Lion Bill – At Ninety he is Going Strong at Via West

Super trooper Lion Bill Reed once again brought us together for a maintenance weekend at Via West Camp in Cupertino. On Friday, 5/27, he drummed up support from 7 fellow DeAnza Lions (Al, Ray, Ron, Don, Steve, Herb, and Mike) to help clean, wash down and prep benches and the BBQ area at the Camp. On Saturday 5/28, it was Lion Bill once again, armed with gallons of paint, spray cans, super-long extension cables and all the required utensils, leading the painting crew of 6 (Lions Steve, Ron, Herb, Ray, and Dagi) – the only thing he forgot was his hat (but he found a solution for that, too – see photos). During the painting session we learnt that this was Lion Bill’s 24^th year of organizing and coordinating this event – mind you, he is not standing around, resting – no, he is preparing the paint, stooping over the paint buckets, mixing it with water to create the perfect consistency for the spray paint machines, and then he bends down to spray the very low benches near the BBQ station. Under Lion Bill’s guidance and with support from the fellow lions the assigned areas were painted in record time, so everyone could go home shortly past noon time to his or her family to celebrate Memorial Weekend.

PS: The entire camp was teeming with volunteers who were getting the houses ready for summer camp. One guy unfortunately had left his lunch, a subway sandwich, on one of the picnic tables … when he was ready for a break, after scrubbing the floors of one of the dorms, he found his sandwich torn and ripped into pieces, the best parts gone, the rest scattered on the floor … a resident crow had made a meal of his lunch.

Contributed by Lion Dagi