Random Jottings 9

RANDOM JOTTINGS 9 is an irregularly published amateur magazine. It is available in printed form directly from Timespinner Press or through Amazon.com; a free PDF version is available at http://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/. It is also available for “the usual”: contributions of art or written material, letters of comment, attendance at Corflu 31, or editorial whim. Letters of comment or other inquiries to Michael Dobson, 8042 Park Overlook Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20817-2724, [email protected]. Copyright © 2014 Timespinner Press on behalf of the individual contributors. Words Editorial ...... 4 My Brilliant Fannish Career ...... 5 Dude, Where’s My Rocket Belt? ...... 6 First Fandom ...... 10 True Grit ...... 15 The Demolished Fan ...... 18 Egoboo Express for The Demolished Fan ...... 25 My Brilliant Fannish Career (continued) Charlatan ...... 27 Sanskrit ...... 32 In Vasectomia Vita Est, Whitmel Joyner ...... 33 Variations on a Theme, Lisa Tuttle ...... 34 Poem, Jeffrey Beam ...... 36 Body and Sole, Julia Willis ...... 37 The Fireball, Mary Herrera ...... 41 Ater, Adrienne Marcus ...... 43 More of My Brilliant Fannish Career Life in Greater Falls Church ...... 44 The Wreck of the Lucius Newberry ...... 46 An Amazing® Coincidence ...... 48 Another Amazing® Coincidence ...... 50 Bring Me the Heat of Alfredo Garcia Sharyn McCrumb! ...... 52 The Prodigal Fan Returns ...... 57 The print edition of Random Jottings 9 included the Watergate Supplement (Random Jottings 8.5) and the facsimile edition of Random Jottings 1. For reasons of file size, these have been broken out as different issues. The print edition, perfect bound with wraparound color cover, was published by CreateSpace and is available on Amazon for $9.95 retail, though they’re discounting it to $8.96, at least at the time of writing. http://www.amazon.com/dp/ 1499134088/ The lettercolumn is in Random Jottings 8.5, as the letters all concern the Watergate issue anyway. Art and Images

The Aerostatic Cabriolet, Harry Grant Dart ...... Cover The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, Dan Steffan ...... Back Cover Endpaper for the Winston Science Fiction series, Alex Schonberg ...... 8 Alexis Gilliland ...... 11, 26, 51, 61, 84 Richard Bergeron ...... 13 Dan Steffan ...... 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 Ross Chamberlain ...... 57

Credits

The cover by Harry Grant Dart originally appeared on the cover of “The All-Story,” October 1908. It is in the public domain because the copyright has expired. The propeller beanie drawing on page 1 is in the public domain as a work created by the United States Air Force. (Yes, really.) Various book covers and the Alex Schomburg endpaper for the Winston Science Fiction series are used here under “fair use” provisions of US copyright law. They are used to illustrate an article on the topic, no free equivalents exist, and the size and quality of reproduction are too low to facilitate the production of counterfeit goods. No challenge to the copyright and trademark status of these works is intended. Various print advertisements, including those for Atomic Propeller Hats and Grit, fall into the public domain because they were published between 1923 and 1977 without a separate copyright notice. The patent drawing is in the public domain because they are. The publicity photo of Benny Carle is in the public domain because it was published in the US between 1923 and 1977 without a copyright notice. Generally, publicity photos are meant to be shared, such as the one of Sharyn McCrumb on page 55 and of Linda Lovelace on page 71. I don’t remember who took the photo of SLAN-apa at Noreascon. Material from Sanskrit is copyright © 1971 and 1972 by the Board of Student Publications of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and those rights were reassigned to the individual artists and contributors. Where possible, I have obtained permission from those writers and artists; for the rest, while I was still editor, I gave myself permission to reprint material published under my editorship. I’ve got the letter around here somewhere. The 1875 photograph of the Lucius Newberry is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. Editorial

Part the third is a scan of the original Random WELCOME TO THE 2014 EDITION of my personal Jottings 1, first published in the fall of 1970. It has magazine (fanzine), Random Jottings. Traditionally, a been retroactively christened “The Genzine Issue.” lot of my distribution goes to people outside the world The back cover, with many thanks, is by Dan of fanzine fandom (efanzines.com, if you’re Steffan, who writes, “This is an illustration that is interested), and so I generally try to avoid stuff that based on The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by would likely be unfamiliar to those outside the hobby. Ted Chiang. This was one of approximately six This time, it’s different: this is the “My Brilliant Fannish illustrations I did as proposed art to accompany the Career” issue, a chronicle and commentary of my original publication of the story in 2007 by years in fandom — likely more interesting to fans than Subterranean Press. The story was later reprinted in non-fans, if only for the possibility their names might the September 2007 issue of F&SF. It went on to win be mentioned. For the rest, beware of in-jokes, the 2008 Hugo for Best Novella and the 2008 Nebula references to events you’ve never heard of (or care Award. I was originally approached to illustrate the about), and untranslated jargon. You have been limited edition book, but my efforts were rejected by warned. Chiang, who preferred to go a different way with the This issue is divisa in partes tres. Part the first is book's decorations. The illustrations have remained “My Brilliant Fannish Career,” in unnumbered unpublished ever since. This illustration, perhaps the chapters interrupted first by an article originally best of the lot, owes something visually to the work of published in Mota #25 (1975, with the original Leo and Diane Dillon, and has been finished and illustrations by Dan Steffan), and second by a colored exclusively for this publication.” selection of pieces from Sanskrit, the college literary The Steffan piece was going to be the cover, but magazine I edited; including a story by Lisa Tuttle, technical problems with the original back cover and along with work by Julia Willis, Jeffrey Beam, image size issues resulted in last-minute changes. Adrienne Marcus, Whitmel Joyner, and Mary Herrera. Harry Grant Dart’s cover is part of the Wikimedia Part the second is “Watergate Redux,” a Commons archives, a wonderful resource indeed. supplement to Random Jottings 8, the “Watergate Alexis Gilliland was kind enough to send some Considered as an Org Chart of Semi-Precious Stones” cartoons, which are scattered throughout. A list of issue. Earl Kemp was inspired enough by it to write credits for the other material is part of the Table of “Dickless in San Clemente,” the saga of his own Contents. This is the second fanzine I’ve published dealings with the Nixon Administration. The using the CreateSpace platform. It’s less expensive illustrations are by Steve Stiles. I’ve added a new essay than commercial photocopying, even with the color of my own, “Are You There, Post? It’s Me, Martha,” and cover and perfect binding. As I said on a panel at courtesy of the US National Archives, Richard Nixon’s Corflu XXX (Boom-Chicka-Wow-Wow), the Brave actual FBI application. Letters on the Watergate issue New Digital Age opens up incredible possibilities. follow. Stay tuned.

