This picture from our Dayton 2009 trip is a reminder of everything we will do on Thursday so we can have a good time for the next 3 days.

As time permits I will update this page, possibly from the fleamarket during Hamvention. If you all will just cooperate and come early and buy all of my stuff I will have plenty of time to update the website. Otherwise I will be forced to do my best to make you understand how badly you need to have much of the junk items really cool stuff that I brought to sell so that I can go buy the stuff other people brought to sell.

Well, thanks to Facebook I really haven't added much to this site since hamvention started., but this is worth posting. We have determined that this guy was our new petty annoyance and thanks to him we enjoyed some of the best laughs that we had all weekend (be quiet he doesn't know we were laughing at him).

For the second year in a row Larry Apple N8MYQ took it upon himself to remove our custom made vinyl banner. He claimed that he found it offensive, of course we watched as he walked away and received money from someone else. I can't say for sure if someone paid him or if that person was trying to tip him as I suppose there are more narrow minded people with a warped sense of what is right and wrong than just one attending Hamvention.

Because of our experience last year and getting an appology from the fleamarket chairperson, we refused to remove our banner when Larry, who admitted he was acting on his own decided that he was going to take it down.

Well apparently we are such a rough looking bunch that Larry was in fear and called the Police to the site and proceeded to stand in the way of our booth and had to be asked to move and stop blocking people from coming to our tables.

Well, the poor officers showed up and took a look at the banner, and wanted to know what the problem with it was. Keep in mind the police can and will take action against people who are in fact breaking the law, they are not forced to take action agianst people over Hamvention's actions. The policemen indicated that they didn't see anything wrong. Larry however said he found our banner offensive.

If you see Larry please feel free to ask him if he is proud of himself. Apparently he is quite proud of himself and somehow thinks that he is going to ruin our time at Dayton. Quite the contrary, we are not that way. As a matter of fact after a short conversation with the police we offered them a couple of strippers for the rest of the weekend ( The refused of course as they were on duty and couldn't accept gifts). So, the joke is on Larry Apple, thanks to him we enjoyed a number of laughs that would not have been possible without his silly antics. Maybe he was mad and decided to abuse his temporary power as a security something or other. Maybe I should have offered him a free hat.

You will notice that I had to do a little modification to one photo. The two officers need not be identified, and the third person was an innocent bystander. Larry on the other hand willfully took personal property with no legal right. That is called theft.... Personally I would prefer to deal with the people at Hamvention and have them take care of this rather than to have to charge Larry with theft of items valued at more than $100.

As much as I would like to leave this story as it was on Saturday, I think it is only fair to update this post with the outcome of the whole saga.

I continued making phone calls throughout Saturday afternoon and again Sunday morning starting at 8:05 am. I did get a call back from one of the comitee chair persons who said she was suprised that I had not gotten resolution on this issue. I waited until 11:00am with the show due to end at noon I started to be a bit more aggressive. One of the other security teams came by the booth so I asked them to have the police respond to our booth (The city of Trottwood and County of Montgomery both have a police presence at this event and we do appreciate them). What the security peoople don't realise is that we can listen to them. Keep in mind this is the Hamvention security volunteers, not the HARA security officers or the local or county police or their volunteers. And it was very apparent to me what was going to happen.

When the policemen showed up, they had our banner with them, and one of the oficers who was there was in fact one of the men who watched Larry take our banner ( keep in mind the oficer was not bound to issue a citation to Larry as I did not file a complaint). In talking to the oficer I told him that I would prefer not to accept the banner from him, as I had asked that Larry personally return it and appologize. I also told the officer if Larry chose not to do this before we were packed up and done with the show, that I would like to press charges of theft. I also told him I was sorry that he was in the middle of this and that if there was not an immediate action from Hamvention and/or Larry to rectify this that I would simply place a complaint so he could do his job.

About 15 minutes later, Larry Apple showed up on a Golf Cart followed by police oficers. Larry handed me the banner but failed to actually appologise verbally. So, I asked him if he understood why I insisted that he bring the banner back, and if he understood that our banner was not in violation of any rules, ordinances or any part of the agreement that we have with the Hamvention folks, and that we have been flying that banner for several years without a problem. He stated "yes" acknowloging that he did understand. He also asked for a receipt that he had returned it, and I provided his receipt that he had given me indicating the banner had been returned. He also then asked if I would not bring the banner next year. I asked him "why would I not bring our banner?". I told him about the number of people who look for us, and about the many, many people who have come to know us as friends because we use an acronym that we came upon by accident as an ice breaker, and that it had already been approved by Hamvention, and no, I would not be leaving it at home, it would be coming along next year and so on until all of us were too old to hang it up and there were no young people who were willing to carry on the tradition.

All in all I thought it only fair to continue this story since Larry "manned up" and returned the banner. I thought about removing it completely but thought rather than that I would just simply tell the rest of the story for a couple of reasons. First, Larry never actually made an apology to anyone. I also think he needs to understand that it is not aboout what he thinks about it, or what any one person has to say. Larry violated the law, and I'm pretty sure he violated our agreement with Hamvention by his actions. He also wasted a day and a half of my time making it so I couldn't leave our booth and see and talk to other people. He may have also hurt our sales, and other peoples sales as well since I was not able to walk around as much and see what other people had to sell. That is why I decided that this story must remain here and that I should take the time to finish it.... or is it finished? I guess we will find out next year.

We would like to thank the Trottwood and Montgomery County police who have several oficers on duty and on the premises of Hara Arena during Hamvention. These men acted professionally and kept a great attitude while enduring this political battle (or at least that is what it was until one party decided to break the law). I wish that I was able to identify them by using their names here, but they asked us not to use their names or pictures. Gentelmen, if you ever read this we have nothing to say but good things about your conduct and willingness to help us clean up this petty mess of crap, and know that at least some of us who attend this event each year appreciate your presence. I also understand that you were on duty at the time and could not accept our gift of appreciation, but if you come back sometime when you are not on duty we will be glad to give you a pair of our strippers, they are handy to have around the workbench.