Well, it was a really nice show put on by the Penns Woods West TU Chapter in Pittsburgh yesterday. Ohiotuber (Mike) drove so I was held captive both ways for the ride in the "Tubermobile," following a huge breakfast at o-by-God-early in the morning. Boy, can that guy eat! :shock: I'm almost twice his size but Mikey ate twice as much as I did, then kept looking at the toast scraps and five potato shreds left on my plate. I forgot what his breakfst special was called, but they delivered it to the table in a 1.5 gallon galvanized pail, and there were no prisoners left behind.
The show had all the usual suspects from the area, including Hook & Hackle (FAOL Sponsor) who are now based outside of Pittsburgh. Got to meet Ron and his staff, and picked up a $60 fly line for $20 (show special). Really nice folks who work very hard to provide good quality at fair prices. They had people packed around their booth all day long.
It was really nice to see a large contingent of kids who were affilitated with Family Tyes ( http://familytyes.com/ ). My FFF Club is going to start working with this organization in the near future, and I was able to get a picture with some of the kids who are mentoring other kids in this effort. Check out their website if you think you would like to do something to help kids. These kids are really good fly tyers and you should see some of the rods they've built as well. The kids built and donated two rods that TU used in their fundraiser raffle, and they were very well done.
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This was my first field trip with Mikey and his longtime friend Paul. Mike is a great guy who has a good sense of humor. It really showed when we left the show to get some lunch at a local eatery, and were faced with a bit of a dilemma. You see, we all hail from the land of Orange and Brown (Cleveland Browns fans), and we found ourselves displaced in the land of:
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So, did we act like visitors should when in the camp of the enemy? Noooooo! First thing Paul did was to ask the waitress if she could bring us something in Brown & Orange to replace the black & gold pom-poms. This is NOT something strangers should say BEFORE their food order goes into the kitchen, but it was done and now we had to try to get out of that joint in one piece.
We got our food, but were pretty much ignored the rest of ourtime while the locals watched a Black & Gold hockey game on the tube while sucking down Iron City Lagers and watching us from their bar stools. I finished my sandwich and then "Lunch Hooks Flannigan" kicked into gear eyeing the remaining french fries on the table.
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Once the food fest was over we ambled back to the show so Mike could continue to work his "bucket raffle scheme" with his friend Paul. Paul would send telepathic messages over the ticket bucket of the item Mike wanted to win, and then Mike would strategically toss his ticket into the bucket in hopes of winning said item. They spent a lot of time putting the "WAMMY' on the bucket for the pontoon boat and tossing tickets into the "corners" of the round pail.
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At the end of the day we managed to get out of Pittsburgh without being beaten up, and sans the pontoon boat and other prizes as well. We laughed once we crossed the border back into Ohio, and made all the expected remarks about the Iron City crowd we left behind. I fell asleep in the front seat of the Jeep, and life was good once again.
Thanks for the fun trip, Mike. Sure wish you were going with me to Warren Michigan for the show this weekend. We could try to get thrown out of that town as well. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Joe