4 My Brilliant Fannish Career

science fiction is thirteen, fandom for me is MY “BRILLIANT FANNISH CAREER” has, fourteen — the age when I first encountered it. of course, been anything but. I discovered Fandom was the bridge from my unhappy fandom somewhere around 1964, went to my first Alabama adolescence to the wider world; thanks con in 1965, published a small handful of to fandom, I had places I could go; people I could crudzines, and for all intents and purposes see. I met many of my lifelong friends in fandom. gafiated by 1974. It was more than thirty years I met people who were doing what I wanted to before I returned. do, and started the long process of learning how to do it too. I went to parties, I visited museums, I I still knew fans, primarily in Greater Falls heard music. I met girls who liked me back. Church, which (as all fans know) stretches from Northern Virginia to the suburbs of Baltimore. I Before I discovered fandom, I had one, and peeked in on the occasional convention; from pretty much only one, distinguishing time to time somebody even sent me a fanzine. characteristic: I was smart; not infrequently the smartest guy in the room. Now I was working a I even kept up in a cursory way with fannish better class of room. gossip, but nothing too serious. There are major fannish references that I don’t know anything I was prepared not to be the smartest. What I about. wasn’t prepared for was that above a certain threshold, relative smarts didn’t matter very much. For example, I don’t know what the TAFF What else did you bring to the table? At fourteen, Wars were about (I assume they had something to the answer was — not much. I have no ear for do with TAFF, but maybe not). I don’t know who music; I have no talent for art. I am neither a fought on which side, or even the ultimate builder nor an athlete. I was a prodigious reader, outcome. but I was a long way from learning how to write. I did hear that Ted White turned out to be The shock of fandom was painful, but also Luke’s father, but please — no spoilers. inspiring. I’ve spent a long time trying to measure It’s easy enough to sum up my impact on up to my own definition of what it means to be a fandom. For most fans, it’s simple: “Michael fan. who?” I was not completely unknown, however. Even today I still see fans through the eyes of Mike Glicksohn wrote, “I actually remember that fourteen year old: shining, godlike figures Michael Dobson. Boy, does that make me feel right out of the Enchanted Duplicator. While I’ve old.” Dan Steffan mentioned me as a “former fan” always felt accepted in fandom, it was a long time in passing in an issue of Blat! Carol Carr helpfully before I felt worthy of their company. added, “I don't think I've ever thought of you as a This is the story of how I finally stopped being fan.” a neofan after all these years: my brilliant fannish As for fandom’s impact on me, that’s a career. completely different story. If the golden age of

5 Dude, Where’s

grade and part of second, then transferred to the local I WAS A PRECOCIOUS READER; my mind was Kinderschule until our return to the States in late marinated in science fiction from an early age. My 1961. Books weren’t in plentiful supply, so I parents were happy I read so much, but some supplemented with the occasional comic book. educators saw my obsession with science fiction as We first lived outside of Nürnberg, then moved to cause for concern. My eighth grade English teacher in a suburb of Augsburg, and finally particular wanted to stretch my horizons. Each month, relocated to the tiny hamlet of Bad we were to read a book of our choice set in a Münster am Stein (still my favorite particular genre, and of course I complied fully and childhood place). I went to the DoD with good grace. school in nearby Bad Kreuznach for “Read a mystery novel.” The a year. One day, I accidentally left Caves of Steel. “Read an animal my copy of Captain Atom at the bus story.” Star Beast. “Read a sports stop and told the bus driver I’d story.” Stadium Beyond the Stars. forgotten a schoolbook. He turned The earliest book I clearly around so I could retrieve it, but remember reading was a Little when he found out it was a comic, I ended up in the Golden book titled Space Flight. It principal’s office and had the copy confiscated. I had lots of cool pictures of guys in remember I really liked the artwork, but it wasn’t until A Lesser much later in life I knew (or cared) that it was by Steve known classic big bulky spacesuits working on pinwheel space stations and lots of Ditko. rockets. I found a copy in a used We returned to the States in 1961, shortly after bookstore many years later, and was surprised to find the Berlin Wall went up. My father’s insurance it was by Lester Del Rey. It was ostensibly nonfiction, company was headquartered in Decatur, Alabama, a but soon I discovered that people wrote imaginary town of some 35,000 people located along the stories about such things! Tennessee River about 30 miles southwest of I was born in Charlotte, North Huntsville. At the time, Decatur was the largest US Carolina, but I lived in Germany city still under Prohibition. (They went wet after I left during the 1950s: my father sold town, but the surrounding county is still dry.) life insurance to GIs. This meant I acquired books wherever I could. My we were “on the economy” rather grandparents had a collection of original Oz books, so than part of the PX system. I went I would borrow a few whenever I visited them and to DoD military schools for first trade them in on a subsequent visit. The books were in

6 My Rocket Belt?

bad shape already, but by the time I was books, but at least twenty of those books finished, they didn’t even qualify as were science fiction! I had never seen such decent reading copies, much to my later a treasure. sorrow. After carefully inspecting each of my I haunted the local library, an old potential choices, I plunked down the huge Carnegie temple that fortunately was sum of 90¢ for the first two books I ever only a short walk from the house. I bought: Eric Frank Russell’s Men, Martians, would check out ten or more books at a and Machines, and time and cart them back a week later for another fix. The Samuel R. Delaney’s science fiction selection was limited, but I read Babel-17. I enjoyed the Russell book, omnivorously, so there was always something to for me to but it was certainly the kind of science borrow. fiction I was used to. Babel-17 was I loved the Winston science fiction something else altogether. I had never juveniles, with their wonderful Alex read a book like that; it completely Schomberg endpapers. I read Don blew me away. Wollheim, more Lester Del Rey (who Free of the limitations of library also wrote as “Philip St. John”), and purchasers, I began buying every Milton Lesser, who may have been my paperback SF novel I could get my hands on, given the first “favorite author.” I discovered the limitations of the Book Mark. I was one of their more Heinlein juveniles in junior high school regular customers; the owner, Carol Lewis, became a good and read them all at least a dozen friend. I could usually count on first pick when new stuff times. I read series books including Tom Swift, Danny came in. I joined the Science Fiction Book Club because I Dunn, and Lucky Starr. could get the Foundation Trilogy for only 10¢ and I would I read Alan E. Nourse and Madeline L’Engle and only have to buy a measly four books within the next year; Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. I wasn’t as fond of I remained a member for decades. (I quit from time to time fantasy, but I read Narnia and Lloyd Alexander — though so I could rejoin and get another batch of super-cheap Oz remained my favorite of all fantasy worlds. books.) The idea of actually buying books was alien to me: It didn’t take very long before my personal science that’s what libraries were for. But after exhausting the fiction collection was larger than the library’s. I started limited library stocks, I had to do something. At about that filling up my bedroom with bookcases. time, Decatur got its first semi-real bookstore, the Book Mark, which was about 75% Hallmark cards and 25%

