Smile When Addressing High Priest of Upbeat
“To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. . . . To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.” --From the Optimist creed
It was a beautiful, sunny day--a VERY nice day, really--and the chief Optimist in the whole world was explaining why he enjoyed being drafted and how he misses the Depression and loses no sleep over nuclear weapons.
Nothing disturbs the cheerful demeanor of James Attarian.
Fittingly enough.
Attarian, 60, a Woodland Hills real estate agent, took over this month as president of Optimist International, a men’s service and fraternal club with 157,500 members in 4,000 chapters throughout North America and the Caribbean.
High Priest of Upbeat
This makes him, in a way, the official high priest of the upbeat outlook.
Attarian appears to be up to the task.
He was explaining how, after classifying him 4-F during World War II, the government changed its mind and drafted him during the Korean War, pulling him off the fast promotion track at Sears to make him a private in the infantry at the age of 25.
“I was very fortunate to get drafted,” he said. “I loved it.” He beamed, smiling a smile that wrinkled all the way around his Mr. Clean bald head.
“I loved infantry training, the physical exercise, marching, playing war games. After a while, it became very enjoyable.
“I’d never been out of Los Angeles before,” he said. But in the Army “I got to travel, and I learned to live with a lot of people of the kind I would never have lived with before. You have to learn to live with people in the service. That gives you a new dimension.”
Stationed in Germany
Besides, “The war was going on in Korea and they stationed me in Germany.”
Attarian grew up in Los Angeles and worked from the age of 9, he said. During the Depression, he said, he would get home from his after-school job at 1 a.m. “and be up the next morning at 6.”
“Funny days,” he mused, “but nice days.”
Optimist is primarily a service club, dedicated to projects that help young people with problems--young criminals, handicapped children or those with with learning disabilities. Growth of Optimist membership has been about 6% a year for more than 10 years, “and may be double that this year,” Attarian said confidently.
Working With Blind Children
Southern California clubs support a home and school in Highland Park and a ranch for delinquent boys in San Bernardino, and sponsor an annual athletic meet for blind children from throughout the country.
Attarian’s home group, the 75-man Van Nuys Airport chapter--which meets for breakfast every Thursday at a restaurant at the airport--teaches blind children to water-ski at an annual picnic at Lake Castaic.
Optimists, who have a formal creed that urges them “to wear a cheerful countenance at all times,” try to show the way to a hopeful future for youths who otherwise have little reason for hope, Attarian said.
“Why do you think we have such a terrible suicide rate today?” he asked, not at all cheerfully.
“Because the kids look at the world and think there’s no hope.
“The media of all kinds portray a bastard world and a bastard society and they’re only portraying about 3% to 5% of society. They’re not talking about the 95% of society that’s real and functional.
“Some kid reads the newspaper and all he sees is that everybody in town is an s.o.b., that every politician is a crook, that every real estate broker needs to be suspected, every car salesman has to be a rotten person, every newspaper reporter has got to be far left of center.
“We’re trying to say there is a position that’s positive, and let’s start looking at it. And, even if you don’t want to recognize it, we’re still going to do our thing.”
Pleasant Surprises
Attarian does not accept the philosophy that it is better to expect the worst, because life then will be a series of pleasant surprises.
“If you expect the worst, that’s what you get,” he said. “If you dwell on pessimism, your unconscious mind will cause your conscious mind to perform in a negative fashion for you. You’ll make it come true.”
His deep religious faith provides him with a base for optimism, said Attarian, a Presbyterian who now attends an evangelical Christian church. Optimist International “is a non-religious organization, but not an amoral one,” he said. “Most of our members have a God consciousness of some sort, whether they’re Protestant, Catholic or Jew.”
No Worries
Between the Optimist creed, a happy home life and his religious faith, he says, he hasn’t a worry in the world.
AIDS?
“Well, I’m never going to have it.”
Earthquakes?
“I was born and raised with them. My in-laws live about half a mile from the San Andreas fault and, about twice a week, they get some kind of shaker. We go down there and catch things as they fall off the wall. What’s to be afraid of?”
Unemployment?
“It’s not going to happen to me or mine.”
Bankruptcy of his business?
“I’d go back to selling door-to-door. No problem.”
Members Get Along
Race relations?
“You ought to see the black members of our Optimist clubs, the Oriental members of our Optimist clubs, the Mexican members of our Optimist clubs, how well they get along with each other.”
Pressure from feminists forcing the club to admit women?
“That comes up all the time. We had a vote at our convention in Albuquerque last year and it went down in flaming defeat, 97% to 3%. I don’t worry about that happening, basically because our wives are against it happening.”
Nuclear weapons?
“They don’t bother me. Tomorrow morning I may be dead anyway. Whether I die that way or in my sleep or walking across the street or traveling the 150,000 miles I’m going to travel in the next nine or 10 months does not make too much difference to me. The Bible has told me where I’m going.”
Ever worry about becoming a pessimist?
“Never happen.”
What will the weather be tomorrow?
“Beautiful. Whether it rains or the shines, it’s going to be beautiful.”