DAY 33 POST TRANSPLANT...AND ANOTHER REASON TO REMEMBER THIS DAY 29 YEARS AGO.........

Our dinner out at Connolly's Irish Pub and Sports Grill on East Carefree Highway last night was wonderful. A very Irish menu was on offer, from our starter BBQ Guinness Meatballs, to my entree, Shepherd's Pie. I also enjoyed a bowl of French Onion Soup, not as good as Deborah McNamara's, but nice. Oliver had a house salad with Apricot Chicken and mashed potatoes and Jeremy selected the Pork Chop with seasonal vegetables. I brought enough Shepherd's Pie home for Sunday lunch. Sunday Dinner we are planning on BBQ-ing Spareribs, another of my favorites, just ask my former Folsom/Citrus Heights cook, Jane McGrath just how much...Looking at the calendar, it being September 27, means I and my CSUS Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity brothers have another reason to remember and commemorate today. This is our CHARTER DAY, or was September 27, 1980, when we became a fully chartered chapter at Sacramento State. This year, the 29th anniversary of that hallowed and hard worked for attainment is poignant, as just 4 months ago the chapter closed on the cusp of it's 30th year. I am honored and privileged to be the first recruit of the colony and the second initiate in the history of the chapter, Phi Pi Zeta 2, and am proud to have served for several years as the President, Vice President, Fraternity Educator, and Alumni Affairs Secretary, as well as an Executive Committee member of the young colony and active chapter at CSUS; and as the President and the Alumni Chancellor of the Superior California Alumni Association; and then while Pastor in Oroville, Alumni Chancellor of the former Chico State University active chapter.
I greet, salute, and remember, all my good brothers of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, in the greater Sacramento area and throughout the United States and Canada. From Tom MacKenzie, Jon Salinger, Kevin Stevens, Robin Blair, and the late, great, Bob Butcher, the six of us who were the Original Six Sacramento initiates; to J. Patrick McCarthy, Gary Vinson, Jon Doak, Bil Cinnamon, George W. Spasyk, S. George "Doc" Dirghalli, Willis Tate, Clay Myers; to Merv & Mike Carson, Curtis Richards, Larry Thill, Wade Haley, Mike Wilson, John Keyes, Mike Mugnaini, David Bugatto, Captain Brian Welch, my champion, so valiantly contending for the past nine years with ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease, and the awe inspiring Matt Cologna; and to all my Phi Pi Zeta brothers, in the honest friendships and shared experiences, in Zeta Alpha Chi. I say, let us always celebrate Our Charter, and all it took to achieve it and to maintain it over the past 32.5 years. Now that it is but a memory, may we keep its spirit and purposes alive in our hearts and interpersonal, fraternal experiences...Enough sentimentality from yours truly. As Brother Bob Towery, recently commented of moi, in response to one of my blog columns, "For an old softie, I am quite a toughie". I am not sure about that, but as you well know, dates, details, numbers, and anniversaries, I do tend to remember.........More to Come this Sunday after a good night's sleep.........Peace + Prayers, in Faith, Hope, + Love, Brother Father
Troy David Powers, Phi Pi 2.