7 While I wasn’t the only science fiction presidential candidate is utterly shocked when he reader in Decatur, Alabama, there weren’t discovers a cache of actual fanzines and finds out many of us, and I suspect I read more of the that the Founding Fathers of post-nuclear America stuff than anybody else. were just a bunch of feuding teenage kids. Having I was primed and ready, therefore, when grown up to believe FIAWOL, his world was sometime in 1964 I picked up a copy of an shattered when he found out that to some people, anthology edited by Hans Stefan Santesson, fandom was just a goddamn hobby. Rulers of Men. The first story in the book was I missed a lot of the in-jokes, but I got the idea. by Robert Bloch: “A Way of Life.” There was this thing called fandom, and it was out “A Way of Life” tells the story of a US presidential there — somewhere. I was as excited as if somebody candidate in the decades following a nuclear holocaust. had told me that Oz was real. The only problem was When society was nearly destroyed, only a small that I didn’t know where fandom was, or how to contact handful of people were able to keep up communication it. because they owned mimeograph machines. Their I don’t remember exactly how long it was before I amateur publications knit the country back together, discovered a small ad in the classified section of The leading to the two major political parties of that time: Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: “Fanzines, FAPA and the NFFF. (FAPA were the good guys.) twelve for $1!” I sent my dollar to Seth Johnson’s Having been raised believing that Heinlein Fanzine Clearing House and within a week or so got a developed the Theory of Relativity (an easy mistake), the big fat envelope of used fanzines. I don’t remember

Winston SF series endpapers by Alex Schomberg

8 most of them, but I do remember Excalibur #5, co- There are any number of people whom I would edited by Arnie Katz and Len Bailes. Lenny, you see, love to have had in that position, but this was small lived in Charlotte, North Carolina — the city of my potatoes indeed. It’s not like there was revenge I was birth, and the home of my grandparents. just aching to take. The problem is that he wasn’t a very Not only was fandom real, fans actually lived in a good candidate. I felt awkward enough that I probably city I visited! (As it turned out, Lenny had moved.) Still, spent more time considering him than I might have if this was earth-shattering news, and eagerly I joined one he’d been a complete stranger. of the two political parties of the World of the Future. No, not FAPA — the NFFF. (It was only later that I heard Decatur, Alabama, is less than 30 miles from the story of the women who could either sleep with Huntsville, Alabama, home of Redstone Arsenal and the some guy or join the National Fantasy Fan Federation: Marshall Space Flight Center, so I was delighted to find “Better laid than Neffer,” she said.) out that DeepSouthCon IV would be held there in On my version of Jophan’s journey, I stopped in the August 1966, a month before my fourteenth birthday. I City, and stayed there for several years, thinking I’d took the bus — the longest solo trip I’d ever taken — discovered Trufandom. I was fairly active in NFFF; I and showed up at the hotel, camera slung around my briefly chaired a committee and borrowed books from neck, to find a group of about 20 fans working on Eleanor Poland’s Science Fiction Lending Library. I building a beer can tower to the moon. The chairman corresponded with Janie Lamb. I did meet people who was Lon Atkins; attendees included Wally Weber, who remained fannish friends, like Ned Brooks and Frank was then living in Huntsville; Dave Hulan; Mike Lunney. (Frank hates it when I remind people he used to McQuown; Lee Jacobs; and Hank Reinhardt. Hank, be in the NFFF, so I don’t ever mention it. Well, hardly who then lived in Birmingham and worked as an ever.) insurance adjuster, became a friend and mentor to me. You know that fantasy about someone who He had a toll free phone in his office, and I used to talk wronged you showing up many years later asking you to him every week. for a job? Well, this actually happened to me; twice, in I went to DeepSouthCon V in Atlanta (25 attendees) fact. Turns out it’s overrated as an experience. the following year, and met Ned Brooks, Don The first had to do with the aforementioned NFFF Markstein, Rick Norwood (later famous for falling committee. Stan Woolston, president, had mentioned in through the movie screen at StLouisCon while dressed the club newsletter that he needed volunteers, and as Charlie Brown), and others. I stayed with my budding young fan that I was, I volunteered and was godfather, whom I hadn’t seen since I was very young. appointed to head the Correspondence Bureau, finding He took me to my very first Chinese restaurant. pen pals for other Neffers. However, Stan evidently got (Decatur, without legal liquor, didn’t have much in the a bit confused, and also gave the job to this other guy, way of restaurants.) whose name I have forgotten. With two whole conventions under my belt, I A few letters were exchanged, including a started thinking about publishing a fanzine. nastygram from the other guy, who was a self- proclaimed big shot in the Fortean world, and I was out of a job. It probably bothered me for about two weeks, and I didn’t think of it again until I was working at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. I hired the planetarium’s ushers, ticket sellers, and console operators. Turnover was high. One day, I was interviewing this guy and noticed on his SF 171 (government job application) that he’d listed the Fortean Society under “Clubs and Organizations.” I flipped back to the front and looked at the name again. It was the same guy. He didn’t remember me at all.

9 First Fandom

Mindswap was dittoed and lasted for three MOST OF WHAT I KNOW ABOUT FANDOM came issues. I know there’s a copy around here from reading Lin Carter’s “Our Man in Fandom” somewhere, but damned if I can find it. I don’t column in If. Between that and my background as a remember much about its contents; all I remember stalwart of the NFFF, I decided I knew enough to give is Mike Stamler, a fellow student, drawing the cover amateur publishing a try. on a ditto master during a pep rally. I think the total print run was under 20 copies. My first fanzine was called Mindswap, after the Robert Sheckley novel, co-edited with my best My first solo effort was a fanzine named frenemy from high school, Michel Barnes. (Michel Avernus, because high school is hell — mine went on to publish an all-poetry fanzine, A Bleeding especially so. You can get an idea of the overall Rose in high school. Today he’s an expert on Saint quality of the magazine from the cover illustration at Augustine and teaches theology at Marquette right. I’m particularly proud of the fine hand University in Milwaukee.) lettering: Look, Ma, no straightedge! With Avernus, I moved from ditto to mimeograph. My mother arranged for me to borrow an A.B. Dick drum ink mimeo nominally owned by the local chapter of the League of Women Voters. Avernus 1 is dated August 1968, and consists of 36 pages including cover. It had an editorial, some poetry, two stories, fanzine and book reviews, and an article by my then-best friend in fandom, J. Matthew Venable, that in retrospect appears to be a term paper with footnotes and bibliography removed. Avernus was a crudzine, full stop: badly written, badly designed, badly produced, and mercifully forgotten. I reviewed (actually, summarized the plots) of Donald Wetzel’s The Obscenity and Ted White’s first (and best) juvenile, Secret of the Marauder Satellite. There’s a con report of the 1968 Midwestcon, my third convention ever, and the first I went to outside the Deep South. Two of my local friends came along on that trip, Mike Blankenship and Tommy Ogle. Mike primarily collected heroic fantasy; Tommy was a comics guy, but his father collected SF and he had a set of the Fantasy Press Lensman books. Neither had much interest in fandom, but going by train

