Alan's Message summarized it nicely.  Jerry, Russ and Ralph did a great job
putting together an interesting day of tool related activities on Saturday.
Todd's metal tempering demo was utterly simple - just the thing to get
someone thinking about doing it for themselves.  He also brought along some
really nice plane's he'd made to show off.  And a son who displayed
promising toad catching skills on Sunday.  From the evidence of the work
brought back, Ralph's boxmaking workshop was a great success.  And Russ's
pattern mold-making demo nicely showed the basics of how patterns and cores
are used to make a mold.

I met and remet a number of people whose acquaintance I enjoyed.  There were
enough people that I won't list them since I'll screw up and leave someone
out if I try.

Allan did write the following:

>The locusts almost starved at the Kane County Flea Market. There were
>fewer vendors than normal, possibly due to the 100 degree heat the day
>before. Pickings were slim and only Mark managed to find any gloatable
>items. This lets Gil Chesbro off the hook, and this year's goat is now
>Mark, who managed to scoop the best finds from both the Kane County meet
>and the Sunday MWTCA meet by getting there before anyone. For the next
>twelve months we can enjoy progressively more outrageous stories about
>Mark's finds until next year's gathering, when a new goat will be
>chosen.

I suppose it would be good form to  list what all I found, though I've done
better on occassion, and I think that a number of the gloat's I've read here
over the years come to mind as much better finds.

Saturday:

A cheap  box'o'tools with a decent two patent #8C, several eggbeater drills,
files, rules, axes, and a trashed #7C.
A $10 miter jack which was really my find of the day.
several small machinist's tools
A Ohio #4 1/2 with the wrong knob that I noticed covering a hole in the bed
which I didn't. (bad move on my part)

Sunday:

A cheap Dosch Miter trimmer like Ralphs' that he nicely demonstrated
Saturday.  The cool thing about this thing is that it has adjustable stops
at 90 and 45 degrees as opposed to just at 90 degrees like my old Lion.
A very nice Disston 16 inch backsaw that I had to buy a Marsh  miter box  to
get.
A very cheap #604 with cracked rear handle.
A nice Yankee catalogue.
Odds and ends.

All of this stuff was attractively priced, but I think that the bottom line
here is that the tool show beat the flea market as a place to buy tools by a
good bit, even underpriced desireable items.  This strikes me as very much a
function of eBay sucking items away from the flea markets and also causing
those who remain to raise their prices because they saw something "just like
this" go for ....

In any case,  I really enjoyed the evening at Jerry's and the event Sunday
morning (though a 6 am starting time is early when you are staying an hour
away).  I'd like to thank the hosts and also the many galoots and cohorts
who contributed time, energy, food and conversation to a very nice event!

Mark