The Constantine Meet location is, the American Legion Post #223, Constantine, MI and is sponsored by MOB and GL Chapters. The American Legion Post is on the St. Joseph river and this year the water was high but we had no trouble boating.
The Western Reserve Chapter was well represented, we had a total of 15 members and 5 boats attending.
The meet started on Friday the 12th but we went up on Wed the 10th. When Bob and I pulled into the Plaza Motel the early birds were already there having a bull secession to solve the worlds problems, we had 6 people from Ohio, 3 people from Minnesota and 1 from California. After about hour we all went to eat and when we got back the BS secession started again and lasted for about another 2 hours. The next morning we went to the Park near the dam and had a mini meet, put the boats in the water, did a little swapping and had a very relaxing day.
Friday morning at 7:00 am we were in line to get our swap spaces and setup. I forgot to mention before the meet began I had already sold 4 motors and several small items. Most of Friday was spent buying and selling. Like most years vendors seem to bring the same type motors / parts to sell, this year there was not a great selection of 4 and 6 cylinder Mercurys but there were several green tank motors, and small motors seemed to be what most people were selling.
I was looking for Champion stuff and there wasn’t much, however John Reed had Champions and they ended up in my trailer. There were about 50 vendors selling treasures that ranged from small screws to a 25 hp OMC motor that was used by the army in Vietnam, this motor had to be 5 feet tall.
My score for the weekend was a Champion 16.5 hp motor and gas tank that was half of a Tandem 33, a prop for the16.5 motor (from a different vendor), a Carter Carb for a Mercury 20H and a real nice model boat and controller from Traxxas. Also a Champion 5.5hp parts motor.
Friday night Bob, Jerry and I didn’t stay for the free Hog Roast instead we went to Three Rivers for dinner which was a fish buffet, it had 4 kinds of fish, fried clams and butterflied shrimp, I ate way too much. Then it was back to the motel for another BS secession, we had several new people one of them was Dave Null, I think the total number in the secession was 15, it was fun.
On Saturday they had the talks and demonstration, I missed the talk on paint and the talk on testing magneto ignition coils, but I did make Jay Millers talk on water slide decals and Jay Walls talk on gas tank dent removal. Several of our members Saturday afternoon decided to take the 6 mile trip up the St. Josephs river to Three Rivers, a very relaxing cruise. The auction started at 5;00 pm, we didn’t go as we were so tired from all the fun that we packed up and called it a weekend. Back at the motel we had our last BS secession, said good by to our new friends and Sunday morning Bob and I started the 51/2 hr trip home.
Mike Seachrist