirit. Can’t wait to do it again next year. Thank you to all of you that came in early to set up, help out during the event and stayed late to tear down and clean up. We are a club of volunteers and every little bit helps. Thank you!

New Officers and Board of Directors:

Our New officers and Board of Directors are: Officers: Rick Cervi- President (2 years) Jim Calcagno- VP (2 years) John Kern- Treasurer ( Forever) Jim Siri- Secretary (2 years) John Benagni- Sergeant at Arms (2 years) – Board of Directors: Geno Benagni (2 years) / Dominic Giusto (2 years) / Carlos Barajas (2 years) / Mario Pompei ( 1 year) / Doug Burchak (1 year) Chris Siri (1 year).

I want to thank all of the members that have served on the board for the last 2 years. I really feel that we accomplished some great things. I’m proud of what we’ve done so far, but know that we can do more and will do more to keep our club moving in the right direction. We already have plans in the works for the upcoming year and I really look forward to working with our newly elected board and any and all members that would like to be involved in making a difference and getting some new ideas accomplished. Please feel free to speak to me or any of our board of directors if you want to be involved or want to see some new ideas implemented. I am honored and humbled to be your President again and I will do my best to always put the club 1st and to make the membership proud to be Club Paesano members. I thank you. 

Fun Committee:

The Fun Committee got together in Canby, to bring in the Christmas season. On Friday December 16th, a group of us met at the Christmas Fair at the Clackamas County Fair Grounds. We met up and had a chance to get some last-minute shopping done. They had a nice variety of vendors there, selling some neat and interesting items. Some great gift ideas. They also had a local rum producer out of Sandy OR. that some of us indulged in. Free SAMPLES! LOL! It was very good. They also had a very nice light display outside. For a smaller venue, they did a fantastic job. Mario’s daughter Miranda, who owns “Gimme Some Sugar”, had a booth set up and provided us all with a beautiful and delicious platter of cookies and sweets that she makes herself. Everything was so good, and it was so nice of her to do that for us. She also provides a variety of different food items, and drinks. If you love fudge, give hers a try, it’s fantastic! We capped the night off with dinner at the “Wild Hare Saloon” in Canby. A great night had by one and all. Another good opportunity to get together with your fellow CP members outside of our official events at the club, and to get to know one another better. We are already working on our next event which will take place in the next month or two. I will be sure to keep you all updated. Our Monday Night Social is alive and well. It’s been a fun time to spend with other members and again a great opportunity to get to know one another better. If you haven’t been to one yet, put it on your calendar and come on out. We allow members to bring in a non-member on the 1st Monday of the month. Hopefully a future member, but it can be anyone you know. Just remember, this is another way to get to use your club and all it has to offer and to be social with your fellow CP members. After all, we are a social club. It’s all about the “FUN”!

Superbowl Sunday Party:

Our Superbowl party is back and will be held on Sunday February 12th. Doors open at 12 noon.  Come on out and cheer on your favorite team, that will hopefully take home the coveted “Lombardi Trophy”. I know that there are a lot of options out there for you, but Club Paesano can boast that we have one of the best parties in town. We offer an “All you can eat” buffet with a nice variety of foods. Football squares, side bets, raffles and probably the cheapest drink prices around, plus you will watch the game on 3 huge screens with an audio system to be able to hear all of the game and the halftime show. You get all of this for the low, low price of $10. It’s the best deal in town! Our Superbowl event is open to the public too, so please feel free to invite your family and friends as well. The more the merrier. If you would like to help set up, food prep,

make the football squares and side bets, run the raffle etc. please let me know. Hope to see you all there!

Carnevale Dance:

On Saturday February 18th we will have our Carnevale Dance. No time like the present to start making your plans to attend. They would also make a great last minute Christmas gift for someone. Tickets are available and for sale now on our website. Go to www.clubpaesano.org to pick out your seats and tables before they run out. Our dances are so much fun and the best deal in town. Dinner, dancing with live entertainment and very reasonable drink prices. Where else can you go and get all of this for $25. Again, our 4 major events are open to the public, so please invite your families, friends, co-workers and associates (21 years and older). It’s a great way to spend a night with family friends and your CP family. Get your tickets soon.

Heritage Night:

Last March, we had our 1st ever “Heritage Night”. It was something that I had been wanting to do for a while. We finally pulled it off and it ended up being a huge success. The reason for doing this was to give some of us newer members some insight into the history of our club, and how it came to be. We got that and more. We had key speakers that came in to give us our history lesson, and to fill us in on the heritage of Club Paesano. Some of our original members came out to speak with us. Augie Giusto, Richard Calcagno, Pete Rebagliati, Marc & Kathy Battilega and Anna (Fazio) Nassib, all gave us a speech on our history. It was great and very informative. We also had a sit-down dinner to go with our night. Greg DeMiestri and his brother-in-law Dennis, volunteered to make us a 6 course meal which was amazing to say the least. Everyone there raved about it and enjoyed it so much. Seeing the night was such a success, we are planning on doing it again and making it an annual tradition. The plan is to do it in March again. As soon as we get the date locked in, I will let you all know. If you couldn’t make it last year, please try to attend this year. You’ll have a nice night out and learn something about our Club Paesano Heritage. This is a members only event. More details to follow.

Important event dates for the 2023 year. 

