It's a week late, but I wanted to wait until I had some pictures
to show...

Russ Allen, Mark VanRoojen and I took a slightly different approach to
Galootapalooza this year. Rather than heading straight to Slavs, we
started out at the Kane County Flea market, which used to be the
official mosh pit of galootapalooza. I had not been in several years, so
we had a great time. The flea was a little smaller than in the past, but
there was a lot better stuff at it, and dealers were... well, dealing.

When we got there, we all bolted straight for the back field where all
of the new stuff is. Well, it appears that the back field of the Kane
Country fairgrounds is now a strip mall (just what Geneva needs--
ANOTHER strip mall!). That was the bad news, but the good news is we
were in the far corner of the market before just about anyone else, so
we started cruising. About the third dealer in, all three of us saw
the same thing-- a really nice Stickley-style rocker. Mark put his
hand on it claim ownership while we looked it over. We concluded it
was legit, and priced fairly, so a quick call to SWMBO later and it
had my name on it.

http://galootcentral.com/portal/index.php?option=com_copperminevis&Item-
id=2&place=thumbnails&album It had several old attempts at repairs, but
luckily nobody had done anything non-reversible. Should be a piece of
cake to fix up and restore.

After a couple of hours at the flea, we had a nice lunch and headed
downtown to Slav's. Most of the others had just left, but I did get to
meet Gary Maze. There was lots of great food, plenty of adult beverages,
and the usual great galoot camaraderie. There's nothing like a galoot
get-together...

Bright and early the next morning was the MWTCA meet. I got there about
45 minutes late, but nothing had really gotten rolling yet because of a
thunderstorm blowing through. About 1 minutes after I arrived folks
started opening up, and the show turned out to be great. I didn't buy
anything, but managed to sell a couple of things (including my nice old
1950's PowerKraft lathe to Gary Maze).

After everyone was sated with tools we went for a late breakfast,
highlighted by Mark VanRoojen's "Powdered Sugar Incident" as described
elsewhere.

By the time I got home on Sunday afternoon, I was exhausted but
happy. Another Galootapalooza come and gone, and I'm already waiting
for next year...

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