GENE ZAMBETTI: Fifty years and counting!
Editors note: Our club recently honored Ernie Kraule and Gene Zambetti for their 50 years of membership. Ernie Kraule’s story will appear in the September edition of the newsletter. This month features Gene Zambetti’s story.
GENE ZAMBETTI: Fifty years and counting!
Editors note: Our club recently honored Ernie Kraule and Gene Zambetti for their 50 years of membership. Ernie Kraule’s story will appear in the September edition of the newsletter. This month features Gene Zambetti’s story.
The years was 1973. The Vietnam war was winding down, the Watergate scandal was heating up, and The Godfather swept The Oscars.
But most importantly, that was the year 24-year-old Gene Zambetti returned home to Saratoga after serving in the U.S. Army. He immediately went to work managing his father Peter’s dry cleaning business.
Peter Zambetti, one of twenty-five charter members of the Saratoga Rotary Club, thought Gene was a little young to become a Rotarian, but Gene’s sponsors Bob Barbatti and Lou Leto felt he was up to the task. His membership became official in 1974. Incidentally, Peter made it a point to never sit at the same lunch table as Gene, believing the young man should establish his own identity in the club.
The club was different in those days. “There were about 65 members, all men,” Gene recalled. Friday lunch meetings included a “smoker’s table”, and, indeed, several members lit up during lunch. “We had a liquor table, and for one dollar, you could mix your own drinks.”
As a men-only club, Gene recalls frequent off-color jokes that would never fly in today’s club. And all members’ spouses were referred to as ‘Rotary Anns’, a curious tradition that presumably would save the members the trouble of remembering their names during social events.
“And attendance was mandatory! If you missed more than three meetings, you had to attend another club’s meeting as a make-up,” he remembered.
The no-women policy became a contentious issue during Gene’s year as club president in 1983-84. Rotary International had not yet stated its position on the subject, but (in only Gene’s second board meeting) some board members called for a vote to allow women. While some Rotary clubs had started including women, no club in District 5170 had done so. Not everyone was open to the notion, and many promised to resign “on the spot” if the board voted to change the men-only policy. Gene managed to avert disaster by tabling the motion, and RI voted to allow clubs to accept female members two years later.
Gene also served as Art Show Chair in 1978, the last year it was held on Big Basin Way. “It was a one-day show, and we managed to raise about forty thousand dollars,” Gene recalled. “But the downtown location was getting to be a problem. We had to bus people into downtown from Saratoga High School.” All subsequent Art Shows have been held on the campus of West Valley College.
Gene has fond memories of the club’s long partnership with the town of Los Algodones in Northern Mexico. “Rotarian Don Gerth went to Mexico and “discovered” Los Algodones, across the border from Yuma, Arizona. They had a small Rotary Club there, and a lot of needs. Over several years, we donated a fire truck, an ambulance, a garbage truck, and a school bus,” he remembers. “I drove the school bus to Mexico, and could only manage twenty-five miles per hour going up the Grapevine,” Gene stated. “The Highway Patrol pulled up and demanded to know what the heck we were doing. When we told them our story, they happily escorted us over the pass.” The Mexican Rotarians returned the favor by sending Folklorico dancers to perform at several Art Shows, according to Gene.
His most painful memory was the time when he invited an economics professor from San Jose State to deliver a speech at the Friday meeting. On that same day, a contingent of ten Japanese Rotarians, hosted by Hakone Gardens, were attending the meeting as guests. “The professor proceeded to harangue the entire citizenry of Japan (who, taking advantage of the strong Yen, were buying large amounts of American real estate) and accusing them of taking things from Americans.”
A red-faced Gene adjourned the meeting early!
But Gene is most thankful for his time in Saratoga Rotary because he met his wife directly as a result.
“In about 2002, (Former District Governor) Brad Howard was trying to establish a Rotary Club in Saigon. Vietnam had not had a club since the French pulled out some 40 years prior, and that club didn’t allow Vietnamese members. Only Frenchmen.”
Howard arranged for a group of Vietnamese to visit Silicon Valley. Gene’s job was to be their tour guide.
Among the contingent was a diminutive but bright and sociable woman named Thi Tran. Gene was smitten. He subsequently made eleven trips to Saigon, finally convincing Thi to marry him and move (with her two daughters) to Saratoga, where they have lived ever since. Thi, fluent in French, English, and Vietnamese now works as a translator for The State Department and in the Santa Clara County Court System.