Super Bowl 2023- Sunday February 12th

Carnevale Dance- Saturday February 18th

Heritage Dinner- March (Date to be announced)

Spring Dance- Saturday May 6th

Concert in the Park- Saturday August 5th

Members BBQ- Sunday September 10th

Halloween Dance- Saturday October 21st

Christmas Dinner- Sunday December 10th

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.

Bocce League News:

At this time of the year, we don’t really have a lot of bocce happening, but there are still a few items to talk about. If you are currently a part of the league, I know that you can’t wait till June to start playing again. No time like the present, to start thinking about your teams and perhaps trying to get some new people to come out to play and hopefully join our league nights. Last year we were able to extend our league to 4 nights. Monday thru Thursday. We would love to get a Friday, Saturday and Sunday too, but for now we’ll concentrate on extending into Friday night. If you are a Club Paesano member and are interested in playing or forming a team, please go on our website to sign up, www.paesanobocceclub.com or please speak to one of our bocce board members. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Dino Gavazza or myself. We can give you all of the info that you need and answer any questions that you may have. Our leagues are open to the public, so anyone can play. You can bring family, friends, work associates, etc. Bocce is a sport that absolutely anyone can play. Young and old, athletic or not, all genders, any experience, and skill levels. It’s for anyone and everyone. We are fortunate enough to have our own courts on private property, with plenty of parking and bathroom facilities. If you have some interest, but are not quite sure and want to try it out, please let one of the board members know. One of us can meet you out there and give you some lessons and let you throw the balls around so you can get the feel of the game. As most of you know, this last year we completed construction on our 2 newest courts, giving us a total of 4 “World Class” bocce courts. Our next goal is to get these courts covered with a roof. The roof would allow the leagues to continue playing all year long, promote more leagues, facilitate more tournaments and invite players from all over the country to come to our Club. Not only would it be a huge deal for the “Paesano Bocce Club”, but it would definitely benefit Club Paesano and Cedarville Park as well. To be able to construct this roof and to make this a reality, the bocce club needs to raise the funds to start it. We are always looking for donations and new ideas to raise the money. We are currently selling “Personalized and Business” advertising signs of different sizes to hang around our courts and our fences that face the “Spring Water Corridor”. This is especially a great way to advertise a business because of the foot and bike traffic on the trail. We are selling personalized pavers that will go around the courts. Hoodies, Tee’s, hats, beanies and towels are also for sale and would all make perfect Christmas, birthday, or anytime gifts. These items are all great and can create some revenue for the roof construction, but we really need some bigger dollars to start rolling in, no pun intended. If you have a company, or work for a corporation, that can donate or is willing to sponsor some of the construction or a tournament, please let us know.  Anything would help. The sooner we can raise this roof, the sooner we put “Paesano Bocce Club” on the map and really become a force in bocce to recon with!

Thoughts and Prayers:

Let us pray for and keep all of our members in our thoughts. Extra prayers go out to Sebastiano Rebagliati, Ken Gemma, Joe Castellano, Kathy Fazio, Jim Sells (My Father in Law), Katie Kaoru Kawaguchi Ibaraki (Geno Benagni’s Mother in Law) 

If you want to add someone for our thoughts and prayers, please let me know and I will add them to our list.

LaCarota Question:

Well, well, well, it looks like the King is back baby! After taking a couple of questions off, and with the constant and steady answering of one James “The Brawler” Burch, the ex champ makes a mighty comeback to regain his coveted title as the “Wine Winner” of the year. Congratulations goes out to the Champ, Mario “The Massachusetts Kid” Pompei, who came to play and is never out of the game for long. Once again showing that you can’t win if you don’t play! Being that we are about to celebrate one of the greatest events ever, Christmas, my question will be based around it and Italy. It’s another 2 part question. Here it is:

Please give me the name of the city that holds Italy’s most famous “Christmas Village” and what is the name of the Italian “Christmas Witch”? All correct answers will be entered to win our ultimate prize, the bottle of wine.

Final Thoughts:

We are once again at the end of another year gone by and looking forward to a new year and all of the great things that it may bring. We are all at different stages of our lives, and are all wanting, needing and hoping for different things that may help us. The most common things being, our health, our families and our happiness. Some of that may come to us in different forms, but whatever it might be, I hope that it brings every one of us the joy that we all need. Christmas is a great time to celebrate with family, have big dinners and to buy fancy gifts for others or yourselves. Hopefully we all get those gifts that we truly need, peace, love, health and happiness. Let’s not forget about the meaning of this holiday and why we have it. The birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let’s try to remember all and try to give to someone that may go without. Let’s truly embrace the true meaning of Christmas. I always look at Club Paesano and its membership as a great gift! I’m looking forward to being with you all for the next 2 years and hopefully a lot more to follow. Please take care of yourselves and have a Merry Christmas and all the best of the New Year! 

Boun Natale and Felice Anno Nuovo

Salute & Cheers

Rick

President’s Message:

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving with all of your family and friends. The bouquet of roasted turkey, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie, in the kitchen and dining rooms of most of our homes. Unless you decided to go Italian with manicotti, meatballs and tiramisu, lol! It’s that time of the year, where we welcome in the holiday season. The leaves are falling and the air has a crisp nip to it. We’ve been lucky enough to have had an extended summer without a lot of moisture.

