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----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Lais"
To: "Robin R. Preston"
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 11:25 PM
Subject:  Found in the wild
-----------------------------

Robin,

My wife Mitzi & I were attending a conference at Purdue. It was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Northern Nut Growers Association. Lots of cool stuff about chestnut blight, butternut decline and the exciting new disease of eastern black walnut charmingly named “thousand canker disease.” The conference ends on Thursday, but we tore ourselves away Wednesday at noon and started driving home with a detour through Iowa. The GPS was set and Mitz remembered the “minimize freeways” setting. Hey, we might find shot glass or a butter dish – but that’s another story.

We found a dumpy antique store in some nameless Indiana town. In and gone in less than five minutes. Then we stumbled on the Clinton Antique Mall in Clinton, IL. Huge, well lit, two charming ladies in front and lots of upright locked glass cases. Mitz headed right, so I went left. I always waste time in looking for valuable treasures in the case under the cash register and strain my eyes trying to find the hidden shots in the locked cases. I had found two unexciting text glasses. One was an ASHTON and the other was Hof Brau. Neither glass was in a pre-pro db. Neither was in a case. I went out to the parking lot, fired up my laptop and checked.

When I ran into Mitz she said she had found some shots for me. This is new. She never used to look for my stuff. We walked back and she couldn’t remember where they were. She hadn’t told me one was a perfect enamel. We almost left. The road was calling. Finally, she remembered there were 8 butter dishes she did not like on the bottom shelf. [After 30 years of marriage she agreed I could have soft butter, but it had to be covered by old butter dishes of her choosing. Did I mention the soft butter concession only came after I stopped eating bread? Not that I’m bitter or anything ;-)] We found the butter dishes we didn’t want and there it was out in the open an OLD SETTLER’S CLUB in enamel glory. $22.50 FIRM! So I put it on a credit card to get the miles.

Joe