Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about Bill – Petaluma’s biggest booster and the founder of the World-Wide People-Meeters Club.” Last week, I confirmed the date for the 2006 Whiskerino Contest, in collaboration with the Farmers’ Market. It will be held in Walnut Park on Saturday, October 14. Bill was born on October 19th. This is one of many community events that BS initiated during his lifetime that brought people together – face-to-face.
It was just yesterday, in fact, that my wife invited several former colleagues from yesteryear (like 30-40 years ago), to mingle and recall their days when they were involved, professionally, with international students and scholars throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. This gathering of student advisers, broke bread together for a few hours, and talked about their good old days (a few are still working, now) at Stanford, UC-Berkeley, SFSU, SJSU, UC-Davis, SFCC, DeAnza CC, the International Visitors Program, the Institute for International Education, and the Council for International Education Council’s Senior Fulbright Scholars Program. They also shared their impressions from recent visits to Southeast Asia, Western & Central Europe. The sense of community exhibited by this group – at the international level – would have certainly met Bill Soberanes’ criteria for qualifying as a World-Wide People-Meeters Club.
BS, the world’s foremost peopleologist, would have been proud of this group; some of whom traveled two to four hours from all corners of the Bay Area to mingle – face-to-face. (Just like he did so often for 49 years.) In the 21st Century, this exchange and sharing of memories could have been done via the Internet using e-mail, conference boards, or video streaming; however, it just would not have been the same. (Right, Bill?)
BTW, although we had a camera, we didn’t take any pictures. Bill would have been pleased to meet and mingle with this unique group – and he would have remembered to have his picture taken with them. He just may have written one of his My Fascinating World of People columns about them, too.
On Our Radar Screen
I admit it. I made a mistake by creating so many different blog categories. There is so much going on in our town – in Our Cyberplace – which was the original heading, that I’m not sure which area I should focus on. In the meantime, I’ll have to continue to stay up late at night or get up in the wee hours of the morning and peck away on the keyboard in order to crank out my thoughts and reflections (that’s what bloggers are supposed to do) about this and that. Stay tuned?