Guest Column by: Ted Bird

June 1, 2020

During the summer of 1954 my family was great friends with a family that lived down the road from J. Duncan Campbell off Rice Lane. Duncan was very active in the Bennington Rotary Club. That particular summer we participated in one of Rotary's great early projects, the Orientation of about 200 foreign students from all over the world, who were going to go to college in the US that fall. It was a two week program carried on during the first two weeks of July. The joint sponsors of the project were the Bennington Rotary Club and Bennington College. The Rotary chairmen of the project were J. Duncan Campbell, who ran a local manufacturing concern and Bradford Smith, a man of letters. He was a Quaker and wrote books for children and history books for adults.

Rotary families invited the students to their home for dinner so they could see how American families treated their guests and the custom's of American homes. Also during the day the students went to classes at nearby Bennington College, where they were living in the dorms. For other aspects of American Life, they went to everyday American events like Square Dances, Auctions, Pool Parties, Barb-ques, etc.

During one of the dinners, my mother had made her famous meat loaf of 2/3 beef and 1/3 ground pork. One of the guests from a society that didn't eat pork asked their hostess (not my mother) if there was any pork in the meat loaf. The hostess did not know there was and told the guest NO, there was none, which she honestly believed. Satisfied, he had a third helping. The hostess later checked with my mother and was told there was pork in it but they decided to keep the contents among themselves. We checked and found that he did not die from trichinosis.

But the highlight of the event was becoming so friendly with six of them that we invited them back for an American Thanksgiving Dinner three months later (no pork that time). They represented Germany, Norway, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Siam (now Thailand), Brazil and England. Never did my mother's dining room table have such an international flavor. And a good time was had by all.

So Rotary can leave a lasting International impression whether one is 14 or 44 years of age.

Author: Ted Bird
Sally Sugarman (Club Member & Windmill Editor)