Featured Post

Charlie Campbell Tribute

  It has been a whirlwind few weeks. One  father's friends from high school passed away earlier and we made an expected trip down to Murrells Inlet for the celebration of life. They have kept in touch over the years. Charlie moved around a lot during his eighty plus year his roots remained n Allendale, NJ! He and his wife Bev were a fixture a t DeeDee and Anth ony's Fourth of July Parties. I   know their kids,John and Annie.Charlie also had to sons from a previous marriage and it was recently discovered he has another daughter. Charlie was the CEO of several companies, like Floor Shine shoes and Munsingwear, a golf clothing company.  The family moved around a lot from  Allendale,NJ to  Connecticut to Minnesota before finally  settling in Murrells Inlet SC, founding the Dead Dog Saloon, a fixture on the Murrells Inlet Marshwalk, he later built the Claw House next door. Ironically Charlie and Bev brought a second house in Cape May which meant I spen...
1 comment

Rochester Review

Well who says the shortest distance between to points is no fun? I tell you folks I loved every second of the convention despite the trips there and back.  I boarded Amtrak in Poughkeepsie headed to Rochester with the scanner in one hand and a cold soda in the other (yes I do drink stuff besides Coronas and Yuenglings) Everything was fine except  when we got to Buffalo and had to let a CSX train through. Although I did enjoy listening the the conductors jockey around one track! This  delayed me so I missed the parking meet completely .


The view from our hotel room
Originally when I arrived I was going to have the hotel shuttle pick me up but they were over booked so it was good old Rick Kretschmer  to the rescue, like always. He has been a savior on many occasions and we roomed together again in Rochester. Speaking of rooms, we had t he corner room  on the fifth floor and the view was absolutely amazing.

It was great seeing everyone, including Tom Smith, Tom and Susan Allen, Tom Baur and the rest of the plate collecting barflies at the hotel water. Everyone wanted to know how the trip went and I left no detail omitted. However I always ended the discussion, "....but it was worth it", although the juries out on whether my folks agree. Jeff Minard greeted me with a smile and just say h e was glad I made it. Before I knew it I had a cold Yuengling in my hand and called home to tell my concerned mother  I made it. She knew by the sound of my voice things didn't go quite as we planned, but was pleased to see I connected with Rick.

The first day of trading I found where Marco Tramelli and Dale  Bernecker's tables and  they graciously let me setup  my one box of plates up on one of their tables. We each took turns standing watch and talking. I enjoyed chatting with people as they stopped by and was even more thrilled to find I made a few sales in the process!! Everyone seemed to notice during the convention I took the scooter from our hotel over the sky way, parked it near what I now call "The New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania Compound" and roamed parts of the convention on foot which gave Gary Walker to place not one but TWO business cards/ stickers on the back of the seat!!. Yes Gary I had a very hard time peeling them off!!

More later
Justin Mattes ALPCA#6748

Location: Rochester, NY, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One Contact - Five Lighthouses--W9C

Back in the summer I wrote an entry in here about my Lighthouse phone contact with Bill,N8ET , so now I had to top that with a five lighthouse PSK contact in Wisconsin! I was orginally going to wait until I got the card like my other contacts but I think at this stage of the game you can take my word for it. This contact was with a husband and wife team also known as "Team Cheese"--WI9TC (I love the callsign). Like the contact with Bill, they were in the line of sight of five lighthouses located on the Wisconsin shores of Lake Michigan. As soon as I saw them on the BeaconBot (the e-mail reflector used to notify people of lighthouse activations-) I knew I had to take my best shot. There were tons of stations dying to get a contact. Well after some monitoring of the waterfall and waiting for a break in the QSO's, I dropped my call. Unfortunately I was getting overpowered a lot so I actually wound up waiting for quite awhile. Although I have to admit it was also fun just ...
More Posts to Mattes's Madness

Bob Dylan blows into town

Image
       For a few months there has buzz around Cape May NJ that Bob Dylan was coming to America's Oldest Seaside Resort. No he wasn't playing a concert at Convention Hall. For most of this weeks parts of 2024 Cape May,NJ was transformed into 1965 Newport, RI. A Complete Unknown is a new film about Dylan's conversion from acoustic  to electric guitar starring Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan is in production and the location scouting team decided that  Cape May today looked like Newport back in '65. Bob Dylan debuted  his hit song Like a Rolling Stone   at t he Newport Folk Festival. They even transformed Perry Street  into Belevedere Avenue. Shops along the Washington Mall were temporarily renamed to match shops up in Newport.  The Victorian Motel was baptized then Viking Motel for the film  Days prior I started seeing filming equipment  being transported into town.       Like most o f the town I was hopi...
More Posts to Mattes's Madness

2025 New Year's Note

 WELL here we are folks one quarter of the way into this century!! I have been thinking about writing this email since the beginning of December but of course I am a month late. I am happy to report the Mattes Family is healthy!  Chirs, Natalie, Zander and Quinn are busy as ever! Zander is now a sophomore and studying for his written test to get his driving permit! I have to double check that fact because it's so hard to believe. Quinn is doing well in eighth grade and is on a travelling soccer team which plays in tournaments all over the country. She has one coming up in Florida in  February that dad and I are thinking about going down for a few days to watch her. They BOTH are getting as tall as their uncle Jay which is very hard for him to accept! The family adopted three kittens which as a dog person even I admit they are cute!! We spent Christmas with them and got  to see the new Bob Dylan movie, partly filmed right here in Cape May. Unfortunately, I didn't get ...
More Posts to Mattes's Madness