his
new job. Before he was done
he was wearing a Wisconsin shirt, skiing bibs and skiing goggles.(What else would you expect someone to do
to impress a bunch of village idiots!).I felt that he is truly committed to village collecting and he
brings a great amount of business savvy to the position. He will need both to make collectors happy! Good luck Steve, we are with you! The banquet of course included a certain amount of door prizes.(For those who are keeping track, Wanda did not win here
either!).
After dinner we had a big surprise. Members of the Dallas area clubs took us on a trip down “Route 56”.Each of the stops was great fun. One of them was in my home town; a stop at Wrigley Field complete with baseball caps for everyone and of course the peanut vendor throwing out bags of peanuts. We also made a stop at the Rock and Roll Diner complete with dancing. A group of professional dancers entertained and then the audience got into it. (Melinda does a mean twist!) We stopped at the Hershey Chocolate Factory where the chocolate maker welcomed us for a tour. Each stopped featured not only some entertainment and audience participation but also a door prize of the village piece represented at the stop. Many thanks to the wonderful folks involved in the entertainment; it was really a cut above. The evening was not over yet. We had a live auction by a real Texas auctioneer and of course room hopping. Wanda and I did hold back somewhat knowing that we did not have unlimited space in our luggage but we did manage to include some choice items!
Of course no gathering would be complete without a display contest. I have included a few pictures in this article. Each time I go I am amazed by the creativity of the collectors across the country.You may think that this should be the end of the story but on Sunday morning we had even bigger surprises in store for all of us. We all became winners! Yes, Wanda (believe