Hopefully everyone had a chance to take advantage of it and got all your outdoor projects done for the year. Here’s to a mild fall and winter to come!

Christmas Dinner:

Our annual Club Paesano Christmas party will be held on Sunday December 11^th. Doors open at 3pm. The night will start out with a cocktail hour, dinner and Christmas carols. We will have a swearing in of our newest members. Old board members will exit, and new board members will be welcomed in. The night will be topped off with a visit from Old Saint Nick himself, if you are all good! You will all be receiving a call from one of our members to RSVP. This Christmas party is free for members, their spouses or partners, and any child living in the family home who is 21 yrs. old or younger. Additional guests will be allowed for an additional fee. It’s always a fun time and a great way to bring in the Christmas season and spirit.

“We will be setting up and decorating the hall for the dinner, at 9am. If you are available to help with the set-up, please come and help out. The more members that come, the quicker it will get done.

New Board of Directors/ New Members/ Member of the Year election:

As you all know, not only do we have a great Christmas dinner, but we also take some time to welcome in a new Board of directors, while saying thank you to the members who are leaving. We also welcome in our newest Club Paesano members that are voted in and honor a new “Member of the Year”.

We have some great candidates for all. Most of the outgoing Board of directors have decided to come back for another term, but there are openings for a few new board positions.

If you want to have a say in who your new board of directors, new CP members and member of the year will be, please show up for our next membership meeting and cast your vote. If you want your voice heard, then you need to show up. It’s the only way to make your vote count unless you can’t make it and arrange to cast your vote by proxy.

In case you couldn’t make our last meeting, here are your members and the positions that they are running for, along with the names of our newest member applicants and our members that were nominated for “Member of the year”

President: Rick Cervi

Vice President: Jim Calcagno

Treasurer: John Kern

Secretary: Jim Siri

Sergeant at Arms: John Benagni (New nominee)

Board of Directors:

Mario Pompei (1yr remaining)

Chris Siri (1 yr remaining)

Doug Burchak (1 yr remaining)

Domenic Guisto (New nominee)

Geno Benagni (New nominee)

Carlos Barajas (New nominee)

Debra Ceglie (New nominee)

Chelle Ordway (New nominee)

New Club Paesano Member applicants:

Kelly Barasch – (Paul Barasch)

TamRea Calcagno Foster – (Jim Calcagno)

Lori Culdwell – (Domenic Guisto)

Member of the year nominees:

Doug Burchak

John Benagni

Jim Calcagno

Chris Siri

Outgoing Board member:

Dino Gavazza – (Thank You!)

Fun Committee:

The Fun Committee has decided to once again assemble a “Christmas Outing”. Last year we got together for the indoor Christmas Bazaar in Vancouver. This year we would like to get a group of members together to go to the “Winter Fair & Holiday Market” which will be held at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds. The date will be Saturday December 10th. At 6pm, or whenever you can get there. The event runs from 5pm till 10pm. We figured that 6pm would be a good time for everyone to get their daily chores done and have enough time to enjoy the festivities. As I say, if 6pm doesn’t work for you, just try to get there when you can. Hopefully we will all meet up and venture through the market as a group, as most of us will be meeting there, but I’m sure that we can all meet up eventually. When you get there, you can text or call me and I can let you know where most of us are. It sounds like the market will have a lot to offer, including gifts, food and drink. I will include a link to their website so you all can check it out and purchase tickets as well. Last year, most of us went out to dinner after we were all done at the event. A great time had by one and all. A fantastic way to get into the Christmas spirit with some of your fellow CP members! This event is open to all CP members, their families and close friends. The website is www.clackamascountyfair.com/winter-fair-and-holiday-market

My cell number to contact when you get there is 503-891-7374

Let me know if you are planning on coming so we have a rough head count. Call, text or email me. [email protected]

Our Monday Night Socials continue to be a hit for those of us that attend. 

Food, football, drinks and dice. It’s a nice way to spend a Monday night with some of your fellow CP members. Come out and try it especially if you’ve never been to one. You might become a regular!

Paesano Bocce Club News:

Our bocce league is officially over for the year and will resume next June, but there are always some tournaments that take place at other clubs and venues. In early November, The Peppermill Casino in Reno NV. hosted a major bocce tournament. They set up one of their convention halls with 12 courts set up on carpet. This year, there were 60 teams that competed from up and down the west coast. The majority of the players came from Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada. The teams there were tough. I’m proud to say that the “Paesano Bocce Club”, had 3 teams go there to compete. It was a couple days of intense competition. Our very own Club Paesano members had teams in the event. Mario Pompei, Doug Burchak, Benedetto and Antonio Mititiero were on teams that competed. Kelly Barasch, who is also a Paesano bocce member, competed on a team as well. I’m Proud to say that Benedetto and Antonio’s team ended up finishing in 5th place out of 60 teams. A very strong showing by their team! Congratulations guys and way to represent Paesano Bocce! Even though we are currently in the off season, it’s never too early to start thinking about next year. If you are interested in learning or playing in next year’s season, please go to our website or contact a current bocce member for more information www.paesanobocceclub.com

