Me and Mencken Munch Crow

By Elaine Viets

George Bernard Shaw sneered at them. H.L. Mencken scoffed. Sinclair Lewis wrote a whole novel lampooning them. I'm talking about the Rotary Club.

"Where is the Rotary going? It's going to lunch," the playwright Shaw sniped.

"The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist 'Jack,'" H. L. Mencken wrote.

Sinclair Lewis's "Babbit" became the definition of a pompous, back-slapping businessman. "Babbit" even made the dictionary as a business man "who conforms unthinkingly to prevailing middle class standards."

Like any self-respecting writer, I agreed with these august authors. My dislike of Rotarians wasn't based on second-hand prejudice. I'd sat through hours of bottom-busting Rotary Club meetings as a newspaper reporter. I knew from first-hand (or fork) experience the Rotarians were cigar-munching back-slappers who ate gut-busting lunches. They wallowed in conformity. They poured cold gravy over any new idea until it congealed. I ate the rubber chicken and despised them. They looked like Midwestern versions of these Rotarians.

When my husband, Don Crinklaw, had to write about the Fort Lauderdale Rotary Club's "Power of One Hour" last Saturday morning, he left home with a heaping dose of wifely sympathy. I hadn't been to a Rotary meeting in decades, but I still shuddered at the memory of those paunchy dullards.

The Rotary is proud that eventually these critics changed their minds. Me, too. I'm joining Mencken, Lewis, Shaw and the other cynics who were won over by the Rotary Club.

The local Rotary Club did more last Saturday morning than lunch. They knocked on doors and made phone calls. They assembled useful people, from the National Achievers Society – an Urban League program for minority students – to the neighborhood associations, even Cub Scouts from the fat-cat city of Plantation. For one hour they picked up trash and pulled weeds and cleaned up one of the lousiest neighborhoods in Lauderdale, "the infamous Northwest Eighth Avenue."

"This is a strip of trashed lawns and boarded up sale properties nobody wants," Don wrote in the East-Sider newspaper. (My guy has a way with words, doesn't he?) "Clean it up on Saturday and it's a mess on Monday."

The draggle-tailed neighborhood is a breeding ground for pimps, prostitutes and poverty. The group cleaned up the area anyway. Lawyers and other professionals offered legal, health and money advice. Landscapers and a mowing service dropped by to help. They all volunteered one hour and it was organized by the Rotary.

We are a deeply divided nation. People are pointing fingers, blaming one another, refusing to work together.

I know what they'd say about the residents of Northwest Eighth Avenue: They should get off their lazy duffs and clean their own street. Why should hardworking citizens pitch in and help this shiftless bunch?

The answer was in Don's article.

"We don't give up," said Robert Alcock, who worked at the Power of One Hour. "There are kids on this street and giving them hope is such a huge thing. Let them know they don't have to tolerate bad stuff."

Giving hope is indeed a huge gift. If that's the "prevailing middle class standard," then let it spread. The local Rotary didn't eat lunch during that busy Power of One Hour. They made sure there was cold water, coffee and muffins for the workers.

Hats off to the Rotary. Keep on lunching, folks.

I'll have a plate of crow with a side of humble pie.