10 from Alabama to Cincinnati was an epic mine, though admittedly the power dynamic was adventure, the farthest solo trip any of us had ever a bit biased in his favor. taken. Some copies of Avernus were distributed at The second big consequence of Avernus 1 high school, where they quickly ended up came from that review (plot summary) of Donald attracting the attention of the principal, who Wetzel’s The Obscenity. Wetzel was a well branded them as obscene. By his deep fried moral respected, if not exactly well known, Alabama standards, I suppose it was. I was already not writer, author of The Rain, the Fire, and the Will numbered among his favorites, and it didn’t take of God and several other books. The Obscenity, long before I was in the principal’s office being set in Lower Alabama (known to locals as “LA.”), yelled at. was a rather lovely antiwar romance. I think part of the overreaction to the fanzine I sent a copy of Avernus 1 to Wetzel via his had to do with the general Sixties atmosphere: publisher. Some months later, Wetzel came to this, they feared, might be one of those Decatur on a book tour for his latest work, The “underground newspapers” they’d been reading Lost Skiff, and specifically requested that I be about, and this supposed hippie/radical influence invited to the reception. had to be nipped in the bud. Don was a balding man with a fringe of That Saturday, I reported to school to take the white hair, though he was probably only in his PSAT examination, and the principal cornered me late 40s. He was friendly and kind, and after the as I went in. I had been trained in German public reception invited me back to his hotel room. We schools that when addressing a teacher or hadn’t had much time to talk at the reception, principal, my reflex was to snap to attention, click given the number of people, and he wanted to my heels, and bow. Nervous at being accosted, I have a chance to chat. He produced a bottle of reacted reflexively. He thought I was making fun bourbon and poured me a shot, one grownup to of him and lost it. another. (Not only was I sixteen, as mentioned, “You’re going to be expelled over that obscene magazine,” he said with satisfaction. Having let me know about my fate, he left me to take the exam. (As it happened, the extra stress may have helped; I scored in the 99th percentile.) Nevertheless, I was fairly upset by the time I left school. My parents, brother, and sister were at the local marina (Decatur is located on the Tennessee River), where my father was launching a sailboat he’d been building in the back yard for a number of years. It was a fairly big deal; color photos of the boat made the front page of our local newspaper. It was in the middle of his moment of celebration that I had to bring the news of my impending doom. Fortunately, the principal had overreached. He could have punished me a number of ways and nobody would have interfered. Expulsion, however, required higher approval. As it happens, one of my father’s best friends sat on the Board of Education, and my mother had worked in the Superintendent’s office, so this idea that I would be expelled was quickly stopped. However, I’d earned my principal’s undying enmity — and he

11 Decatur was dry.) We talked about writing and as “Chase Park Plaza Elevator Operator” carrying the publishing world. a sword and yelling, “You aren’t getting on this He was the first Real Author I ever got to floor!” know. We corresponded intermittently for a few At a room party, I met Brian Burley and Fred years, but I lost track of him, as I (sadly) did of so Lerner, both of whom were very kind to me. many people. I checked for his other books in Brian, in particular, introduced me to rum, every used bookstore I visited, but it wasn’t until pouring me a large tumbler of the stuff. I was the Internet that I managed to complete my pretty thirsty, so I drank it. collection of Wetzel books. At some point, I closed my eyes for a One of his later books in particular surprised second, and fell fast asleep in somebody’s room. me: Pacifist: My War and Louis Lepke. It seems Brian and Fred left at some point, and nobody that Don was a WW2-era pacifist who went to there had the faintest idea who I was. prison rather than submit to the draft. His warden It was an all-night party, and somewhere thought it would be funny to put him in a cell around dawn, the survivors wanted to go to with Louis Lepke, head of Murder, Inc. Lepke, breakfast. They were unable to rouse me, and quite patriotic in his own way, tried to persuade didn’t feel like leaving a total stranger sleeping in Don of the error of his ways, and the book is a their room, so they decided, therefore, to take chronicle of the discussions the two men had. me along, dubbing me “the body.” I really wish I’d known about that when I They had just loaded me on one elevator knew him; I would have loved to hear him talk when the other arrived, so everyone got on the about it. other elevator. I rode down by myself. I have no Don contributed some poems to the very first idea whether anybody else boarded. issue of Random Jottings (contained herein). He They retrieved me in the lobby and parked divorced, remarried, and moved to Phoenix. He me on a sofa and went to breakfast. I was still published a few more books, and actually made fast asleep when they returned. They dragged me some money on one of them: The Fart Book. again out by the pool, and their party continued. I’ve made several attempts to locate him, and I woke up, and after a brief trip to the nearest sent letters to a few people named Donald Wetzel restroom to throw up, rejoined the group, who with no luck. I’m afraid he’s probably dead. by now considered me very much one of them. And then we were joined by none other than I went to Midwestcon again in 1969, this time Lin Carter! Yes, Lin Carter — “Our Man in solo. Fritz Leiber was there, and I got to see him Fandom” himself. “Shining, godlike creatures” fence. (Much later at TSR, we had the Lankhmar indeed. license, and I got to write a Fafhrd and Grey It was Sunday, and I flew home the following Mouser adventure called “One Night in Lankhmar day. A week later, I started my final year in high Makes a Proud Man Humble” (in CA2 City of school, and with it, began working on the Adventure) I asked for permission to reprint it in second issue of Avernus. this issue, but the dual licensing made that impossible. It’s unfortunate; it’s one of the best things I wrote there.) Avernus 2 was a substantial improvement over the first, but it was still a crudzine. It came out in the spring of 1970, the end of my senior And then I attended the 1969 World Science year in high school. Its best feature was the Fiction Convention: StLouisCon. cover, one of Richard Bergeron’s robot series, I went to my first two conventions by bus and shown on the right. I happily agreed to print the my second two conventions by train. This time, I cover offset and to send him 50 copies. flew. I shared a room with five or six other guys The whole issue would in fact be printed — I forget who; that part of the convention has offset. My father was an executive in an mercifully blurred. I appeared in the Masquerade insurance company. They had a full-scale print

