Another whiz-bang holding of this oldest tradition in our club. This year, over 120 Corinthian men and their guests took part in the merriment. It began (as always) with the traditional spaghetti feed Friday evening for the cooks and head team of waiters, 12 men washed down Herb Rodricks’ excellent rendition with several bottles of fine red wine courtesy of La Playa Vineyards. We discussed plans and the schedule of this year’s C&W event. With so many attending, execution was critical.

Saturday began well and ended well as the men all did their jobs in fine Corinthian spirit. There were so many cigars that you would have thought every man’s wife had had a baby! Believe it or not ladies, it appeared that imbibing was kept to moderate levels throughout the whole day and evening. The standard for the whole event is to create an event that a man could bring his father, grandfather or adult son to - and we adhered to that. In other words, good clean fun.

It would be impossible in this space to give credit to everyone who worked hard, but one and all, they did a great job. Charlie White as Chairman gave an excellent account of some early C&W history, Jack Cooper was his masterful and funniest best as our Master of Ceremonies and our Oldest Working member was again Milt Stannard, with special mention to Steve Parodi. Special recognition also goes to Will Deady, Head Barkeep and Herb Rodricks, Head Cook and Cliff Donoho, Head Waiter.

To begin, Dick Cole led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and “God Bless America” and eight bells were said for our newly departed friends. A special tribute was given for Russ Schneider with some funny stories. Then we got down to chow and Jack’s jokes – which is like having whipped cream and berries on your tapioca! The best! The ghost of the Corinthian bear appeared sometime during dinner being chased by the ghost of a Chef with a cleaver. I tried two jokes and bombed, my best one was “Did you guys hear about the skeleton who goes into a bar and orders a beer and a mop?” I don’t think they got it. Anyway, they didn’t laugh. And I was trying to be funny! That led to the introduction of a man who really was funny, comedian Bobby Slayton who had them holding their sides! A few men stayed to the wee hours but for most, the evening ended up soon after and the 115th Annual Cooks and Waiters Dinner passed smiling its way into the history books.