Our current bocce club board of directors will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Our current board members are: President- Mario Pompei/ Tournament Director- Brad Cotton/ Treasurer- Rick Cervi/ B of D’s – Doug Burchak and Dino Gavazza. Our biggest goal right now is to build a roof to cover our 4 new “World Class” bocce courts. We are looking at many options for fundraising for our new roof. It won’t be cheap, so we are looking for people that would be interested in helping us raise some funds to be able to raise the roof! A “Fundraising Committee”, If you have some ideas and would like to be involved, please let us know. We would love to have the help and some fresh ideas. We have some items for sale that would make great Christmas presents. We currently have advertising signs, for both businesses and families. Personalized brick pavers that will be laid around our new courts. We also have Hoodies, Tee shirts, hats and bocce towels. Of course, we would take any monetary donations as well. The quicker we raise the money, the quicker we raise a roof, and can extend our seasons to all year round. How great would that be? If you would like any one of these items before Christmas, please contact me as I have all the items with me. A great big thanks to our Bocce family for making this one of our best years ever!

Cedarville Lodge & Park Rentals:

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 Shares:

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:

Special thoughts and prayers to all the members that we lost this year.

Please continue to pray for the speedy recovery of our very own Joe Castellano and Kathy Fazio. My inlaws, Jim and Jerry Sells. Any of our members, family or friends that are sick or recovering from an illness. The homeless and the people throughout the world that are in need. Please let me know if you need me to add anyone you may know that’s in need of our thoughts and prayers. Thanks

LaCarota Question:

Well it looks like Mario is getting some fierce competition for the “Top Dog” position in the LaCarota question wine winning! Jim “The Beast” Burch has now won the last 2 bottles.  He is a constant competitor that has answered at least 95% of the questions, which just goes to prove that, “You can’t win if you don’t play”! To keep with the holiday spirit, my question will be about “Thanksgiving” and our dear friend, the turkey, so here it is.

It’s a 2-part question. #1- Which state is the highest in turkey production, in terms of “birds raised”? #2- Also, which state is the highest in turkey production, in terms of “pounds produced”?

All correct answers will be entered to win the coveted bottle of wine! Good Luck.

Final Thoughts:

As we celebrate Thanksgiving and enter the holiday season with our families and friends, let’s not forget about the reason for the season. It is a great opportunity to spend time alongside your favorite people, eat and drink until you can’t, watch football and play some games. Some travel, and shop, but most importantly it’s a great chance to sit back and reflect. Reflect on how lucky we really are and how good most of us have it. A roof over your head, food in the pantry, a couple of dollars in a safe place, but most importantly, a family and friends that you can call your support group.

There are plenty of people around this world that don’t have that and could only dream about having such things. Let’s all take a minute to give thanks, love and to respect all that we have been blessed with. Here’s to a season of health, happiness and love! Take care.

Salute,

Rick

                                                                  LaCarota                                     Nov. 2022

President’s Message:

Hello everyone! As always, I hope that this month’s newsletter finds you all healthy, happy and safe! Feels like it’s been a couple months. It has been. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend the whole month of September in Italy. I was with my parents in their hometown of Picinisco, in the province of Frosinone. My dad still has his family home there, where he was born, so we’re lucky enough to be able to have a place to stay. Italy is beautiful, and a trip there is highly recommended. Whether it’s your 1^st trip, or your 10^th trip there, it’s always a site to see and to marvel! As Italians, we have a heritage and a history to be very proud of for sure! I know that we’ve had a lot of our members go and visit this year. Some are still there. Enjoy guys! Hopefully everyone can experience it at least once in their lives.

Member’s Appreciation BBQ:

I wasn’t here, but I hear that our member’s BBQ went well. We had a decent turnout, and the weather was great. This was our annual event to say thank you to all of our members out there that volunteer their time and are dedicated to our cause. The people that show up without being asked. The people that have our club’s best interest at hand. This is just a small thank you for all that you do. I never want spending time to help out, be a forced issue. It should be natural, and something that you want and like to do. It’s a part of being a “Social” and a “Volunteering” club. You have to want to do it. We all have busy lives and other things to do, but just remember that this club doesn’t survive without the help of its membership. Thanks to all of you that attended.

Halloween Dance:

A FANTASTIC EVENT! That is what I will describe this event as. The night was beautiful from start to finish. There was a spirit and a great vibe that flowed throughout the night. From the time that our doors opened till the time that the Design Band played their last song, it was fantastic! Honestly it was one of the best dances that I’ve been to, since I’ve been attending. 1^st off, I must give thanks to all our CP members that came in to do whatever they could, to make our event the best. The members that came in to help make the sauce for our famous Spaghetti & Meatball dinner. Thank you all. 2^nd I must give a lot of love and thanks to Deb Hart, and her charity foundation, the “Pink Sista’s”, for partnering with us, and working so hard, to make this dance a complete success. They worked hard. They promoted and sold tickets. They came in that morning to decorate and set up their auction items. They even had a distillery to make them their own vodka to taste and sell. “Three old men” distillery made them their own vodka called “Courage” and gave them 100% of their profits. What a great cause and what a great group of guys! As always, our food was terrific, and our band, the “Design Band” were on point. They played what our crowd wanted to hear and had the dance floor packed from start to finish. What a great group of musicians. I hope to have them back soon. We almost had a “Sell out” at around 280 paid partiers. We will tally the final numbers for the next meeting. If you missed it, I’m sorry. You missed a great night. Our next dance, the “Carnevale Dance” will be held Saturday February 18^th, 2023. Plan to be there!

