Even though I lived in Illinois in the 1990s, most of the early live shows I attended were in Indianapolis, an easy one hour drive away from Urbana. While we were financially stable, I was still staying home with my kids and to drive further and stay at a motel would be an added expense.
Those Indy trips provided me with a bonus - when you have six children, you look for ways to get one-on-one time with each one, and several of my kids enjoyed traveling to shows with me. Back then, many shows had youth divisions.
(Another way to get one-on-one time with my kids was to invite them to come on my early morning vending box route with me. Believe it or not, they enjoyed getting up at 4:00 AM and driving all over town to fill those newspaper boxes with me. I think the fact that we had to deliver papers to three or four donut shops played a significant part in their enthusiasm...)
While I tended to stick to shows close to home, I did travel farther occasionally. Once Julie Poremba Propes and I drove up to Kerri Gehrmann Johnson's Great Lakes Breyer Registry Show in DeKalb in 1994. Julie, Karen Beeson, Kay Biberstein, and Chris Wallbruch were all students at the University of Illinois at the time. We'd get together occasionally - fun times. I also went to a show or two in Missouri held by Lisa Donnelly.
My kids didn't come to every show with me, but someone else did - another hobby friend who is still one of my dearest friends - Kathy Bateman. In tomorrow's blog post, I'll share pictures of Kathy and some of the shows we attended including the first NAN and BreyerFest.
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What wonderful memories! My kids had not interest, so the only shows they remember attending were Jennifer Show 2016 and 2019.
ReplyDeleteAwww! I hosted a live show for my cousins and siblings once. Boy did we have fun. We had real ribbons, candy for first prizes, mini whinnies for grand champs, and a collecta for best in show. For performance we made tack after lunch and then put the horses on the table. We even had a raffle for a gangster pony! (50 cents a ticket, as I remember. Maybe it was a dollar).
ReplyDeleteMy kids love coming to shows with me, though never really had much interest in showing. I think Elecktra tried it out once, and was a bit of a collector for a short time.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you were able to share the hobby with your kids. My mom drove me to a horse farm for years so I could help with therapeutic riding lessons for my horse fix.
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