Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Excuses, excuses

Yesterday was Sunday and I went to an RC model airplane swap meet in Appleton. On a scale off 1-10 I'd give it a 5.

As usual I didn't sell anything but except for a $25 purchase did not engage in acquiring any new acquisitions. I bought a big trainer without anything inside it... only the fuselage and wings. In my shop I have plenty of the stuff that goes inside.

At the last swap meet in Milwaukee I saw a nice Storch but didn't have enough money to purchase it. For those who are wondering, a Storch is a German WW2 short takeoff and landing light aircraft that was widely used in special operations.

So, I was hoping that the owner would be attending and he wasn't. Shucks! How often have you forgone a purchase only to see it forever slip from your grasp? Not having enough cash was problematic and not really a limiting criteria. There might have been an ATM in the hall or I could have borrowed the sum from a friend or worked out something with the owner. Excuses, excuses.

Without trying to get too philosophical, life is like that. Often I get so embroiled in one line of thinking that that something incredible drifts past unnoticed. One of the disciplines I try and cultivate is keeping an open mind. For example when I go to this event or that, I try and avoid preconceived filters. In the example above I had an arbitrary rule in mind that if I didn't have the cash in my pocket I wasn't going to buy something. Another example is walking into an antique shop so focused on something in mind that something else, of far greater craftsmanship, quality and artistic wonder goes entirely overlooked. I was warned of this human propensity once by an antique dealer in Germany who took me under his wing.

One day he asked me when I came into his shop what I was looking for. I told him, "a jewelry box for my wife's birthday." He showed me a table with jewelry boxes and some other assorted items one of which was a figurine that I barely noticed. He told me I could have anything on the table for 100 marks. I picked out a jewelry box and paid for it. Afterwards , he shook his head and motioned me back over to the table. Taking the figurine he turned it over revealing the crossed sabers, which is the trade mark for a piece of Meissen. "This piece is easily worth 1000 marks... you could have had it for 100. Let that be a lesson.