12 shop, including a Heidelberg press, because from 1932, “The Inland Revenue.” He wrote insurance companies needed all sorts of back and gave me permission; he even wrote a contracts, riders, and applications. He talked LoC on the issue. (It’s in the Random Jottings 1 them into letting me print my fanzine there for the reprint at the end of this issue.) cost of materials — and a bottle of Jim Beam. Back at the print shop, they gave me about I decided to go for volume, as quality was out an hour and a half worth of training on the of the question, and put together a 100 page lithograph and the plate-making camera, and issue. It had the usual: fiction, poetry, reviews of told me I could do my fanzine after hours. I was The Prisoner and 2001, and an editorial. All the quickly overwhelmed and burned through about interior art came from Decatur artists. 20 plates before I got one to work. Eventually, My mother had introduced me to Leslie Dad had to pay one of the printers to come in Charteris’ Saint stories, and I was a huge fan. No and finish up the job. one else I knew had ever heard of the character, I graduated high school later that spring, and and so I decided to share my passion more almost immediately boarded a Greyhound for widely. I wrote a letter to Leslie Charteris and the big city: Charlotte, North Carolina. asked him for permission to reprint a Saint story

Working Propeller Beanie US Patent 1,799,664 H. W. Williams, 1930

14 True

background in sales. I not only sold GRIT, but also before Christmas I also sold greeting cards for the Cheerful Card Company, another comic book advertiser. For several years, GRIT and Cheerful Cards were the sole source of my spending money. GRIT sold for 20¢, and I kept 7¢. I could even strip the unsold copies and return them in lieu of payment. My first experience in sales came from my brief days as a Boy Scout (I made it all the way to Second Class before I got kicked out for missing too many meetings — they conflicted with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on Monday nights). There was an annual Scout Jamboree, and tickets were 50¢. If you sold 50, you got a free tent, and I sold about 65 or so. Some of the buyers gave me the money but declined to take a ticket, so I made a BEFORE WE LEAVE DECATUR BEHIND, let’s few extra bucks on the side as well. talk about comics. Well, at least we were talking I worked the concessions for a Shriner- about about comics at Corflu Glitter when Dan sponsored event featuring the Flying Wallendas, a Steffan mentioned he’d always been curious about big act for small-town Decatur, Alabama, and GRIT, America’s Greatest Family Newspaper, moved a lot of merchandise. Somewhere I have advertised in most comics from the 1940s to the an autograph of one of the Wallendas. So I was 1970s. “Boys!” screamed the headline. “Sell primed to Make Money and Win Prizes when GRIT! Make money! Win prizes!” GRIT came along. “I used to sell GRIT,” I said. GRIT was a weekly newspaper founded in I guess I’m not surprised I was the only one. 1882. Originally, it was just the Saturday edition of the Williamsport (PA) Daily Sun and Banner, People who know me as fairly introverted are but it was purchased in 1885 by a German somewhat surprised to learn about my immigrant named Dietrick Lamade, who built it

15 up to a circulation of 20,000 within a few years. I liked GRIT for the extensive comics section, By the mid-1930s, circulation reached half a containing next Sunday’s comics. They were, million. unfortunately, in black and white, but I did get to read them several days early. (GRIT arrived GRIT wasn’t like other newspapers. Aimed at Thursdays, and I sold them on Fridays.) A number rural and small-town America, GRIT was a good- of the strips weren’t carried in the local paper, the news newspaper. Here’s Lamade’s editorial Decatur Daily at all: Mandrake, Prince Valiant, policy: and Terry and the Pirates, among others. “Always keep GRIT from being As a salesman, my big advantage was that I pessimistic. Avoid printing those things had access to my father’s office building. He was which distort the minds of readers or a vice president of Mutual Savings Life Insurance, make them feel at odds with the world. one of the largest companies in town. Mutual Avoid showing the wrong side of things, Savings occupied Decatur’s only skyscraper, or making people feel discontented. Do towering six full stories over Bank Street. I started nothing that will encourage fear, worry, on the first floor and made my way up, and or temptation... Wherever possible, quickly reached a circulation of over 50 copies a suggest peace and good will toward men. week — more than $3.50 in income. I was a rich Give our readers courage and strength for man; paperbacks cost 35¢ to 40¢, so I could buy their daily tasks. Put happy thoughts, five books a week with plenty of cash left over. cheer, and contentment into their hearts.”

16 Most of GRIT’s customers were secretaries I worked full time in the summers and and clerks, many of whom I think actually about half time during the school year, and enjoyed the “good news” paper. The executives managed to save about $1,500. on the sixth floor, I think, by and large bought it I was just a page, responsible for shelving as a courtesy to my father, but that was okay by books and reading shelves to make sure the me. Money is money. books all stayed in the right order. However, The fifth floor was on the evening shift, I was effectively the Benny Carle most fun; it was home reference librarian because there wasn’t to WMSL Channel 23, anybody else around. the NBC affiliate and My other major duty was to keep an eye sole TV station in on two older men who would show up Decatur. The guys in whenever teenage girls were doing research the control room papers and watch them. If either man headed bought copies; the into the stacks, I dropped whatever else I was anchor of the evening doing and followed them, hanging out an aisle local news bought a or two away reading shelves, just in case they copy, and the kid ended up cornering one of our female patrons. show host, local legend Benny Carle, I quit at the end of my senior year. Eager bought a copy. He did to get out of Decatur, I started college in the a publicity shot with me that appeared in an issue summer of 1970, moving to Charlotte, North of the GRIT salesman newsletter, my first major Carolina — where I met Edward R. “Edsmith” media exposure. Smith. I had a few customers not in the Mutual Ω Savings building, so my mother would drive me around on Saturday mornings, then drop me off at the book-and-Hallmark Card shop where I’d pore through the limited selection of science fiction and get my reading fix for the week. I sold GRIT (and Cheerful Cards every Christmas season) for about two and a half years, starting in 1964, when I was in sixth grade, and continuing until the summer I started ninth grade, when I got a job as a page in the local library, where I worked for the great sum of $1.00/hour all the way through high school. * * * Library work was a natural for me; I’d certainly spent enough time in the place that I already knew all the librarians and pretty much where everything was. It was enormously convenient as well. We had moved just a few blocks, and our house was on the same block as the public library. I had to go out my back door, cut across the alley, and I was there.

