The lenticular Gallagher pin

I bought this lenticular Gallagher button/pin at that amazing little flea market I went to in Wisconsin last summer. Going to flea markets or thrift stores in a new-to-me part of the world is perhaps my most favoritest thing to do while traveling (that and horseback riding—that's the best way to get the feel for a strange landscape, especially if you get to experience it on the back of an odd multi-gaited breed of horse or pony). But since having kids, I don't travel to as many exciting places as I used to and as I've mentioned many times in this blog, their bitching about being forced to go to flea markets and thrift stores, even when they end up with the most scores, tends to dampen one's enthusiasm.

So I wasn't really prepared to do any serious shopping when I went to this Wisconsin flea market, which turned out to be so great and so cheap that had it been in San Antonio, I would've stuffed my SUV to the rafters without having to make a second trip to the nearest ATM. But I was in Boulder Junction, not San Antonio, so I had to limit myself to what I could squeeze into my always-overpacked luggage, filling the outside-pockets of my carry-ons. Stuff like this lenticular Gallagher button. If for some reason you're not acquainted with the comedian's work, he's the one who basically smashed watermelons on stage with his patented "Sledge-o-matic." He may or may not have inspired Letterman's famous dropping-stuff-off-a-building bit. He may have, but Letterman was funnier.

Most people would've passed this souvenir on by, but I was lucky enough to view Gallagher's act firsthand at Caesar's Palace in Atlantic City when I was about 16 years old, so it had some of that sentimental appeal. Though I don't remember if I even thought his show was good. It was probably okay, but I'd seen so many legendary comics in that venue by that point—Bill Cosby, David Brenner, Joan Rivers, a young unknown Jim Carrey—that his gimmicky act probably suffered by comparison. Still, it fit in my luggage, so here it is—not quite a score, not quite a souvenir, but I had to buy something.