Christmas Party:

Our annual Club Paesano Christmas party will be held on Sunday December 11^th. Doors open at 3pm. The night will start out with a cocktail hour, dinner and Christmas carols. We will have a swearing in of our newest members. Old board members will exit, and new board members will be welcomed in. The night will be topped off with a visit from Old Saint Nick himself, if you are all good! You will all be receiving a call from one of our members to RSVP. This Christmas party is free for members, their spouses or partners, and any child living in the family home who is 21 yrs old or younger. Additional guests will be allowed for an additional fee. It’s always a fun time and a great way to bring in the Christmas season and spirit.

New Board of Directors & Officers: and Member of the Year:

As you all know, the end of the year brings the end of certain board position terms, and the chance of nominating and voting for new board members. Our Officers and board members that are at the end of their terms are, Jimmy Calcagno – Vice President / Domenic Guisto- Sergeant of Arms / John Benagni – Board of Directors / Geno Benagni- B.O.D / Dino Gavazza- B.O.D / and yours truly, Rick Cervi- President. These Officers and Board members are all eligible to run again for a 2^nd term if they are nominated. Any members with 2 yrs of membership are eligible if nominated as well. If you are thinking of running or would like to nominate a member for a board or officer position, you will have a chance to do so at our November’s membership meeting. All nominees will be placed on our ballot and voted on at our December’s meeting. We will also be taking nominations for our “Member of the Year”. When nominating this person, just like our Board members, please think of a person who truly exemplifies the true meaning of being a “Paesano”. A person who truly gives their all and loves being a member of our club. I know that there are a lot of members like that. It’ll be a hard choice!

New Member Applicants:

November is also the time to introduce potential new members. If you have a candidate that you think would become a great member, a person with energy and who is willing to help and appreciate our club, you can sponsor them.  Please have them fill out our application and bring them to Novembers members meeting. You will get the chance to introduce them, and they will get a chance to tell us about themselves and the reason that they would like the chance to become a member. If the board approves of them, then we will vote for or against them on our Decembers meeting. Please make sure that they understand that this is a “Social” club, and that we can’t exist without volunteers and support.

Paesano Bocce Club:

Our 2022 Bocce season has sadly closed, with our “Fall Season” coming to an end last week. With the great weather, our Fall league lasted for 8 weeks. We started our “Summer Leagues” the 1^st week of June. It was an exciting start to our newest season as we graduated to 4 league nights. Monday’s being our “Advanced” league to Thursday’s being our “Rookie” league, with Tuesday and Wednesday nights filling in the rest. We have built our league up to 133 members now. Returning, advanced players all the way to our newest players that had never even rolled a bocce ball before. What an exciting time for our Bocce club. I saw so many happy people out there. Laughing, joking and having a good time, but putting on their game faces when it came time to play.  There was so much comradery with chances to teach and learn. So many great memories, and showtime moments. I wish that we could have had cameras at times. There is so much excitement and commitment for our next season in 2023, that hopefully we can expand even more. We have 4 nights going, why not shoot for the whole week and get 7 league nights? If you have any interest in playing next season, please talk to a member of our bocce board or go to our website at www.paesanobocceclub.com to sign up.  As you know, our goal is to cover our 4 “World Class” courts. With our courts being covered we could play and extend our seasons all year long. We could bring in more leagues and tournaments, inviting players from all over the nation. We need money to get that roof up. We are currently selling Bocce club apparel, Tee’s, hoodies, hats, towels and personalized brick pavers. All would make great Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers. We are selling advertising signs of all sizes, for personal or businesses, that will be hung on our fences that are viewed by many from the “Spring Water Trail”. If you own a company or work for a company that would like to donate money for a tournament or to help build the roof, please let us know. Of course, any monetary donation of any amount would be greatly appreciated. I’d like to give special thanks to our Bocce board, and to all that came out to help build our 2 newest courts. Without you, it could not have been done. Larry Cereghino. Doug Burchak, Dino Gavazza and our Bocce President, Mario Pompei. Special thanks for all that you do!

Fun Committee:

The Fun Committee is still rolling along with our Monday Night Socials. A great night of food, drinks, games and a lot of laughs. If you haven’t been to one yet, you owe it to yourself to come at least one time. Why not spend a few hours getting to know your fellow Paesano’s a little better and getting a Monday night out. We are currently working on some future events for our “Fun Committee’s” Night out. Christmas is around the corner and I’m sure that the area has a lot of fun activities to attend. We will keep you informed of any activities that we get confirmed.

Cedarville Shares:

“Same as last Newsletter”

Cedarville Lodge & Park Rentals:

“Same as last Newsletter”

Thoughts & Prayers:

Special Thoughts and Prayers this month for the passing of one of Club Paesano’s founding members, Ambrose Calcagno (Debbie Calcagno Guthrie’s Father and relative to many). His service is going to be held this Saturday October 29^th at St. Thomas More. 10:30am for Rosary and 11am for Funeral. Also, the passing of Robert Rinkes (Jayne Pompei’s Father, Mario Pompei). Jack Benagni ( John and Geno Benagni’s Father). The speedy recovery of our own Joe Castellano and Kathy Fazio. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of them. If you have anyone that you would like me to include or mention, please email me at [email protected] and I will add them to our prayer chain.