17 The

Originally appeared in Mota 25, May 1978

I assumed this Edsmith must be some sort I FIRST HEARD OF Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith of greybearded elderly College Student3 and in 1968 through a review of his fanzine looked forward to visiting this fannish elder 1 Alpha #21 in Ned Brooks’ The New statesman/senior citizen during my next trip Newport News News. Of particular interest to Charlotte. was his address: 1315 Lexington Avenue, Charlotte, North Carolina 28203. Although I Little did I realize at the time the true lived in Alabama, my grandparents lived in importance of this unrecognized (until now) Charlotte, and so I visited there fairly seminal BNF: frequently. Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith invented The “#21” also caught my eye. “My fandom! goodness,” I mused. “This person must be It was in the sixth grade when Edsmith Some Kind of Fan! Twenty-one issues!”2 first created the idea of fanzines. He was still ______basking in the glow of his accomplishment a 1 One of Edsmith’s teachers once observed that mere few months earlier, when he had he must have been very clever to think up a founded club fandom in the form of The brand-new name every issue: Alpha #18, Alpha Seversville Elementary School Science Fiction #19, Alpha #20, etc. and Science Fact Club4. 2 At the time, I had never published a fanzine ______numbered higher than #2. It was my plan, if I ever 3 Turned out, he was fourteen. I was fifteen. started publishing again, to start with #17. 4 Three members.

18 Demolished Fan by Michael Dobson illustrations by Dan Steffan

In a flash of inspiration5, Edsmith With only brief pauses for letterhacking published the first issue of The Seversville to Herbie, The Fat Fury6 (you want I should News, which contained an editorial, some bop you with this here lollipop?), Alpha amateur science fiction, and the contents of appeared for some fourteen issues on a next months’s prozines, copied from their better-than-monthly schedule. “Coming Next Issue” sections. We can only distantly imagine the shock The Seversville News was handwritten and dismay that this unheralded Claude on notebook paper, and each copy was Degler experienced when he discovered that individually produced. his idea of Science Fiction Fandom had been The circulation was not large. stolen from him backwards in time! The Seversville News gave way after a Even as he peeled the carbon paper few issues to The Daily Rocket, which, in from between copies of early issues of Alpha, spite of the title, did not come out daily. With hundreds of other people were publishing this, Edsmith invented the unique fanzine their very own (uncredited to Edsmith) publishing schedule standards followed by fanzines. BNFs like Terry Hughes to this very day. But, like Arthur C. Clarke before him, In yet another blast from the mind of this who neglected to patent synchronous tendrilless Slan, Edsmith invented the carbon- communications satellites, Edsmith had paper reproduced fanzine; and, in the forgotten to patent fandom! process, discovered the typewriter. He fought it through the courts to no As a result of this technological avail. In a landmark 5-4 Supreme Court breakthrough, The Daily Rocket gave way to decision7, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote: the justly famous Alpha, the Hyphen of Charlotte, North Carolina, fanzines. ______6 The Howard the Duck of the late sixties.

5 Only 10% was actually inspiration. Of the 7 Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith vs. Claude Degler, remaining 90% (pace Edison), 50% was Gestetner Co., NFFF, et al. 334 U.S. 728 (1970) perspiration and the remainder was mimeo ink.

19 “As we have seen in ex parte supra starts. The songs themselves are Smith nihil obstat et alia, the historic all similar, though not identical, in style, and all have principles of caveat emptor, in media a lively, catchy tune. res, e pluribus unum, and c’est la vie Stereo is excellent — while on must be upheld. Our verdict is: Tough one speaker the announcer is — luck, Charlie.”8 well, announcing — the bombs are heard exploding on the other. Although shaken to the core by this Music is on one speaker, and the experience, Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith voices are clearly on the other — showed himself to be no quitter. not like most stereo I’ve ever heard, where the two speakers As had the immortal Jophan before him, blare at each other, with neither Edsmith’s quest for fannish perfection could speaker different from the other. not be deterred. He purchased a mimeograph, some stencils, and some These record reviews by the young Edsmith twiltone, and using only these primitive tools had a profound effect on Ted White, who even and the sweat of his brow, he created the today reviews music using the same brilliant last few issues of Alpha, still eagerly sophisticated insights he learned from Alpha. sought after by fanzine collectors who pay top dollar for these rare items. Edsmith’s wit, wisdom, and insight were the stuff of legend. In Alpha #22, we find this In Alpha #21, we find this classic example famous and and oft-quoted phrase: of Edsmith’s magical prose. “It is a proud and lonely thing to be an RECORD REVIEW Edsmith.” Snoopy and His Friends, recorded I couldn’t have said it better myself. by the Royal Guardsmen, Laurie Records, 1967. The Royal Guardsmen’s most famous record, and the one in which I was introduced to them, is “Snoopy and the Red Baron.” Then “The Return of the Red Baron” was released. The most recent (and not, as far as I know, available on a single) is “Snoopy’s Christmas.” Each number starts off as a newscast on radio, then, about halfway through, the music ______

8 As this decision was being read, Edsmith leaped to his feet and began singing “Dem Bones” after pinning a badge reading “#6” to his jacket. He was unceremoniously ejected from the courtroom screaming, “I am not a number, I am a fake fan!”

20 As noted earlier, I first heard the name of Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith in 1968. I visited him in Charlotte the summer of that year, and joined him in celebrating the arrival of the newest edition to the stable of Drunken Politician Publications9: Flip. With Flip, Edsmith’s writing hit its fullest blossom. My favorite is another record review: short, clear, and to the point: “And then there’s Abbey Road. If you haven’t heard it by now, you’re probably an asshole.”10 The same year also saw Edsmith enshrined in that Valhalla of sophisticated, mature fannishness, to which only the greatest fans aspired. No, not FAPA — APA-45. It was in APA-45 that Edsmith received the honor of the shortest mailing comment ever made by Jerry Lapidus, in his 3-5-0-0.

