As the old song goes, “the weather outside it frightful” so it has been here in East Tennessee for the past couple of months.  It hasn’t slowed the clubs down, just delayed a meeting or two.

Clubs are still providing glasses and other needed services despite the weather.  Weather is one of those things we can’t change but lives of those in need are.   I hope that all of you take time to consider that a lot of people in this part of the state are in dire need of just a warm bed, a good meal or that helping hand when they have to go to town for food or to pay the bills.

The Annual Convention is being held in few weeks in Knoxville, and the theme is the “Fifties” when Rock and Roll was born, and life was so much easier or was it.

None of the following necessities existed, but only in the old “Dick Tracey Comic” or Orwell’s 1984:  cell phones, lap tops, microwaves, automatic dishwashers, electronic washers and driers,   home computers plus thousands of other items that make our life so much easier now.  Yet we look back and say it was an easier life, even though we didn’t have all the conveniences of modern life.  Why was it so much easier?  I think each one of you would come up with a different answer based on your life during that time.

What was happening in Lions Clubs during that time?  I again say each of us would have a different story to tell.  Mine is that of the many clubs in my home town of Needles, California (Elks, Moose, VFW, Masons, Eagles and Lions), the Lions have always stood out to me most because they seemed to be at every event in town and with that yellow vest on it was pretty hard not to notice them as they went around doing their service work  or raising money.

We wish that we could go back to a more nostalgic time but we know we can’t.  We need to look back both to see what made Lions so strong in our communities then, and put some of those ideas back into our clubs life.  Remember that our 50’s are some of our younger members 1960’s, 70’s or 80’s.

See you at the Convention in Knoxville on 18-19 February at the Rothchilds Convention Center.  Go on Line to our new web site at www.tnlions.org to get the registration forms and further information on the events to be held.

DG Bill McDonald