Because so many tackle companies are just a couple, perhaps one or two employees, even back during the 70s there were a few wives at the trade shows. One year, 1980 or '81, one of the bait companies had a two-story booth and rather scantily-clad young ladies offering to help write orders. Rumor was that those who ordered a lot could retire to one of the upstairs rooms with a lady. The "ladies" only lasted one day before multiple complaints ended the bait company's program.

I also remember a national show for the trade in Las Vegas. I was good friends with a fellow, same last name but no relation, who sold advertising for an east coast magazine, while I sold ads for west coast magazines. The first day of the show, I said that I had been surprised to be offered a list of, ahem, entertainments by the bellhop while the elevator was taking us up to my floor, that I had cut him off as soon as he began to list various combos of people. My counterpart was disappointed to hear that I had cut the fellow's list short, because he was still wondering how some of the combos would work. <g> That kind of behavior, however, was totally apart from the show itself. Personally, I thought the saddest thing to view was little old ladies in wheelchairs with oxygen tanks pulling the levers of the one-armed bandits adjacent the hotel restaurant (it was just after the first of the month).

I need to be careful, too, about saying "old" as I just delivered some of the bread I picked up yesterday (almost 500 loaves) for folks here who can use it. I realized, while delivering to a residence for those over 55, that lots of the ladies there are probably younger than I am, even though they appear to be older, much older in some cases. I'm glad that I can still hustle hundreds of loaves of bread off stacks of trays, into totes, and the totes into the van we use...every week. The trip involves 220 miles, a minimum of four hours driving plus at least an hour, sometimes more, to load. Then, the next day, I pack most of the bread into freezers and deliver some around town. It's nice to be able to help those who really need a hand up, even though some will always have a hand out, can't be helped to a better way of living. The main program I volunteer for is Backpack for Kids, which during ordinary times provides food for school kids who have no permanent address, i.e., are essentially homeless. This week, we had far more than we needed as the school dist. is providing packaged meals via bus routes, so we donated almost 200 loaves to the Food Share program for the county, 40 miles south, as they had no bread whatsoever. These are crazy times, with almost no ability for any of us to plan anything, but we're making do.