To all those who sent a thank you and were wondering what happened to the
rest of the convention reports. I am sorry I could not finish the reports in
a timely manner. I thank Karlynn Morgan for letting me use her laptop during
the convention, but time was short and I never did finish up. Then I went to
the AMS Convention and now I am really behind.
At any rate, here is a rough idea of what transpired during days 5 & 6. I
hope that those of you who could not make it this year, will be able to go
next year.
If you had your mail shut off during the convention and would like to read
days 1-4, please go to the Palm Beach County Shell Club web pages. The
address is http://www. gopbi.com/community/groups/PBCshell
Days 5 & 6 will be posted soon to the web site but here they are now.
Carole Marshall
Day 5. June 30, 1999
The day started out with Paul Callomon showing us slides of some places in
Japan. Most of us have specimens from the Kii, Peninsula and the Amami
Islands and Paul gave us a view of what the area is like. He showed us the
most northerly Mangrove Swamp. He sprinkled his talk with phrases such as
"Highly aggrieved mollusks" (after a typhoon went by) and "tentacly
challenged starfish" (only 4 arms).
Peggy Williams then took us to another part of the world with her talk on
Belize where we learned, among other things, that fresh cashews are highly
poisonous.
Bruce Neville gave us an overview on the Epitoniidae and some tips on how
to identify them. He told us there are 573 species and some of the
characteristics to distinguish between species are the spiral structure
between the costae, whether it has an umbilicus or not and the number of
costae.
Betty Jean Piech awarded Nicholas Zantop a special nametag for all the
running he has done and his help during the convention.
Tom Watters gave us "The Annulariidae; extreme biodiversity" It seems this
group has a unique way of breathing during estivation, via a special tube.
There were a couple of neat live photos by Richie Goldberg too.
Doug Shelton showed some of the late Harvey Bullis' shells from his work
during the Oregon cruises that had been lost.
Henry Chaney gave us some valuable information as to what books are
available for each family and certain area books, and we ended with Art Weil
showing us some models of snails that are in the collection of the Cincinnati
Museum.
Then what we all had been waiting for, "THE BOURSE"
I don't think mere words will suffice for the variety, diversity and
glorious display of shells available at the bourse. There were at least 33
dealers with shells from every corner of the world. Just let your wildest
conchological dreams come true and you can imagine the bourse.
Thursday, July 1, 1999
The bourse continued through 2:30. For those of us that spent all our money
yesterday, today was a free day. Then we had to get prettied up for the
banquet tonight.
The tables were decorated nicely with baskets of shells and balloons.
There was some significance to the balloons, something about some little race
held in Louisville and colored balloons are part of it. (Just kidding folks,
The Kentucky Derby is the "little race.")
At any rate, it was all very festive looking. The speaker for the evening
was Emily Vokes, and her subject was certainly fascinating. It was on "Shells
and Archeology." She showed some early Meso-American artifacts that were
shell related and told a little of the history, what the artifacts were, what
shells were used as models and some of her conjectures in relation to some
cave paintings. It was a most fascinating end to our convention and I wish I
could relate more of this wonderful program.
One footnote to this evening, The most marvelous raffle prizes were given
out this evening and I, yes I, won the beautiful table donated by Dave
Kempfer and all the gorgeous shells donated by Al and Bev Deynzeer. !!! Can
you imagine my shock. Thank goodness I drove to Louisville, as I put the
table in the back of my van with the help of a somewhat disgruntled bellboy,
and got it home that way. My personal thanks to Jim Brunner and Jack
Lightbourne who carried it up to Ardeth Hardin's room and to Ardeth and Judy
Lewis for letting me keep it there while we all went fossiling Friday. Wow!!
what an ending. Some other lucky winners were Sue Hobbs, who won the albino
Nautilus, Sue Stephens who won the glorious pearl display in a frame. I am
sorry to say I can't remember who won the very large Conus gloriamaris.
Friday, technically day 7 was for the field trips. I don't know about the
Bardstown trip but the fossiling trip was super. We had a great time and
found some really terrific fossils. It was warm, but not too warm and we
really hated to quit but all good things must come to an end.
Gene did a most wonderful job on the convention. There were a few surprises
here and there, but he handled it well with his gentlemanly demeanor. I am
sure that all who attended would agree that it was a wonderful convention.
Thank you Louisville crew.
Carole Marshall
|