“Err...Granfalloon is spelled with two ‘L’s...I think.” I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in By 1970, Edsmith had published five the late spring of 1970, to attend the issues of Flip, the last issue on classic twiltone University of North Carolina at Charlotte, in Horrible Orange. then the newest and smallest campus in the system. I lived with my paternal grandmother, He had (with the assistance of budding who showed the amazing foresight to live young author Bob Vardeman, destined to within walking distance of the Edsmith stately become the andrew j. offutt of his generation), manor at 1315 Lexington Avenue. Edsmith founded SLAN-apa. The fannish world was his and I soon became fast friends11, and much oyster, and he was the pearl inside. of what and who I am today I owe to that ______friendship. 9 Drunken Politician Publications took its name I am also proud and humble12 to have from Robert Zimmerman’s Blonde on Blonde: “The drunken politician leaps/Upon the street where been witness and helper in Edsmith’s mothers weep.” However, there’s another possible invention of the two greatest, most vital, most interpretation. On the 1968 trip where I first met crifanactical ideas ever to hit fandom. Let me him, I invited Edsmith to a family get-together at my give you some background. maternal grandfather’s house in Charlotte where (as ______was standard practice for Granddad) the booze was flowing generously. Edsmith had his first taste of 11 Or we fast became soon friends, I forget which. liquor that night. 12 Also lonely. 10 When I first read that, I hadn’t yet heard it.

21 Flip #5 appeared shortly before my move “Not a bad thought, really.” He looked at to Charlotte, and it was through Edsmith’s the last rays of the setting sun from his advice and support that I published the first veranda recliner. I breathed a sigh of relief at (and for a very long time the only) issue of his reassuring words. Random Jottings. We had plans for a He took a sip of Dr. Pepper and leaned veritable armada of fanzines that would issue back, lost for a time in thought. from our respective domiciles. These plans “It is kind of hard to get egoboo for not were never to see fruition, but all would not doing anything,” he mused. I wrote that be lost. down too. “And what,” he continued, “ is In a dazzling display of almost unwitting fandom without egoboo?” brilliance, Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith had “What, indeed,” I replied. invented the Never Completed Fannish Project! “Indeed,” he said. Edsmith’s final great discovery came Edsmith said nothing for a very long shortly thereafter, as we were spending a time, and I feared he had gone to sleep. summery North Carolina evening on his I was wrong. Like Kimball Kinnison veranda, slowly sipping our Dr. Pepper juleps wrestling with a new device to destroy and dreaming of fanzines to come. Boskonian planets, Edward R. “Edsmith” “Talking about publishing fanzines sure Smith was on the verge of something big. is a lot easier than actually doing it,” he How big, I did not yet know. mused solemnly. Ever the faithful Boswell, I But I was soon to find out. quickly jotted the solemn musing in my “By Roscoe, I think I’ve got it!” he cried. notebook. “An idea so mighty, so wonderful, it will “It sure is,” I agreed sycophantically. forever change the face of fandom! An idea “How wonderfully perceptive.” so overpowering that no one who comes in He nodded, acknowledging the well- contact with it will ever be the same!” deserved praise. “If we talk and plan long (As the cosmic ripples of impending enough,” he added, “we may never have to change cascaded back through time, the publish again as long as we live!” young F. T. Laney tossed fitfully in his sleep. I quickly wrote that down too. “Listen!” a ghostly voice whispered. “Listen!”) “But,” he mused again. I held my pen ready to capture his next utterance. We, of course, know today of Edward R. “But...there are still letters to answer, fanzines “Edsmith” Smith’s solution for what to do to LoC, conventions to attend, N3F dues to when the egoboo runs out. We use only a pay — a fan’s work is never done.” single word, an acronym, for that mighty concept. I hesitated, trembling a little, before venturing my reply. “Why don’t we just not “Maybe we should just get away from it do any of that?” all,” he said. He looked at me, and paused Yes, Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith had thoughtfully. I felt embarrassed that I might discovered GAFIA! have offended the living image of Homo And he did get away from it all. He Cosman. stopped corresponding. He was dropped

22 from all his apas for lacktivity. He managed I noticed the dark blue mimeo ink stain to have his subscriptions to OSFAN and on his shirt. “Didn’t those pants used to be Locus stopped. white?” I asked, looking at his dark blue He even tried to cash his checks from pants. George Senda. “Yes, well...” he said, grinning. “I Am He Got Away From It All. Having A Few Problems Pubbing This Ish.” But deep inside, the fannish fires still “How wonderful!” I exclaimed with smoldered. glee. “How Trufannish!” I especially admired the way in which he spoke in all initial caps. * * * “I’ve only got six more stencils to run off. I didn’t see Edsmith much during the Can you help me collate tomorrow early spring of 1971. When I did make the morning?” he asked. trek to 1315 Lexington Avenue to see him, he “Sure,” I said. “I’ll see you about nine looked harried. thirty.” His fingers twitched incessantly, and “Okay.” Edsmith turned and I watched from time to time his right shoulder would him walk off into the moonset. I went back to jerk around much in the way it would if a bed. mimeograph crank were held in his hand. I suspected he was having trouble Staying Away From It All, but I said nothing. Then one day I saw him with a stylus in his shirt pocket. I tried to make a light- hearted comment, but it didn’t work. I could tell he was locked in mortal combat with his soul. I could not interfere, even when the telltale corflu stains appeared under his fingernails.

The last time I saw Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith was very late at night on April 16, 1971. I was asleep. He tapped on my bedroom window once, then again. I came to full alertness instantly and opened the window. There, in the dim light of the crescent moon, he stood, one lens of his glasses gleaming in the moon’s reflection. His hair was awry; his shirt was mis-buttoned. But his hands did not tremble, and he looked at peace with himself. “I am returning to fandom,” he said, and smiled.

23 The next morning I awoke around nine * * * o’clock, dressed, and walked over to 1315 It was only much later that the full story Lexington Avenue. Edsmith kept his mimeo in back, on an enclosed porch behind the was revealed: how Edsmith had been sold the kitchen. defective mimeo ink can, how the pressure in the can from repeated depression of the ink As I started to walk around the house, I key built up, and how finally... heard a flat, dull explosion, a sort of “BLAT!” I broke into a run, circling the last corner to The memory is still too painful. I cannot suddenly stop in unbelieving horror — the go on. smoking hole, the dark blue stains mixed I remember standing by Edsmith’s open with growing amounts of deep red. I peered grave in the rain, unashamed tears glistening inside, then looked quickly away from the in my eyes, as his coffin was slowly lowered. charred remains of operator and mimeo. A purple-robed Ghuist minister read the And then I saw, fluttering away in the benediction. light spring breeze, a scrap of Horrible “From fanzines did he come, and back Orange twiltone, with one word hand- into fanzines will he go, twiltone to twiltone, stenciled in large, dark blue letters. corflu to corflu. But his spirit will live on in the halls of the Legion of Trufandom and the FOUT! rolls of the NFFF. Mourn not, for in the name of the Gernsback, the Palmer, and the Holy Degler, Amen.” “Amen,” chorused the mourners. I turned away from the grave and began walking. His contributions now were ended, no more would fanzines issue from 1315 Lexington Avenue in Charlotte, North Carolina. But I would go on, his shining memory every serving as a beacon.