LaCarota Question:

Last month we had a new winner, (other than Mario) take home the coveted bottle of wine. The “Holy Grail” that we all look forward to winning. Our winner was none other than Jim Burch. I’m sure that Jim is a distant 2^{nd ,} just because Mario keeps adding to his wine cellar collection. I must hand it to Jim though, in 2 years of doing these questions, Jimmy has answered at least 95% of the time. The true meaning of, “If you don’t play, you can’t win.” Thanks for always playing Jim!

So, let’s get to this month’s question. It’s a simple one at that. My question is this. What’s my Dads birth place? That’s it. All correct answers will be entered to win a bottle of wine. If you don’t answer, you can’t win!

Final Thoughts:

As I was lucky enough to spend some time in Italy, I had time to reflect on our Italian heritage as I was surrounded by it. I got to spend time with my parents and their relatives. I was fortunate enough to hear more stories about the old days. The years that they spent growing up, going to school, and living through a war. German soldiers occupying their homes and being displaced to other towns, living in a camp for almost a year. They never complained. They felt lucky to be alive and they enjoyed the little things that they had. Most of all, they appreciated the time that they had with their families. They turned a pound of pasta and a jar of sauce into a party, getting together with their neighbors and friends to enjoy the life that they had. No riches, no fancy toys, just themselves and their families. It all makes me a truly proud Italian! We are proud and strong people. When times get tough, and you think that you have it bad, just take a moment to remember our ancestors and our people that paved the way for us! The way for us to have a better life! As we enter the holiday season, please remember to enjoy and cherish your families and what you have. Here’s to good health, happiness and love. Take care.

Salute,

Rick

President’s Message Rick Cervi

As always, I hope that this edition of “LaCarota” finds you all, “Happy, healthy and safe”. I don’t know about you guys, but does it seem like this summer has just flown by? I feel like July had just started with the big holiday, some special birthdays and events, then the next thing you know, we are in the 3rd week of August. Not quite sure why, but it seems like time keeps speeding up? Another good reason to stop and smell the roses. Take time out for yourself and your family. Take vacation and time to relax. Recharge and enjoy what we have been given. Whether it’s being with family, by yourself, enjoying a new item that you always wanted, or just finding your inner peace, please enjoy and cherish it all! Let’s get on with the newsletter.

Bocce News: this year! It’s been one of our best. Our league nights came to an end with a Championship Sunday. The day included the playoffs of each night, with a champion of each night crowned. We had 4 nights going this year and hope to expand it to 5 nights next season. The day was capped off with a potluck, and we all enjoyed terrific dishes that our players made and shared. What a terrific group. Full of energy, enthusiasm and a certain level of competitiveness. There was a great mixture of all, but the most important part, was the smiles, the laughter and the fun that our players showed throughout the season. Bravo! But wait, there’s more! We can’t end it just yet. Our players want more and have demanded it and because our bocce board aims to please, we are again going to be offering our “Fall League” starting this Sunday, August 28th at 9am. We will be playing an “El Sacco” style play. In this format of play, everyone’s name will be thrown in a hat (divided evenly by skill level), and you will end up playing with 3 different players every week. It’ll be the luck of the draw. Points will be tracked on an individual basis, giving you points per win. You will play 3 games to 12, then be given the chance to shoot, or hard lag 4 times to accumulate even more points. At the end of the season, the player who tallied the most individual points, will be crowned the champ! The season will run until “Mother Nature” says it’s over, so weather is going to determine the length of the season. The cost to play will be $25 dollars for existing members, and newcomers as well. Hopefully this will draw new players to join next season too. So, if you are an existing member that would like to extend their season, or a newbie that would like to check it out and learn the game, come on out, we will take care of you. Balls and scoreboards provided, but you can bring your own bocce balls if you have them, too. Again, much thanks to our Board of Bocce for all of their extra hard work and making this season a successful one, both mentally and physically. Mario Pompei, Larry Cereghino, Brad Cotton, Doug Burchak, Dino Gavazza, and myself, Rick Cervi. We are always trying to raise money for a roof to cover our 4 beautiful courts. We are selling, “Personal and Business” advertising signs, personalized pavers, and merchandise. We will always except a monetary donation as well. If you have any ideas for fundraising, have your own business, or work for a company that would like to donate to the cause, please let us know.

Concert in the Park: We just enjoyed another “Concert in the Park”. Our 6th Annual now. We had roughly 330 attendees. Not bad considering all the other events happening throughout the city on a Saturday night in August. People are wanting to get out and socialize once again and it looks like we are pretty much there. The event started at 4pm, and ran till Midnight, with the band stopping at 10pm. In typical Italian fashion, a lot of us stayed and partied till the end. Thank you to all of our Club Paesano members that showed up to the event. I want to pass along my deepest thanks to all of you that stepped up to help set up, cook and to make sure that everyone felt welcomed; to those that worked during the event, and those that tore down and cleaned up. To Geno and John Benagni, for helping us with our technical difficulties and making sure that our POS kept running. As always, special props go out to Marc Battilega and family for reliably manning the kitchen and food. These events don’t just run themselves and can’t be successful without hard work and contributions by all of you!

