Joseph Gordon Sr. is just more than two months away from his 100th birthday, and he was honored recently for his 70 years as an active member of the Rotary Club of Tacoma No. 8.
Gordon’s father was a founding member of the Tacoma law firm Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell, and Gordon Sr. keeps office hours there twice a week. He was Rotary 8 club president in 1942-1943 and still attends weekly club meetings.
The Tacoma icon also was honored for being the longest Rotarian still active in his club in all of Rotary International – “until proven otherwise,” his certificate reads.
He sat for an interview recently before the weekly Rotary luncheon at the Landmark Theater Convention Center in Tacoma.
What drew you to the club, and why have you stayed active for so many years?
I blame my father and mother for all my troubles. My father was an early member of Rotary club in the ’20s. I’m one year older than this club is. They started in 1910. My father was a member and sufficiently active to become president. My mother called me up one day at Stanford. … I wasn’t going to be a lawyer, I was going to be an electrician. … My mother calls me up and says, “You’ve got to come home, because your dad has a good practice in Tacoma and he’s got a bad heart and he needs you to take care” of the practice. It was a great disappointment to have to come back to Tacoma. But I did. And one of the first things he did was insist that I join Rotary Club. … My dad was set up to be president but because of his health he couldn’t do it. And five years later I took his place as president.
What were his reasons for wanting you to join?
It was so long ago that I’ve forgotten. But he got me in, and the Rotary club was an entirely different organization then. It was a real exclusive businessman’s club. Over the years it’s changed, particularly with the women coming in, to a much bigger club to more of a service club than the previous one that was largely business leaders. It was really geared to (employment) classifications. You could only get one member for each classification. When I was president it had 212 members. Now it has 407. Men and women.
What are some of the more memorable projects that the Rotary has done while you’ve been a member?
One of the projects when I was president was a dormitory for the Fort Lewis soldiers. They’d come to town on Saturday nights to celebrate and they had to have someplace to sleep. The USO would furnish them some entertainment, but the Rotary Club set up a dormitory down on Market Street and the Rotarians took turns staying up all night and policing the place. It was a very popular place then, and we’d get 50 to 100 servicemen.
Did you ever take a shift policing the dormitory?
Oh, yeah, I did a couple of nights.
What keeps you coming to the weekly meetings after all these years?
Well, I’ve got General MacArthur’s old philosophy: Don’t retire, just fade away. That’s what I’m trying to do.
I want to hear your perspective on how Tacoma has changed in your business lifetime.
I could talk for a week on this subject. I became the chairman of the Committee of 100 to revise the government of Tacoma and get the city manager system. Before that it was the city councilmen and a bunch of crooks. … The city is now altogether different. The city used to have streetcars. … I think (bringing them back) is a good idea. … When the mall opened up it took a whole lot of business away from downtown. And the city was having a hard time coping with that.
If you could give the city some advice, what would it be?
Well now, they’ve been on the ball and are doing pretty well, I think. The downtown association was very active for a while, and I think they can come back and do more. New development has all been south on Pacific Avenue, and the Convention Center is a big deal, but I think it’s going to have trouble because I think it charges too much and as a result isn’t going to be used.
What do you think about the speculation of Russell Investments moving to Seattle?
I think that’d be the worst tragedy we’d have in downtown Tacoma. It’d set Tacoma back quite a ways.
What’s your take on the national economy and the local economy?
We’re in deep trouble. … What’s ruined General Motors and all the other organizations including some of the local ones is the pension plans. They don’t have the money to pay these pensions, but they have the obligation, and they can’t compete. And now future generations will have to pick up the tab for all this, and the scheme doesn’t work. … I started my career in 1935 during that depression … and I think that’s actually a simpler depression than the one we’re going to have now. I’m afraid that we’re in for a long spell. That one lasted for about 10 years. This one is going to last longer. I don’t want to be a pessimist. It’s a sad situation.
What do you see for yourself, and your future?
I’ll fade away. I’m fading now. I keep office hours twice a week. (Today) I walked up here, the door was locked, and I had to sit in the cold for a while. I don’t like that.
You’ll have to get them to work on that.
Yes.
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546
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