The Albert K. Snell Memorial Houston Swap Meet – 25th Historical Year

 By Tom Oncken

When we speak of our annual Houston swap meet, the name to remember is Louis Rothermel.  Although I was privy to the first gathering of a few members in 1993 by being invited to a barbecue dinner at Luther’s BBQ in the Galleria area of Houston, the resulting annual swap meet was the brainchild of Louis Rothermel, and he held his first swap meet in November 1994.  The meet has been successfully held at Louis’ shop on Star Lane for 25 years now, and my only claim to fame is that I have been extremely fortunate to attend every one of the gatherings.

Albert with his MK20H(MK 25 recoil) and John and Albert Snell with their factory prototype Mercury “20H Thing” – Pre-CornPopper/Toilet Bowl Conversion

This meet was historic in my opinion for several reasons.  Since I have been a member of AOMCI and its Texas Chapter, I believe the Houston swap meet is the longest running annual meet in our chapter’s history.  In addition, this event will be remembered as the Albert K. Snell Memorial Houston Swap Meet to honor our friend and long-time member, Albert Snell of Jasper, Texas, who passed away on November 8, 2018.  Last, but not least, Adam Finn presented our host with an Honorary Life  Membership Certificate that was awarded to Louis by the Executive Council of AOMCI in   October 2018.  This was a very special event.

Like past Houston swap meets, this one started on Friday and lasted through Sunday (November 9th through 11th).  Otherwise, the weather tried to make a mess of this meet.  With repeated poor weather forecasts being received earlier in the week immediately prior to the meet, we started some preparations early to beat the bad weather.

I offer thanks to several individuals who brought items earlier in the week.  John Slator made at least two trips bringing items from his home in New Ulm, Texas and then returning home for the next load.  John Plato also came early in the week to bring motors for display, and John Graf brought his fantastic trailer which contains one of the most impressive Mercury outboard collections that anyone has ever seen.  Louis had contacted me about some parts that were to be donated by Bob Johnson of Reynold’s Marine, Inc. over in Baytown, Texas.  As a result, I made a trip to Baytown before the rains came and picked up the parts and delivered them to the meet site. In addition, I brought along some tables and chairs to prepare the smorgasbord of NOS parts to be available to our participants.

For one of the few times I can recall in Houston history, the local weather forecasters actually guessed correctly.  Friday’s temperatures were relatively cold at 45 to 50 degrees and it rained for most of the day.  It was not a driving flooding rain, just a continuous light irritating rain.  Where we would have ordinarily had people coming in throughout the day bringing in things to swap and trade, the majority of the items had already made it to the meet earlier in the week.  So the few that braved the crummy weather on Friday already had their items unloaded and on display in the vacant space next to Louis’ shop.  Ironically, the rain stopped around 4:00PM and the sun actually made a brief appearance.  Approximately 13 individuals came on Friday and took part in the morning donuts and coffee, and then fantastic hamburgers from Pete’s Finer Meats for lunch. 

Saturday was a different story.  Temperatures were in the 50 to 60 degree range and the skies remained overcast; however, it only sprinkled very lightly once or twice and remained mostly dry for the majority of the day.  We had a much larger turnout than expected in spite of poor weather forecasts with some additional people bringing in motors for display and/or for sale.  The usual coffee and donuts awaited everyone’s arrival as the excitement began to take hold.

NOS parts donated by Reynold’s Marine, Inc., plus some remaining parts donated by Royce Strickland from previous years, were displayed on top and below a long line of tables inside the vacant space next to Louis’ usual workshop.  A box marked as “Honor System Collection Box” was placed on the tables with instructions for anyone to take whatever they desired and to insert whatever amount the buyers thought the parts were worth to them.  At the conclusion of the meet, enough funds had been collected to purchase two year memberships in AOMCI and its Texas Chapter for Bob Johnson of Reynold’s Marine, Inc. and Royce Strickland.  Thank you, Gentlemen, for your outstanding support!

