This October, our Texas Chapter had its traditional annual fall wet meet at Longhorn Resort on Lake LBJ in Kingsland, Texas. Kudos to David Coffee, Sr. for the above cool collage poster! You can see all the photos of the meet at this link to the gallery: http://www.texaschapteraomci.com/gallery/lake-lbj-fall-meet-oct-17-20-2013/ (If you click on a photo in the gallery it blows up to full size).
A few members began rolling in on Thursday for a longer weekend, with most of the crowd arriving on Friday. Those that came on Thursday were treated with picture perfect weather and virtually no wind, so running the lake was a real treat. Louis Rothermel drove up late Friday afternoon accompanied by Tom Oncken and Gary Keeney. They stopped at Opie’s BBQ in Spicewood on their way to Kingsland and consumed a belly full of BBQ. Friday afternoon Joe McCauley’s wife Cornelia treated club members to some excellent home made apple pie that was darn good. Also Friday evening “Scott-Atwater” Al Smith, Al’s brother James, and Michael and Erin Worley along with many other members came up for the weekend event.
Friday evening, members broke into different groups eating at various restaurants in and around town. John and Cindy Slator along with Dennis and Sharon Schmitt went to a long standing excellent Kingsland eatery known as Alfredo’s Mexican Restaurant, which has great fish tacos along with all of the standard Tex-Mex fare. Ed Bachman, Peter Shultz, Bruce Miller, and Clinton Russell, along with yours truly, went to the Blue Bonnet Café in Marble Falls, a short twenty-minute drive from the resort. Blue Bonnet has been in business since 1929 serving up great diner food and scratch made pies with meringue topping a mile high. All are really good and we all left stuffed. Chip Rathbun, Joe McCauley and wives went to The Dock in Marble Falls. Joe said the seafood served is some of the best.
Friday evening after dinner, most of us sat around just talking about old times. Sitting in the rocking chairs in front of the cabins, Louis Rothermel and Tom Oncken shared great stories with David Coffey, Sr. and Jr., Clinton Russell, Peter Schultz and others about some of their greatest outboard finds in the last 20 years. We listened in amazement to some of the great acquisitions they had made and the characters involved.
The weather changed late Friday evening when a cold front blew in about midnight with some gusty winds and a little rain. We awoke Saturday morning to a blue bird sunny day with morning temp about 50 degrees. It was definitely jacket weather until all warmed up to the low 70’s by midday. It was a great day for old outboarding. John Slator put out a few outboard motors for sale along with a cadre of miscellaneous outboard parts. A mid 1955 Johnson 10HP was sold along with various other parts that exchanged hands.
Member John “Meatball” Murray brought 3 boats of which one was for sale and two to exhibit. The boat that ended being sold was a cool looking Power Cat with twin early 1960’s Mercury outboards. One of the exhibit boats was a rare FeatherCraft 1950’s Fire Fly racer that Meatball says he is going to restore and soon have in on the water.
Dennis Schmitt was first out on the water with his 8-foot Glen-L “Squirt” hand built racer style boat powered by an early 1950’s Mercury. Chip Rathbun then went on the water in his 1958 Corson with one on the best looking 1958 Johnson 50HP “FAT FIFTY” motors around. Both Dennis and Chip were racing around in circles like on a dirt track raceway oval.
John Slator motored around with his newly acquired RED 1952 Arkansas Traveler with Mark 58. This boat had a top-notch restoration with the best of new style items put on this older craft with rear cockpit steering.
Joe McCauley brought his race ready AllisonCraft powered by a Johnson Stinger 75HP. Joe’s “May Fly III” was pushing in the mid 60 MPH range up and down the lake way. Just the last few inches of the craft were touching the water.
Jerry Lindamood had one of the prettiest boats on the water with his beautiful wooden Glen-L Gentlemen Racer that he did one heck of a job building. The boat was most impressively powered by a beautifully restored sunset orange Mercury Mark 78. Jerry had acquired the motor in as-is condition from John “Meatball” Murray sometime in the past, and it looks and runs just as it did when it came from the factory.
George Gustafson ran his high-speed race style fiberglass rig powered by a serious horsepower newer competition V-6 outboard. This boat was loud and definitely fast. It was cool to see it make high-speed runs with an enormous “rooster tail” trailing behind it.
Dave Samstag ran his small racer hydroplane boat. His son, Doug, unfortunately ran into mechanical problems on both motors he brought to run on his hydroplane craft. Peter Shultz brought an aluminum boat to run a few different vintage outboards. Due to many of his motors sitting up for long periods, Peter ran into a little trouble keeping the motors running.
Stan Kremp, along with his son, John, and grandson, John Jr., came up for the day Saturday with his nicely restored 12 foot AlumaCraft R model powered by a Mark 25. The boat ran for a while and then kicked out for some reason. Eric and Gail Peterson ran around in their newer style Carlson powered by a Mercury 115 HP. Saturday afternoon, member Carleton Callahan came to the meet with a 1957 19-foot aluminum Lone Star cabin cruiser. It was a cool big old boat powered by a 1970’s Johnson 75 HP.
Saturday afternoon, a few of us went on a nice longer run down the east arm of Lake LBJ. Conditions were great for a nice cruise. I ran my 1959 AlumaCraft with 40HP Johnson along with passengers Clinton Russell and James Smith. Bruce Miller was in his newly acquired early 1960’s wooden Thomson that he picked up in Michigan and it pushed right through the water like a torpedo. Bruce took passengers Dave Samstag and Tom Oncken. Ed Bachman was running his beautifully restored Yellow Jacket with a 1957 Johnson Golden Javelin. What a great looking rig! Jack Stevens who came for the day from San Antonio hitched a boat ride with Ed on the Yellow Jacket.
Ed Slominski, with passenger Gary Keeney, ran his beautiful white Lyman powered by a Mercury Mark 59A that purred like a kitten. This boat and motor combination was a real looker. Along for this boat run were Dennis and Sharon Schmitt in their 8 foot Glen-L “Squirt” with Mercury outboard. 
Sharon definitely gets the boater award for the day because she made the entire 1+ hour long boat ride in the small 8 footer getting tossed around with boat wakes etc. Go Sharon! Both Dennis and Sharon had headsets over their ears to guard against the little loud Mercury. They actually looked like something from outer space coming down the lake.
We all enjoyed one great day on the lake. Saturday, we had 40+ members that attended the meet. Early Saturday evening, Chef Meatball, along with my assistance, cooked with two BBQ grills and served up grilled smoked sausage appetizers and a tasty dinner of grilled rib eye steaks, baked potatoes with all the fix-ins and a tossed salad. Cindy Slator topped off the meal with homemade cherry cobbler that was the best. No one left hungry.
Sunday morning was another beautiful day with a few members making some morning runs on the lake. By Noon Sunday, everybody had loaded up and was back on the road heading home. We all enjoyed a great weekend of boating and cannot wait for our spring Lake LBJ wet meet to be held next April 3-6th. We hope to see you there.
This article was submitted by TX Chapter President, Adam Finn.
