JAN 20, 2015 ROTARY IN REVIEW:
Steve Osman

David Laird led the group in a patriotic song.  Bill Given (piano) pounding out God Bless America and finishing with flourish.

Blake Davis was responsible for the “inspirational minute.”  He offered a number of Martin Luther King quotes, and perhaps out of loyalty to the current regime’s uneven temporal record, did his level best to slow the pace. 

Eventually, President Elect Carla regained the podium, thanking Jon Cieslak and Steve Hanson for their service as door greeters.  She introduced your antisocial Scribe (Joe Beckman), who was squirreled away in the far back of the Crowne Plaza’s basement ballroom.  Paul DeGeest introduced the day’s geests guests.

President Elect Carla next reminded Rotarians of the following:

• Be sure to like Saint Paul Rotary on Facebook
• THINK MEMBERSHIP
• Thursday’s Fellowship Breakfast Speaker is: (Newer) Rotarian Jimmy Francis of Clean ‘N’ Press

Next, Ed Coleman forechecked the podium, reminding everyone of the Wild Outing on Tuesday, February 24.  Tickets that ordinarily sell for $100 each are $75, with $20 of that going to the Rotary Foundation.  We need to sell 100 tickets to qualify, so check your calendars and open your checkbook.

Jon Cieslak was emcee for “happy dollars,” and again raked in the cash.  Among the highlights: 

• Mick White’s Twitter Feed apparently had a baby. 
• Visit St. Paul has a NEW visitor’s guide. 
• strong>Ed Coleman’s band, the Wibesmen, band will be playing Carribean music at 6:00 on Thursday at Rice Park (OUTSIDE) end of the parade, then at the Wild Times Bar (7^th Place Plaza). 
• Claude Hone will be missing our meeting in two weeks as he travels to Sioux Falls to celebrate his 95^th Birthday.            

Chad Roberts introduced our speaker, Steve Osman, who presented a Reader’s Digest version of his “Fort Snelling and the Civil War” program. 

According to Osman, Fort Snelling was “the only place [in the area] large enough to house 1,000 men at a time, and also FAR ENOUGH away from liquor and women to reduce problems” that can occur when large numbers of young males are congregated in close quarters for military purposes. 

Osman began with a poem that included the following couplets that perhaps summed up the new recruits initial reaction to Fort Snelling:

We arrived at Grim old Snelling,
The abode of Rats and Mice,
While inside the Soldiers’ quarters,
Dwelt Bedbugs too, and Lice.

Recruits were given a uniform in one of four standard sizes.  The First Minnesota “took all the good muskets” from State Arsenal.  As a result, subsequent recruits trained with guns so inferior the common knowledge was that, “The safest place within 20 paces of the mark (target) was the mark itself.”

Leading citizens in the area, including the Sibley clan in Mendota, played prominent roles.  There was no shortage of risible behavior as recruits wandered off the base.  At one point former Governor Sibley was put in charge of the troops, who he took down river to Fort Ridgley. 

It was clear, even at the time, of the special place Fort Snelling had in the heart of Minnesotans.  It was, nonetheless, still more frontier than urban center, and military life was less cultured than what might be found in town.  (Trivia note: The last Civil War Veteran whose status as a veteran was undisputed died in Duluth in 1956.) 

Perhaps Lieutenant Ben Densmore’s quote made after a “raid on whiskey in Mendota” best summed up the experience.  A military man at Fort Snelling at the time, Densmore said a soldier “must not be averse to much strong drink, must not be encumbered with morals & must possess an insatiable appetite for confusion.”

President Elect Carla closed the meeting making a donation to the Read With Me Program on behalf of Mr. Osman, as well as a coin with the Four Way Test.  She then led all members in reciting the test before ending the meeting at 1:06ish.

JPB, Scribe