In our last newsletter, I had challenged members to bring one or two of their special outboards for display only.  Obviously, the recently vacated space next to Louis’ workshop was a great plus to those displaying motors because these special outboards could be protected inside the building

Throughout the past year, several of our newer members had mentioned to me that they have never seen an Indian Silver Arrow outboard, so I decided to bring my restored 1931 Indian along with my scale model of the 1931 Indian, some metal Indian signs, and a special Indian-related photograph. I also saw an opportunity to bring several pieces of my toy outboard collection that fit well on the pegboard on Louis’ back wall.  Chip Rathbun made the trip in from Flower Mound and he brought a couple of his nicely restored antique Evinrude outboards to display next to my items.

Some of our younger members, Brenden Macaluso and Peter Schultz, decided to present some more modern go-fast outboards for display.  Their Yamato race motors proved to be a special contrast to some of our older outboard motors shown in the room.

It appeared that one of the favorite motors at this meet was Greg Ganz’s Evinrude Ducktwin 3HP outboard.  In addition, Greg brought his 3HP 1958 Johnson JW model outboard which is also in excellent condition and seemed to attract a lot of attention as well. 

 Adam Finn has always been somewhat selective in his collecting and prefers to find older model outboards that are in as close to new condition as is possible.  This year, Adam displayed two of his jewels from his collection, a 1964 Johnson JW model 3HP which he managed to purchase in its original shipping carton and a 1974 Chrysler 15HP that he purchased from its original owner who only ran it one time.  I understand that Adam also has the original purchase invoice and some other related goodies for the Chrysler.

While John Slator’s original intention was to sell a few of his motors, he fell in love with a Martin “40” that past member, Tony Cloud, was trying to sell.  Now John is the proud owner of that beautiful little Martin outboard. Of course, John also had some of his other motors for sale and my son, Mike, decided that he could not live without a modified Mercury racing engine that John brought to the meet.  Just to let you fellows know, Mike now has that motor and his NOS 1976 Mercury 25SS race engine in his master bedroom on his side of the bed. (You guessed it.  Mike has one of those special wives like I do!)

If guests at this meet had a special interest in Mercury outboards, then John Graf’s trailer was the place to visit.  His immense trailer was just outside the vacant space where various motors were being displayed and it was full of restored Mercury outboards of all types.  There were a number of green-head versions, several 4 and 6 cylinder inline motors, and a couple of race motors including a Mark 20H and a Mark 20H Toilet Bowl model.  What a buffet this was!

It is my understanding that John has once again agreed to take his Mercury trailer to the 2019 Houston International Boat, Sport & Travel Show at NRG Center in early January.  Be sure to go by the exhibit and check it out.

John Graf also brought a very nice Scott-Atwater race motor with “Green Hornet” lower unit.  Earlier in the year, Al Smith had acquired this special engine and asked John to deliver it from Wisconsin.  Then, Al arranged for his brother, James Smith, to make a trip to the meet to pick it up for Al.  For those of you who are not yet aware, Al could not come to our meet this year because he and his wife were in the middle of bringing their third child into the world.  Al and Katie Smith are now proud parents of a little boy named “Levi”.  I am sure that daughters, Addison and Abigail, are very happy to have a new little brother in their lives.

Jim Norbeck brought various motors to the meet and was accompanied by Tyler Urban-Norbeck and Abigail Urban-Norbeck.  Jim and his kids were also benefactors of a stainless steel boat that was brought to Louis’ shop late last year. The prior owner was flooded out by Hurricane Harvey a year ago and did not learn about our annual Houston meets until late November immediately following last year’s meet.  The boat had no trailer or title, but the price was right.  It was free for the taking.

