Sitting at the Same Table

Ed Wilde has perfect attendance for 27 years. He sits at the same North Spartanburg table with Johnny Parks (34 years perfect attendance) and Bill Wilson (41 years perfect attendance). Now I don't condone sitting at the same table with the same people every meeting, but I recognize that this is an institutionalized part of Rotary.

On one memorable day, Johnny Parks didn't show. Ed calls Johnny on his cell phone and the response is garbled. Ed, Bill and Don Miles go to Johnny's home. It takes them 15 minutes to get in the house. They find Johnny on a bloodied concrete floor where he had fallen. He is incoherent. They rush him to a hospital.

After six weeks of rehab from a severe concussion, Johnny returns to the club. He remembered nothing of the incident. Maybe I was wrong about people sitting at the same place every week.