Coffey’s Meet on Lake Conroe 2/1/14
David Coffey Sr. hosted a great meet that was thoroughly enjoyed by all members attending on Saturday, Feb. 1st. See all the photo coverage at our gallery for the meet: http://www.texaschapteraomci.com/?p=2786 . This wet meet was held at Stowaway Marina on Lake Conroe. The marina was tucked into a nice park setting with tall east Texas pine trees, quiet protected water, a wide boat ramp and a large covered pavilion where we all met. This is an annual meet that David Coffey has graciously held in celebration of his son and David Coffey Jr’s birthday. The meet was well attended with the weather holding out providing us with overcast skies and 75-degree warmth, which is pretty darn good for February.
John Slator showed up with a great looking restored 14ft Arkansas Traveler w/ Mark 58 that was a real looker. The big birthday surprise was that David Coffey Sr. had secretly purchased the Arkansas Traveler from John for one heck of a surprise birthday gift for his son. While admiring the restored rig, David Sr. casually mentioned to David Jr. that the boat was a birthday gift to him. Wow!! It took a little while for it to sink in that the beautiful rig was actually his and David Jr. became incredibly happy sporting an ear-to-ear smile. It was great to witness such a nice thing.
Intending to run on the lake, David Jr. had already launched his own 1955 Feather Craft with a 12HP Sea King. The Feather Craft was certainly a nice boat, but the restored new rig was definitely top shelf in comparison.
Ed Bachman came with his beautiful Yellow Jacket W/Johnson Golden Javelin 35HP, Bruce Miller had his 1963 Thompson w/ 1980 Johnson 40HP. Ed Slominski brought his great looking Lyman w/Mercury Mark 58. The guys made several runs with these boats offering rides as a treat while enjoying the warm weather conditions and relatively smooth water conditions. Bruce Miller had many of his family members also in attendance. Jeff Workman attended with his young son John sporting one of our club’s TAOMCI T-shirts. Jeff’s foot was in a large cast after seriously hurting his toe back at the end of the year and recovering slowly from foot surgery. Other members enjoying the meet were Clinton Russell, yours truly, Peter Shultz, Gary Keeney, John Graf, Dan Peoples and Tony Robinson along with his girlfriend. Tony brought his Dad who was visiting from Michigan who himself is also an avid antique outboard motor collector. I believe we are just a little bit warmer than the cold country up north.
At most of our meets, long time member John Slator makes things interesting as he shows up with a lot of outboard ‘stuff’ for sale. This Saturday was no different with John having in his pickup truck a really nice original 1957 Johnson 15HP that Joe McCauley purchased, a super nice 1955 Johnson 10HP all original that went home with John Platou who is completing his collection of the entire 1955 Johnson series. There was also a nice – with no dents in the cowling- 1953 green Mercury Mark 7 (7.5HP) that is still available. John also had some Penn and Sears’ vintage fishing reels in like new condition. Peter Shultz picked up one of the larger reels.
We served a great mid-day lunch of hot dogs with all the fix-ins, chili, chips and potato salad – all graciously provided by the Coffeys. All was very tasty and enjoyed by all. To cap it off, we sang happy birthday to David Jr. and topped off that sweet note with the delicious cake.
As earlier communicated to all members, long time member Bruce Bratton passed away last week. Bruce was well liked by all of our members and it was David Coffey’s idea to have a club memorial in remembrance of Bruce at the meet. After our lunch, David Sr. spoke to everyone about how much Bruce meant to him and David Jr. and that he would be surely missed. I had the opportunity to share several written tributes from some of our members relaying their sincere feelings for Bruce and how he had touched their lives. John Graf was close to Bruce and shared a good deal of information that most of us did not know about Bruce. Bruce unfortunately had to go thru a lot of turmoil in his life and thru it all he was always there for his family. He seemed a quiet individual but once you got him going, you could appreciate his wealth of motor knowledge and if you asked something of him he was always there to help. We will all definitely miss Bruce Bratton and know that he is at peace.
Article submitted by Adam Finn
