Trap Door 25

Issue No. 25, February 2008. Edited and published by Robert Lichtman, 11037 Broadway Terrace, Oakland, CA 94611-1948, USA. Please send trade fanzines and letters of comment to this address (or [email protected]). Founding member and Past President1991: fwa. This fanzine is available by Editorial Whim for The Usual (letters, contributions both written and artistic, and accepted trades), or $5.00 per issue (reviewers please note!). An “X” on your mailing label means this may be your last issue. All contents copyright Oc 2008 by Trap Door with all rights reverting to individual contributors upon publication. CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE: Doorway Robert Lichtman 2 À la Recherche de Grenouilles Perdues Andrew Main 5 North Beach Nights John D. Berry 11 There’s A Long, Long Trail A-Windin’ Dick Lupoff 16 Remembering Sid Greg Benford 24 Another Calvin Demmon Memory Lenny Bailes & Don Fitch 29/39 Episodes From A Journey John Nielsen Hall 30 The Ether Still Vibrates the Readers 40 ART & GRAPHICS: ATom (2), Harry Bell (cover), Grant Canfield (14) Ross Chamberlain (30), Gary Deindorfer (9), Brad Foster (2, 40), Ray Nelson (5, 7), William Rotsler (13), Dan Steffan (16, 17, 19, 22, 24). get to know each other well until we had a geometry class together in high school. One day he noticed me reading something obvi- ously extracurricular in my three-ring binder and asked what it was. A fanzine, I said. “What’s a fanzine?” I explained. His face brightened. As long-time readers of this fanzine “Sounds interesting! May I borrow know, I’ve memorialized the passing of all some?” too many of our number. In most cases But of course. these were fans who were around when I Within months Calvin was reading, discovered fandom in 1958 and who had writing for, and publishing fanzines himself, been always there. Until they weren’t. For revealing the sharp wit and good-natured about the last twenty years I’ve done this humor that forever endeared him to me. eulogizing so often that some have charac- Within a year he was celebrated as one of terized Trap Door as an “obitzine.” fandom’s premier humorists, inventing a Here I go once again, but this time I’m form of whimsical short story he called writing of a more personal loss—my oldest “Biffables” (he referred to himself back then friend, and a friend who became a fan be- as “Calvin W. ‘Biff’ Demmon”) and pub- cause of me. I’m speaking of Calvin Dem- lishing many of them in his fanzine *Skoan* mon, who, after an intense year and a half (for “some kind of a nut”). with leukemia, passed away on October 10, Soon Calvin followed my lead by joining 2007. He was surrounded by his wife of 41 some apas. His longest membership was in years, India, and three of their four children. FAPA, where he stayed for six years. Dur- Calvin was born August 6, 1942, in ing the long wait to be admitted, he pro- Inglewood, California. He was just three duced a fanzine called W’Basket for the weeks older than me. I met him in junior Shadow FAPA, a group that had sprung up high when we were twelve, but we didn’t among the many waitlisters, and for a time he even served as its official editor. While spaced, I was unable to keep up with the Many of the subjects of the column closer touch. in FAPA he published New Cat Sand, family’s many moves and Calvin’s job came to count themselves as friends Carol and I were trying to arrange which, like his earlier fanzines, mainly com- changes. A lengthy memorial piece in the after he interviewed them. He received another visit when a chilling e-mail arrived prised his own short stories and personal Monterey Herald filled me in: many awards and commendations from in late May 2006. We were glad we were essays. He placed twice in the top ten on the Before working for newspapers, Dem- the city councils he covered, including sitting down. annual egoboo polls. mon attended five different colleges Monterey and Seaside. He also won I guess I always feel compelled to In addition to his solo productions, and worked a variety of jobs, including competitions for his work, including an write to you when my wellness is wob- Calvin is fondly remembered as co-editor of as a flower truck driver, a radio parts award from the California Newspaper bly because you’re my oldest living several highly regarded weekly fanzines. In salesman, a typist-clerk and a social Publishers Associations Annual Better friend—oldest as in longest time. The 1963 he and Andrew Main produced thirteen worker office manager. He also worked Newspapers Competition for his docs are trying to figure out why all my issues