No more Fort Washington show???

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Posted By: Mark Macrae

Ted...We've talked much about this in the past, but the Willow Grove shows of the 1980's were as good or better than the National, in the true heyday of the hobby. There was an abundance of great material circulating, and a great selection of personalities from the Eastern US that attended the show. The post show dinners (Bookbinders) and 76ers games in winter were always a lot of fun. First time attendees to the December show would initially chuckle when they saw me wearing shorts. It was only 25 degrees outside, but once you got inside it was 80, like a sauna.. The GW lodge, itself, had "charm", sort of like a homeless shelter. Charm being defined as a leaky roof over your teacup-saucer shaped mattress. If you were lucky you'd get a room with heat that worked. For the March & December shows, mine never worked. For May & September I'd get the room where the heat wouldn't shut off... When the GW lodge served the continental breakfast it was good the first few years, until (Seinfeld fans can relate) Poppy started getting sloppy..... Across the grass at the convention center the "Friday Night ballpark supper" started out ok. By the mid 80's, the hot dogs resembled a St Patrick's day Parade (jiggly & green). I think the only guy that liked them was the overweight, African American maintenance man that was frequently seen (at rainy shows) pushing around 30 gallon plastic garbage cans trying to contain most of the rainwater gushing in from the dozens of leaks in the ceiling. He probably received them as part of his compensation package, poor thing...If you ever set up at Willow Grove, you'd remember the 'generous' room behind the table. Even Teddy Z, at 5 foot five and 130 pounds dripping wet had a hard time manuevering back there. God forbid, if Lou Avon or Kit Young were set up on either side of you, you better bring food for a few days and a colastomy bag, because you weren't going anywhere....Ron Oser always had a great display, but I felt sorry for his location, right next to the legendary restrooms...I'll spare the masses here, but suffice it to say that Oser's customers usually wouldn't hang around too long talking with him. For those of you who have been to an Oakland Raiders game in the last five years, let just say it was like the men's room at halftime......Barry, not sure what happened to Wayne Miller...Great guy to deal with though......It was a memorable time for anyone who attended, and Ted, you're right its very easy to talk about at length Thankfully many things change for the better. I'm sure Schmeirer will find an appropriate new location, hopefully with less 'charm' that the GW Lodge.....