[AT] ReRe: Portland Tractor Question

[Doug Tallman]

Farmer, I don't see a problem with setting up as a group. I go out the 
Saturday before to spend the week and rope off enough area so that 
members of the vintage garden tractor club can set up together. The ATIS 
engine guys go out on the previous friday to reserve the spot so they 
can set up together. Why can't the tractor group go rope off a common 
area for your displays? Has anyone ever said you can't set up 
together??  Someone from our group still has to go out the previous 
Saturday for the land grab to rope off our camp spot. We don't get any 
special privileges! It's disgusting to have to drive out the night 
before and wait in line for a camp spot and see all the pre-reserved 
spots already roped off but supposedly that's the perks for helping out. 
I haven't heard on the b utt buggy situation this year but the rumor is 
it will be the same as last year. I'd expect to get a newsletter shortly 
with the show agenda on it like we usually do. If you are a member of 
the club you should get one. Doug T
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> Has there been any more thoughts or discussions about this?
> How about a time and location for meeting for a picture taking session
> including those that are not staying in the campground? We have not
> done that in several years.
> How about a location for "any" members that makes it to the show to go
> to so they can see if other ATIS members might be hanging out there?
> It is a long walk back to the campground for an ATIS visitor with very
> little time to see the show, to walk back to the campsite only to find
> out that we are all up on the grounds snarfing ice cream.  :-)
> These things have just fallen apart over the last couple of years...
> I am assuming / hoping here that they are continuing to cooperate with
> Gene on us camping together...
> I don't think we would be out of line to be politely assertive in some
> of these matters. There seems to be an attitude in recent years that
> they feel like they had been doing us big favors by letting us show
> together or camp together. That is nonsense. We are not freeloading,
> we are part of the show and were a lot more so when we had a decent
> location to show together (and I'm not talking about that one year
> that they buried us over behind that one shed at the far end).
> For some reason I keep getting the feeling that they resent us camping
> together and are about to push us over the creek bank. There has been
> a lot of talk about how we had to prove that we deserved to do so by
> all manner of volunteer activities. The more I think about that
> attitude the more pissed I get. Any direction down any drive from
> where we camp you can find any number of big huge rigs that rolled in
> there (with a couple of cars) and staked off about 5 acres for
> themselves. Their only contribution being the camping fee they pay
> (not a penny more than I pay for the little tiny gypsy wagon or
> someone pays for a tent space) and what money they spend on the
> grounds.
> There seems to be multiple standards... To my knowledge nothing extra
> is ever asked of those space hogs but somehow we are supposed to bow
> and scrape and serve for the privilege of squeezing about 5 campers
> into the same space some of those space hogs. All I have heard the
> last couple of years is how much more "we" need to do for them. We do
> as much as anybody by coming to the show, Showing our tractors (even
> scattered all over hells half acre) and talking their show up to
> people all over the globe for months at a time. What other non
> connected group beside Spencer's ATIS promotes this show like we do?
> We are not asking for a lot of special treatment, just let us do what
> we have done in the past. Just quit acting like it is a huge favor to
> let us camp together packed in like sardines... And let us park our
> tractors together. Neither our tractors or campers use any more space
> than anybody else's...
> Earlier George and more recently Gene have worked very hard to get
> everybody packed in the campsite and to not waste space.
> When we showed our tractors together we tended to spend a good bit of
> time hanging out with them and talking with other show guest (who
> could not find anyone to talk to in those long rows of parked
> tractors).
> I won't get started here on how much better the engine guys do at
> showing than tractor guys (and I am not an engine guy).
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