Winter Chapter Meeting
Knoxville, Tennessee
21 - 23 January 2005
The fierce winter storm, which was predicted by all the major and minor news agencies in and around Knoxville and the whole Eastern Seaboard as far north as Canada and as far south as Cuba, never materialized. But the onslaught of members from Chapter 33 started their descent upon this sleepy village at precisely 1200 hours, 21 January 2005. Knoxville would never be the same again.
And let the fun and games begin...
Knoxville is perfectly situated to host a chapter meeting. It lies in the convergence of Interstates 75 (north/south), 40 (east/west) and 81 (north and south). Our Chapter is spread from Ohio in the north to Florida in the south, from North Carolina in the east to Alabama in the west. We even have a hearty soul as far away as Fairbanks, Alaska but we don't see him too often. It's difficult to attend meetings when there ain't no snow. It's hard on the dogs, you see, to pull the sled over bare ground. However, there for a while we thought he just might be able to mush his way all the way to the Knoxville area.
The troops and their ladies moved into the Signature Inn on Friday. The hospitality room was well stocked with the now famous Tennessee Tea and Crumpets and, as the bottles were popped, stories of those long-ago by-gone days started floating about the room. The day wore into night and the Tennessee Tea flowed freely and the Crumpets disappeared. Slowly but surely the troops and their ladies disappeared into the depths of the motel. Finally the only person left standing at 0230 in the AM was Bobby Burke. He looked about, shrugged his shoulders, tipped the last of the Tea and staggered, hopefully, to his room...and the first day of the Chapter Meeting came to an end...and it was good.
Saturday morning dawned early. The sky was overcast and the mercury hit the really cold mark. A fine mist preceded the rain and it looked as if our member from Fairbanks, Alaska just might be able to tie his dog sled up in front of the motel. The ladies made their way to the outlaying area known the world over as Dolly World. This extravaganza has outlet stores for miles and miles and miles. According to some of the Power Shoppers in our midst, you could shop there for a year and never hit the same store twice. I think this is stretching it a little. I think you could hit the same store twice in 4-5 months.
And our Alaskan member never made it to Knoxville...
Our Chapter meeting commenced at exactly 1400 hours. It was supposed to end at exactly 1500 but due to the abundance of subjects to cover we didn't get out of there until close to 1700 hours. We did manage to elect our next slate of chapter officers...and since there was only one person running for each office they were elected by acclamation. I won't mention the names at this point. That is an honor our departing president, Art McRae, will have in the near future. We also managed to decide where and when to hold our next chapter meeting. Bob and Judy Hines will give the honors in March. The meeting will be held in Smithfield, NC.
At 1800 hours we motorcaded to the outskirts of Knoxville to a small shopping mall. There, nestled between two large stores and what looked to be a hole in the wall, was the Linderhof. According to the whole of the Knoxville Team and their ladies, this was the best German Restaurant in the all of the US of A. I can't vouch for the whole of the US of A, but it did have some really good German beer and fixings.
The last event of the evening was the raffle. Bobby, one of the hosts of the raffle, wanted to liven things up a bit so he decided to change the modus operandi that is normally associated with a raffle. The tickets would be drawn from the jar as usual. The unusual aspect of this raffle though was two tickets would be drawn and these would be Losing Tickets . One ticket would then be drawn which would be a winning ticket. Sounds simple enough except this new modus operandi wasn't fully explained to the audience. It did liven up the raffle a bit. The holders of the first two tickets drawn were crawling over the tables and chairs, ready to do bodily harm to Bobby (and would have if it wasn't for the quick intervention by their husbands). From that point on, however, cooler heads prevailed and our raffle ended on a high note...the holder of the last ticket drawn for the evening, had his/her/their hotel room paid for by the Chapter. And it did add about $325 to our Chapter Coffers.
Sunday morning came too fast. The weekend was over. The sun was out, the sky was clear and the weather was getting warmer (well warmer is a relative word. It was warmer than yesterday). We had breakfast in the breakfast area and said our good-byes, adios's and anything else one might say to someone they got a little tipsy with the night before. Bobby had survived the raffle from Saturday night but didn't look all that good. He probably closed up the hospitality room and now couldn't find anything stronger than coffee.
And so it was that the troops and their ladies left the sleepy little town of Knoxville, Tennessee. Come 18 - 20 March 2005, they will all gather once again in the sleepy little town of Smithfield, North Carolina...see y'all there!
If you want to see if the Candid Camera guy caught you in an uncompromising pose, you can click on the link below