Festa Italiana: What a busy month! On Sunday August 21st, Cedarville Park & Club Paesano hosted the Festa Italiana. This was our 2nd year hosting and providing the Festa a good venue. Special thanks to Cedarville Park for making our beautiful setting available. It was a fantastic day of Italian celebration with great food, drink, music, dancing and fun! All were welcome to come to this event. We also had our Paesano Bocce Club running its annual “Festa Bocce Tournament.” A lot going on that day. You couldn’t have asked for better weather! It wasn’t official, but I was told that we could have had as many as 500 people through the gates. Wow, that’s a huge jump from last year! Hope it helps to energize the Festa. No one, including myself, wants to see it go away. We’re Italian and need our own Italian Party! Thanks once again to all the Paesanos and their wives, who volunteered.

Club Paesano’s Membership appreciation BBQ: Our CP Member’s BBQ will be held on Sunday September 11th at noon. This BBQ is to show appreciation to our members and all the extra hard work that they have put into our club. Coming to meetings, setting up, tearing down and clean up. To the members that volunteer their time and efforts for the greater cause and that make this Club run like a well-oiled machine. Please come out and enjoy a nice lunch and some laughs with your fellow CP members. A great chance for our newer members to get to know and speak with some of our older members too. This BBQ is for our members in good standing, their spouse, partner or a guest and is for adults only. Weather permitting, it will be held outside under the Pavilion. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, it will be moved indoors.

Halloween Dance: Our next big event! Doors open at 5:30pm and the party will go until 11pm. Tickets are now available and can be purchased on our website at www.clubpaesano.org . I have a feeling that this dance may be a sellout, so I would recommend getting your tickets early if you plan to attend. Our charity partner, “Pink Sista’s” founder Deb Hart, is already promoting and selling tickets. She founded her charity years ago after surviving breast cancer. The “Pink Sista’s” was created to give survivors of breast cancer an avenue to have some fun and to be active. They offer weekend retreats, boating, paddle boarding, floating the river, etc. All this being offered to survivors at no cost. What an incredible charity, and a wonderful lady, Deb Hart. I got to know Deb better this summer, as she also played and created a “Pink Sista’s” bocce team. October is also Breast Cancer Awareness month, so I believe that we will see a lot of support. The cost is $25 per person, which includes our spaghetti & meatball dinner and live music and dancing from the “Design Band”. Bring your family and friends. Please promote and spread the word. No time like the present to purchase your tickets. As always costumes are not mandatory but encouraged. Get your tickets while you can!

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 is available for rent: 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.

Fun Committee: The Fun Committee had our “Night Out” Saturday August 13th. It was held at “Kuya’s Islander Cuisine” in Gresham. Fred Asa, the owner of the restaurant and his staff prepared a wonderful buffet for us, featuring Filipino and Hawaiian foods. If you have never been to his restaurant, I highly recommend trying it out. It was a wonderful evening of good fun and laughs, fantastic food and some great wine. There were about 32 of us all together that showed up to enjoy the night. Hopefully the Fun Committee will put together another outing sometime in the fall. There is no limit to how many get together we can do, the size of the group, or what we can plan. Big, small, dining, wine tasting, hiking, music, it doesn’t matter. If you have an idea or a plan that you would like to see happen, or would like to champion, by all means, bring it to the table. The Fun Committee is here to help run it, or you can take the bull by the horns and run it yourself. It doesn’t matter. The whole purpose and goal of the Fun Committee is to HAVE FUN! Just let me, or one of the other FC events coordinators know. We will be starting up our “Monday Night Socials” again Monday September 12th, after the Labor Day holiday. If you haven’t been to one, it’s a great way to get to know and spend some time with your fellow CP members. We talk, laugh, watch football, (or whatever else anyone wants to watch), eat, drink and play some games. Members step up and volunteer to make food for one of the evenings, and we offer a cheap bar. The food has been fantastic and we all chip in doing something. What a great night of comradery. It’s not mandatory as a member to attend, but I strongly recommend trying to come when you can. Starting on the 1st Monday in October, and every 1st Monday of the month moving forward, we will allow a member to bring one “Nonmember” to our Monday night—possibly a potential member down the road, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be someone who you enjoy being around and hopefully will enjoy your fellow CP members too.

New Membership: We are at that time of the year where you should be getting applications for new members filled out and handed in. If you have someone in mind that you would like to see become a member or would like to sponsor them, applications need to be handed in no later than October’s general members’ meeting. We are looking for energetic people, who will represent the club and will be proud to be a part of us. We want to make sure that they are a good fit for us, and that we are a good fit for them as well. Bring them out to our events, have them volunteer and if they like what they see, then get them a sponsor and have them fill out an application. We need “Active” members! I don’t want to have someone join, then never show up. We are not looking and don’t need people like that. If you do have someone in mind, please make sure that they fully understand this. Our members should be proud of being a CP member, want to have fun and a social time, but also be willing to put in a little work every now and again. If you have any questions, or need to speak to me about it, please email or call me anytime

