The Olympic Peninsula Bluebills is a local volunteer organization loosely associated with Boeing through local retirees and others who see the good work they do and join them.

This past year they organized the Peninsula Support Organization, a 501(c)(3), in order to raise money to fund field trips to the Museum of Flight and help bring STEM programs into schools on the peninsula. In addition they presented a check for $19,900 to Dove House from money raised at the annual Dove House Golf Benefit. The Bluebills are also known for bringing approximately $500,000 annually in goods and services to the peninsula as they impact many lives in the area.

BJ and I went to the first annual PSO Wine Tasting and Food Pairings at the Beach Club last weekend. Great wine from Camaraderie Cellars along with great conversation with Val Vogt and many others. These people do things that matter in our community as they volunteer their skills and contribute their treasure.

The three Rotary clubs in Eastern Jefferson County typically offer ”Rotary Foreign Exchange Scholarships” at this time of the year to the students in Port Townsend, Chimacum and Quilcene High Schools. These scholarships are valued at about $24,000 as they cover tuition, room, board and a monthly stipend at a high school in one of 33 selected foreign countries for the 2020/2021 academic year. Rotary volunteers make the program affordable to students aged 15 to 18.5 years of all backgrounds and financial status. Each year, nearly 9,000 high-school students around the world accept the challenge to become citizens of the world by applying to become Rotary Youth Exchange students. Contact any local Rotarian and they can lead you to the right person in their club to facilitate the application. Time is getting short for submitting the applications so if you or a young person you know is interested you need to do it now.

The monthly edition of the Beach Club Pot Luck is this coming Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Beach Club. As you might guess, the theme is Halloween. The decorations, your attendance and your costume will make it an evening to remember. Somewhat more scary and less memorable is the emcee for the evening, your humble Life In Ludlow columnist. For some reason the venerable Steven Gross has relinquished his regular role as the emcee of the event and enlisted yours truly as his replacement. I fear his motivation is to avoid the predictable abuse I heap on him for the jokes he heaps upon us when he is emcee. No matter, payback will be mine this Saturday!

At the recent Brewfest benefiting the Backpack for Kids I bid on the four yards of “beauty bark” in the silent auction. As it turns out, the person donating the bark actually wanted/needed to get rid of a huge pile of it and he ended up donating at least three loads of it. (Frankly, I think a couple of us were just trying to bid up the price to benefit Backpack program.) So, it got delivered and the exhaustive search for somebody to spread it commenced since my back gave up on that activity a few years ago. Pat Tracy tipped me off that the Maintenance “Czar” at the Beach Club, Don Baker, has a son who does that kind of work. Success was at hand and I know you know how hard it is to get that kind of help.

Halloween is right around the corner and I read that Stephen Colbert has an interesting activity at parties. When he sees the bowl of M&M’s he throws in a few Skittles to see if people freak out.

Love a curmudgeon and have a great week.

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive whose fellow East Jefferson Rotarians last week violated his 1st Amendment rights by preventing him from heckling his editor during a Rotary program about free speech.)