Louis and I made our usual trip to Pappas BBQ after taking up a collection of $10 per person for our standard “all-you-can-eat” buffet.  The menu for lunch included, beef brisket, pork sausage, potato salad, beans, bread, and the normal choice of condiments.  An apple crisp dessert was provided courtesy of John Graf.  Not to sound overly redundant, if anyone left hungry, it was their own fault.  This year, everyone was asked to remain for a special meeting to be held at the completion of the meal.

Adam started off the meeting with a brief tribute to Albert Snell.  He then pointed out that this was a very special celebration recognizing our 25th anniversary of our Houston swap meet.  Chip Rathbun, Joe McCauley and I were asked to share some tales of our past experiences with Louis during the prior 25 year period.  Then, I was given the honor of presenting Louis with an Honorary Life Membership Certificate from the Executive Council in recognition of his long and devoted service to AOMCI.  At the conclusion of the meeting, Adam presented Louis with the official anniversary cake from the Texas Chapter.

Following the luncheon on Saturday, many of the members began to pack up early and started their trips back home.  At last count, there were approximately 35 individuals participating in the lunch buffet, so although the threat of bad weather kept some people away this year, we still had an excellent turnout on Saturday.

On Sunday, we saw a reoccurrence of the ugly overcast and soupy weather that we had seen on Friday; however, since Sunday is the day that some of us gather to work on our toys, the weather had virtually no effect on the participants that decided to return.  We were inside using the bead blaster, parts washer, lathe, etc.

Mike Oncken and Jim Norbeck performed some surgery on my Caille Model 30 Racer that I had bought many years ago on eBay.  One-half of the end of the prop shaft had been broken off where the nut screws on.  A new conversion kit had also been purchased at the same time which allows this particular outboard to be converted from its standard lower unit into a tractor-style racing lower unit.  Mike and Jim’s project for this day was to figure out how to remove the prop shaft from the lower unit and to make a new shaft on Louis’ lathe.  If I am lucky, the work may be completed by next year’s swap meet.

Sunday’s overall attendance was light similar to Friday, but the 11 or 12 individuals who came to work on their motors managed to get a lot done.  The only notable problem that we had on Sunday was a lack of brisket remaining from Saturday’s buffet.  As a result, Louis and Glenn Seureau had to drive over to Pappas one more time and buy a little more brisket to go with the leftover sausage, beans, and potato salad from Saturday’s feast.  It was another great buffet!

In spite of the lousy overall weather, we feel as if the 25th anniversary meet was a remarkable   success.  There were individuals that attended on all three days and we closed at 6:00PM daily as planned.  For those of you who did not make the trip this year, never fear.  Louis has mentioned that if everything goes well in 2019, he plans to have a 26th annual Houston swap meet.

I do want to point out something unusual that occurred on Saturday.  I overheard someone asking about membership into the AOMCI and Texas Chapter, so I offered to take the dues and make sure that they got to the appropriate membership administrators.  When all was said and done, I went home and proceeded to set up new memberships or renewals for nine individuals.    I would like to thank the following people for committing to two-year memberships in our main organization and its Texas Chapter.  The next time you see Darren Baird, Brian Delaney, Brian Hays, Bob Johnson, Brenden Macaluso, Bobby Marek, John Martin, Patricia Nichols, and Royce Strickland (Royce was extended to the year 2022), please welcome them to our club with open arms and do whatever you can do to assist them in furthering their outboard motor projects.  I cannot remember a meet where we signed up this many folks at one time.  We offer our sincere thanks to these members and hope to see them all at some of our upcoming meets.

I also would like to remind some of our Texas Chapter members that their memberships could be expiring at the end of January 2019.  Please remember that our chapter is a subsidiary of the Antique Outboard Motor Club, Inc. and it is not appropriate for us to take membership dues into our chapter account if you are not a member of the AOMCI.  Notices will be sent out by the end of the year for those who are due for renewal on January 31st.  We hope you all decide to renew!

Follow this link to see the gallery of all of the pictures submitted: http://www.texaschapteraomci.com/gallery/the-albert-k-snell-memorial-houston-swap-meet-25th-historical-year/

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