On the Friday night that kicked off Labor Day weekend in 1962, I was on the way home for the weekend from the USAF detachment at Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana. That was before Interstate 69 opened, and one of the possible routes home took me through Markle. As I drove down the main street, I recognized Bruce Maxwell's Oldsmobile parked in front of the Rainbow Tavern.
I parked, went inside, and joined him for a beer and conversation. We talked about the steam shows that went on that weekend, including the one at Edgerton, Wisconsin, that we knew our friend, John Achey, planned to attend. A couple of beers later, that show sounded like an awfully good idea, so we got into Bruce's car and headed north.
Upon arrival at the show grounds some six hours later, still well before daylight, we found John's homemade plywood camper on his old Ford pickup, and Bruce put his front bumper against John's back bumper and started rocking his camper until we saw signs of life. John popped out ready to go a couple of rounds until he saw who it was.
It was a pretty good show. I don't think I had attended any of the big shows at that time; I had only seen the Whitbey show north of Fort Wayne, the show at Rushville, Indiana the one at Montpelier, Ohio. All were good, but they didn't have the construction machines and variety of big gas tractors that I saw at Edgerton.
Without further ado, the pictures, all shot on ISO 10 (yes, that's ten) Kodachrome, many with a polarizing filter.