Rossi Farms: On Sunday August 7th, Joe Rossi invited us all to celebrate our Italian culture and heritage by hosting their “D’Italiano Celebration”. It was held at his house, the original one where his dad Aldo Rossi (our First President) held the very 1st Club Paesano board meeting—and the many following that. Joe was gracious enough to not only host the event, but hosted food and beverages for our Club Paesano members. The food, Italian beer and wine were available all The Fun Committee had our “Night Out” Saturday August 13th. It was held at “Kuya’s Islander Cuisine” in Gresham. Fred Asa, the owner of the restaurant and his staff prepared a wonderful buffet for us, featuring Filipino and Hawaiian foods. If you have never been to his restaurant, I highly recommend trying it out. It was a wonderful evening of good fun and laughs, fantastic food and some great wine. There were about 32 of us all together that showed up to enjoy the night. Hopefully the Fun Committee will put together another outing sometime in the fall. There is no limit to how many get together we can do, the size of the group, or what we can plan. Big, small, dining, wine tasting, hiking, music, it doesn’t matter. If you have an idea or a plan that you would like to see happen, or would like to champion, by all means, bring it to the table. The Fun Committee is here to help run it, or you can take the bull by the horns and run it yourself. It doesn’t matter. The whole purpose and goal of the Fun Committee is to HAVE FUN! Just let me, or one of the other FC events coordinators know. We will be starting up our “Monday Night Socials” again Monday September 12th, after the Labor Day holiday. If you haven’t been to one, it’s a great way to get to know and spend some time with your fellow CP members. We talk, laugh, watch football, (or whatever else anyone wants to watch), eat, drink and play some games. Members step up and volunteer to make food for one of the evenings, and we offer a cheap bar. The food has been fantastic and we all chip in doing something. What a great night of comradery. It’s not mandatory as a member to attend, but I strongly recommend trying to come when you can. Starting on the 1st Monday in October, and every 1st Monday of the month moving forward, we will allow a member to bring one “Nonmember” to our Monday night—possibly a potential member down the road, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be someone who you enjoy being around and hopefully will enjoy your fellow CP members too. Like I said, it’s not mandatory, but I hope to see some of you there. evening. He invited in an accordion band for our listening and dancing entertainment. Joe showed us around the house where the meetings were held, and how he has been restoring the house to its original form from when his dad, Aldo, was around. It was a treat to take a “CP” group picture on the original bench where the initial members sat in 1955. What a great night. Special thanks to our own Greg DiMiestri and his brother in-law Dennis Grieng, for preparing and cooking all the great food that we had that night. If you couldn’t make it, I strongly recommend coming next year, should Joe decide on making it a yearly event. Joe Rossi, I personally thank you, and Club Paesano thanks you too!

Thoughts and Prayers: This month’s Thoughts & Prayers go out to Joe Castellano. He’s going to be having a bone marrow transplant. He’ll be out of commission for a couple months. Let’s do our part and pray for his rapid recovery and to help with Cedarville Lodge as well. For Kathy Fazio and her ongoing battle; for Carlo Ponta. Jim & Jerry Sells (my in-laws) and any other member, family or friend of a member. Let’s pray and keep them in our thoughts. If you would like to have some extra prayers for someone you know, please email me their name, and I will be happy to add them to our prayer chain.

La Carota Question of the Month: The ex-Champ came back to stake his claim to our coveted bottle of wine. The “Holy Grail”of LaCarota! The “Comeback Kid”, the “Mauler of Massachusetts”, our version of Sampson (with the great hair). Our very own Mario Pompei made his comeback and put another wine bottle on his shelf. How many is that now, 2 cases? Well, the man just proves it again and again. You can’t win if you don’t play! This month’s question will be an easy one and maybe, lure some of you to the front of the line to compete for a shot at the crown. Being Club Paesano just hosted another great Festa Italiana at our beautiful park, my question will tie both “Festa” and “Club Paesano” together. The question is: “Name our two current Club Paesano members that were at one time the President of the Festa and the other member who is now the current President of the Festa Italiana? In other words, you must name the former, and the present Prez. All correct entries will be entered to win that beautiful bottle of wine. Please send your answer to me at rchabs23 @hotmail.com. Seeing I won’t be here for our next meeting, I will pick a winner at our October meeting.

I’m Off to Italy: Seeing I will be gone most of September, there will not be a “LaCarota” newsletter next month. Sorry about that. We’ll have one in November.

Final Thoughts: As I stated at the end of “LaCarota” question, I won’t be at our next membership meeting. Our VP Jimmy Calcagno will be running the meeting and will do a great job. Go easy on him, LoL! I will be on vacation. I will be going back to the ‘Mother Country,’ the place where all of this started and the reason, we are all here — Italy! I look forward to spending time with my parents, and relatives. Every time I go, I can’t help but to be in awe. Like I said, for most of us, the place where it all began. My parent’s town alone is 1005 years old. 1005 years of existence. Are you kidding me? Like my parents, and many of our older members, they packed whatever they had to come over here for a better life. They gave up their way of life and left their families to make a better life for themselves and their families. Not speaking the language and in most cases, never getting any financial help, they put their heads down and went to work. They were humble and never complained. They never had a government making things so easy for them, as our immigrants do now, but they made it. They took $50 and a suitcase, and turned it into a good living, a house and a beautiful famiglia! Something to be so proud of! As the son of Italian immigrants, I’m so proud of what my parents did, and what all Italians who came here have accomplished. I can go on and on, but will end it with this, be proud of your Italian heritage, and never, never forget your roots and where you come from! “Sempre Italiano”. Take care of yourselves and your families. I’ll see you in October. Salute