Hard to believe, but we're almost to Thanksgiving, and American tradition being what it is, that brings thoughts of food. So, for next week's meeting, JODI BURMESTER will introduce UW Communications Professor Dominique Brossard, speaking on "Genetically Modified Foods." This is an area of growth, both in importance and controversy, so we ought to learn a lot from this one. Tuesday, Nov. 23. We need all our active members at our meetings - make sure you get there!

Undaunted by the presence of an opera expert, OTTO FESTGE opened our last meeting by leading a respectable singing of "America." Not exactly the Anvil Chorus, but close enough. MELISSA ABBOTT, our soon-to-be FBI agent, gave the invocation.

Tailtwister-of-the-Month ALEX WONG tested our Lion publication knowledge with a quiz, which we all flunked. Your editor's table got one answer out of five, and fines were widespread and deserved. Of course, he had a couple of questions in there that most of us who don't read much past the cover couldn't answer, but one question involved the cover picture of the Wisconsin Lion, and we didn't even get that right. Examples: in how many languages is The Lion (International) published? (22) What three of those languages begin with the letter "F"? (French-we all got that, Finnish - a few got that, Flemish - huh?). And the cover of the Wisconsin Lion featured the District Governors-Elect carrying the Wisconsin banner in the International Convention parade. Guess we'd all better read our Lion publications a little more thoroughly. Other questions involved the dates of State Convention and future sites of the USA-Canada Forum (Illinois, Ohio and Michigan.) That last one is significant - the Forums are going to be relatively close to home for us, and they offer information that is highly useful in personal, business and Lion life.

ROSS ROYSTER looked around the room, noted our need for new members, and offered the names of some companies that used to be represented in our membership, in hopes that we had a contact there now. The idea is to visit the heads of businesses in the central city and point out to them the advantages in having someone from their firm in our Club. DAN STOUDT had put together some suggestions on what to say, and ROSS passed out copies. He has more if you'd like to polish your presentation a bit. You can point out the advantages of Lion membership, both in serving the community and in getting to know people from other companies and occupations. Think about contacting people you do business with.

President LINDA read a thank-you letter from UW Hospitals & Clinics for our donation, raised by last year's TailTwister DALE MUELLER, to the Burn Center. They appreciate our help, and DALE should feel good about that one.

PHIL INGWELL has tickets for the Madison-Monona Lioness Club raffle. Couldn't hear all the prizes, but fine jewelry was prominent on the list. $5.00 for one, $10.00 for three. Sound familiar? We had a plethora of PHILs at that moment - next one up was PHIL STOWITTS, who once again has "the last Bucky Book" to sell. The $35.00 price would be all profit to our Club. (ED, there it is!)

President LINDA announced that Rick Gordon, who was Head Fruit Cake for many years, has left the Club, but left at least some of his project info behind. We counted on revenue from this source for our service projects, so check with your customers from previous years and let LINDA know what you can sell. We'll get somebody to handle the order and distribution to members.

MARK LARSON was Program Host, and he introduced Anne Stanke, current Director of Madison Opera. She started with some of their 44 years of history, performing in such venues as the 1st Congregational Church, East, West and Central High Schools, the Park Motor Inn, Union Theater, Civic Center and now, gloriously, in the new Overture Center. Roland Johnson was the founder, and for many years Musical Director, and Anne started out as prompter and accompanist. Her interest in opera goes back many years, and she mentioned "Bittersweet", which your editor sang in as a grad student at UW. For Anne's sake, we're not saying when. But she was the accompanist for the chorus practices. She said Overture Hall was great for opera, and when she told about all of the things that went into the first performance, "Turandot", we could see why. 7 principals, 70 in the chorus, 23 in the children's chorus, 6 tumblers, 42 extras and 70 in the orchestra. Plus the stagehands, electricians, make-up artists, to a total of about 300 people. There were three lavish and complicated sets, and the first time they tried it it took an hour to go from Act I to Act II. By opening night, they had it down to 23 minutes for Act I- Act II and 19 minutes for Act II - Act III. Staging of this magnitude was not possible in Madison previously. They will present "The End of The Affair" in spring, Opera In The Park (free) in summer, and "Tosca" in November. Great music for all of us.