of a fanzine called The Celebrated as a night shift guard at the Los Angeles “Serra’s Children” column. blood cell counts have gone way down; Flying Frog of Contra Costa County. And County Juvenile Hall and wrote science Calvin’s career at the Herald ended in the current theory, as yet unverified, is in 1971-1972 he and John D. Berry pub- fiction on the side… His short story, 2001 when he took early retirement after the something called myelodysplastic syn- lished twenty issues of Hot Shit. Both these “The Importance of Being Important,” paper changed hands in an unfriendly take- drome. (It’s said to be “a heterogene- fanzines had extremely limited circulation was selected for inclusion in the 1984 over. After that he worked as a substitute ous group of closely related clonal but have become legendary beyond their book 100 Great Fantasy Short Short teacher for Hartnell College and Salinas hematopoietic disorders.” I wish they actual numbers. Articles by both his co- Stories, edited by Isaac Asimov. He Adult School, something he greatly enjoyed. wouldn’t say things like that, though I editors about their experiences with Calvin took a job as manager of a credit coun- Deeply religious, he was an active member do like the idea of a “poietic disorder” follow, along with excerpts of Calvin’s seling firm on Market Street in San of Sacred Heart Church in Salinas, where he —iamsic pentameter, maybe.). This contributions. Francisco, then as zone administrative taught the faith to new converts through the still hasn’t been officially defined as a During the ‘60s and ‘70s, as our lives supervisor for Bell and Howell Co. in Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. He Big Medical Deal yet, and I may turn diverged, it was difficult maintaining con- Burlingame. was also involved with Cursillo, a group out to be perfectly OK, except old. tact. We stayed in sporadic touch by mail And somehow he found the time to sell dedicated to building the Catholic tradition. Quintessential Calvin, that! and an occasional visit. I was fortunate seven short science-fiction stories—three to For a while he teamed up with his former Six months later we learned from India enough to be there on Valentine’s Day in employer in Canada to help compile a his- 1967 when Calvin married Wilma (later Avram Davidson at F&SF and four to Ted that Calvin’s “disorder” had advanced to full White at Amazing and Fantastic. Also, as tory of Christianity, an extensive description leukemia and he’d been at Stanford Hospital India) Alexander in a huge old Victorian of the church during its first 1,000 years. house in San Francisco that belonged to her “Carl Damon” he sold two mainstream short since late October. He would be there for stories to Sir! Some of Calvin’s writing is still avail- over four months, his condition seesawing family. Fellow fan Dick Ellington officiated able on the Web. You can read his observa- as a minister in the Church of the Brother- The career Calvin settled into for the up and down, sometimes dramatically and next thirty-odd years began in 1973 when he tions about teaching at… heartbreakingly. Our asking “May we visit hood of The Way. I’ll always remember the http://www.demmon.blogspot.com/ joy on their faces as they made their way and his family moved to Edmonton, Canada, him?” led to weekly 100-mile round trips where he became circulation manager for …where there’s also a letter from his partner and, ironically, more frequent contact with through the massive shower of rice that in the history of Christianity project about accompanied them to their getaway car. the Edmonton Report (later known as the Calvin and India than we’d ever had. Western Report). Before long he transferred its demise. A very nice photo of him is still Thanks to India’s unflagging insistence My next clear memory is receiving an on-line at… envelope from Calvin in 1968 that contained to the newsroom, working as a reporter, that the doctors not give up on him, Calvin assistant city editor and finally city editor. http://geocities.com/calvindemmon/ rallied and finally got to go home in a single Twiltone sheet: …along with a link to his SF bibliography. Calvin and Wilma Demmon proudly The family returned to Southern Califor- February 2007. Once he was there, we nia in 1977, where Calvin worked for news- In 1992 Carol and I attended a joyous called him often had some long and announce the birth of the first of a papers another four years before being celebration of Calvin and India’s 25th wed- enjoyable times on the phone together.

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