The Manteca, CA, Bulletin
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/main.asp?SectionID=28&SubSectionID=58&ArticleID=58402&TM=17786.82
Pancakes, Kiwanis style, drew hundreds to the club’s annual July 4 breakfast Friday morning at Dave and Sylvia's Restaurant on North Main Street.
While the crowd was double that of last year, there was a pall of sadness among Kiwanis members over the serious boating accident involving breakfast chairman and Manteca deputy fire marshal Marvin Mears on Wednesday night in the San Joaquin Delta.
Although Mears was seriously injured and is currently in an ICU unit at U.C. Davis, he was able to write out notes about the breakfast and have them sent to his silent co-chairman in the breakfast planning effort, Julie Rhodes. He sent her text messages as well.
Mears was concerned they didn’t have enough cooking oil or Pam to spray on the cooking grills of the stoves. Rhodes said she was able to make contact with Mears’ nurse who let him know his breakfast was a huge success.
The tables in the front patio area of the restaurant were filled, as were the indoor booths—some with large Manteca families like the Aldo and Mabel Brocchini’s group who were all able to sit together.
The Manteca (Noon) Kiwanis Club has been hosting the holiday breakfast since about 1962. It was first held at the site of the once popular Ed’s Patio and in later years at El Rancho Mobile Home Park—both locations owned by charter member Antone Raymus.
Veteran Kiwanian *** Prada remembered those early breakfast that were held on properties owned by real estate developer Antone Raymus, who was a faithful member of the club.
Prada said that immediately after many of those July 4 events some 45 years ago, members would clean up and then retire to the clubhouse where they would spend the afternoon playing poker.
That was not the case this year as many Kiwanians were also volunteering in the club’s fireworks booth on the corner of Louise and Main streets. Business had been very slow this year until Friday morning after the parade, when they said it picked up dramatically.
Prada said they even came up with a photograph of the late pharmacist Ray Honodel flipping pancakes in the early years. Kiwanis continues to use the proceeds from the breakfast to make things better for people in the community, he said.
Kiwanis gave out some $3,500 in scholarships this year partly as a result of their 2007 pancake breakfast.
The club also continues to support CAPS, founded more than 40 years ago, that has evolved into Modesto serving more than 300 handicapped adults in the region along with many other contributions when they see the need.
The breakfast line seemed endless for working club members who kept turning out their pancakes and scrambled eggs beginning with the early risers.
Several firemen from Station 3 on Louise Avenue gave up their planned breakfast burritos at their firehouse and stood in line for the Kiwanis feed. They included Captain Kyle Shipherd, coming to Manteca 10 years ago from Walnut Creek; Christopher Giuliacci, a relatively new face in the department coming to Manteca from Menlo Park; and engineer Jeff Dennis, four years on the department from Redding. With them was assistant chief Randy May.
With plates in hand and the firemen ready to get their pancakes off the grill, a call sounded on their portable radios about a natural gas leak—but luckily it was on Wawona—out of their district.
Greeting their guests at the grills on a rotation basis was Jim Stone and Steffany, a Kiwin, and recent high school graduate who will be attending San Francisco State in the fall partially on a Kiwanis scholarship.
Stone has been a member of the Manteca Kiwanis Club for only six years, but they immediately signed him up as a cook when he arrived. Stone said that’s what he did in his former club in Rollo, MO. He had gone to a Manteca Kiwanis pancake breakfast at the urging of a neighbor four years ago “and the first thing I knew I was cooking pancakes,” he said.
There were many familiar faces at the breakfast including longtime Manteca photographer Dale Johnson and his wife, Pat. They were sitting with neighbors Ray and Carol Clark who play pinochle together every Friday night.
“It’s our card night every other Friday,” Carol said. “We host a dinner at our house and then play cards. Dale and I are almost always victorious,” she laughed.
Leo DeGroot was kicking back from his busy schedule having breakfast with his wife Evelyn. He has been on the go developing his “North of Main Marketplace” in the 300 block of North Main Street with 13,000 square feet of space for 10 retail shops. The response for renters has been good, he added.
DeGroots haven’t missed too many July 4 breakfasts
Leo and Evelyn have been getting up at 6 and coming to the breakfast since it first started, they said. Leo said he has been so busy he actually forgot it was the Fourth until Thursday.
Robert Phillips and his wife, Jean, have been in Manteca 43 years and haven’t missed many Kiwanis breakfasts over the years. They would come with their four children and then go home with the kids and barbecue. But that’s all gone now, they said.
Retired for 10 years, Phillips plays and coaches an adult, over 55, soccer team, The Stockton Rangers. He was actually one of the organizing and charter members back in 1974.
Three-year-old Becca Thomson was sitting with her grandparents Paula and Jack Thomson at their table eating breakfast and telling about her big catch. She had gone fishing with her grandfather at Clark’s Fork—and her fish: “it was this big!”
Paula said they would definitely be going to see the parade down Main Street. “For 20 years we’ve sat in the same spot in front of the old Chicken Bowl restaurant,” she said. That was a favorite location to see the parade, especially for their late son Michael.
Longtime Manteca husband and wife educators Dino and Sharon Cunial gave up their usual oatmeal breakfast at home for what they said was a very good breakfast feed with the Kiwanis. They, too, enjoyed meeting countless members of the community they had known over the years.
Posted
Jul 07 2008, 03:00 PM
by
Chris Hayworth