Alas, poor Edsmith. I knew him, Terry.

Ω

24 The Demolished Fan Egoboo Express for Mota 25

Terry Hughes and Divers Letterhacks

TERRY HUGHES WOULD CUT apart copies of letters of comment and send them to contributors as the “Egoboo Express,” so we would get all the happy (or not) reaction to our contributions in record time. Here are some of the comments on the original publication of The Demolished Fan. ______“I actually remember Michael Dobson. Boy, does that make me feel old. I think I could even pick him up out of a lineup. (“Fanac’s been committed here: go round up the usual suspects.”) On the other hand, I never really met Ed Smith, although I knew who he was and what he looked like. I never thought of Ed as having a particularly important influence on fandom, despite his professional review column for fanzines, but Mike does an effective job of immortalizing his friend. ... As a matter of interest, is this a new contribution to Mota or something you’ve had around for some time? I wasn’t aware Mike was still active in any way.” — Mike Glicksohn ______“I had a slightly adverse reaction to ‘The Demolished Fan’ at first: seemed uninspired but I was reading impatiently. The reason: I published a piece of faan-fic with the same title in 1966. At the time, in keeping with the spirit of the source, I noted that the title had undoubtedly been used before, and would be used again, in Bester’s mimicry of a certain Dickens novel.” — Lee Carson ______“‘The Demolished Fan’ might be longer than it needed to be. Maybe not. This is a well done piece in a very traditional, in fact, time honored style — the mythologizing of one’s fan friend or friends. The illos make an accompaniment that meshes nicely with the text. And yet, for all of this, I must say that I don’t tend to do much more than chuckle (silently, in my mind) at this kind of artificial elaboration, which strikes me as much less funny than the succinct flat perspective elliptical caught-in-passing effect of the Boyd Raeburn piece. — Gary Deindorfer

“I wasn’t a fan in 1968 so I haven’t the foggiest whether Edward R. “Edsmith” Smith was a real fan Michael Dobson is satirizing, or a wholly original creation. The bit about being in APA-45 might be a clue since he could hardly have ben 14 years old in 1968 and still be born before 1945. (Or was it after? And anyway, didn’t they drop the age requirement sometime?) ... It’s hard to be fannish when you don’t know if you’re being joshed about something.” — Brian Earl Brown

25 “Since reading ‘The Demolished Fan,’ I’ve been trying to remember if I’ve met Ed Smith. A carload of fans from his area spent one Sunday afternoon with me here several years back. I can’t specifically remember his being in the group, but the face looks familiar in Dan Steffan’s illustrations. Or maybe I met him at one of the Discons.” — Harry Warner, Jr. ______

“Mike Dobson’s ‘The Demolished Fan’ was of particular interest to me because I’m from Charlotte, NC, and so was the chap who introduced me to fandom. I lived in/on Norcross Place in Zipcode 28205, about three miles east of Edsmith (there’s a Briticism for you: American live on a street, British live in it). But Edsmith and I were not really contemporaries: I was no longer living in Charlotte in 1968 and in any case was about ten years his senior. And I had been introduced to fandom three or four years before by one Al Scott, who (a) has gafiated so far as I know ... I can’t believe, tho, that an exploding mimeo ink can would cause as much destruction as Mike states. What I think happened is that the ink clogged the drum and that air pressure built up in the drum until the drum exploded. But I could be wrong, especially if Edsmith’s mimeo did not have a hollow cylinder. Does Ralph Nader know anything about this, exploding mimeos, I mean? — Sam Long

26 Charlatan

Edsmith also found the other two members of YES, VIRGINIA, there really was an Edsmith, Charlotte fandom, Fast Eddie Ferrell and Weird and in many ways he was as amazing as his Harold Wilson. Harold still lives in Charlotte. Fast fictional analogue. He really did start a fanzine in Eddie today plays recorder professionally for elementary school; Alpha did run for over 20 Carolina Pro Musica. issues, and his mimeograph really did explode, Edsmith’s Flip 5 came out just before I moved though with results somewhat less dramatic than to Charlotte, and with his help I got Random previously portrayed. He wrote “The Clubhouse,” Jottings 1 done that fall. That was pretty much the the fanzine review column for Amazing Stories, last gasp of both our publishing efforts; we did for a while. He was enormously well read, with start Flip 6 and Random Jottings 2, but Ed had wide ranging and intelligent taste in music and bought this blue ink that was very old and had the arts; I learned a lot from being around him. separated, and he kept pushing the ink key to try From my perspective, Edsmith was the guy who to get a little ink out, and finally the container hung out with all the cool fans He was even in exploded, coating Ed and mimeo and putting an Apa-45. end to our publishing efforts. Although I was about a year older, he was by Ed later moved to Washington, DC, and was a far the senior fan. He spent the week with his huge influence on my decision to move there. parents in the nearby suburb of Matthews, where He’s lived in the Boston area for many years. I he attended high school, and stayed with his was best man at his wedding, in the church where grandparents in Charlotte on the weekends. His John and John Quincy Adams are buried. grandparents lived in a wonderful old home in one of Charlotte’s nicest neighborhoods. The house had a library with floor to ceiling shelves While my relationship with Trufandom was on all four walls, where we spent most of our complicated, I eventually discovered that the time. fannish impulse shows up in many different ways There was a Charlotte fandom, of sorts. A and in many different places. Fandom, in other classmate of Ed’s in Matthews, Mike Secrest, was words, is where you find it. In college, I an early member of SLAN-apa. (I still owe him $4 discovered an environment similar to fandom: the for a concert ticket.) He went to Geogia Tech on creative writing circle at the University of North an NROTC scholarship, served a hitch in the Carolina at Charlotte. I had a wonderful, albeit Navy, and the last I knew he was raising chickens. short, time in college I went to UNCC for financial reasons. It was at the time, the youngest and smallest campus in

27 the UNC system (today it’s the largest, though less lesbian coming of age story. She’d been an editor prestigious than its Chapel Hill cousin. Although I at Grove Press and was an accomplished had to pay out-of-state tuition (a budget-busting modernist writer. When I met her, she was working $600 per semester), I could live with my on her second book, Confessions of Cherubino. grandmother for free. I already knew Charlotte, and The two books for which she is best known came in Edsmith, I already had a local best friend. What’s after the time I knew her: the brilliant Lovers (critics not to like? The only catch was that tuition was compared her work to Djuna Barnes) and the best slated to double in two years.I started in the seller she co-authored, The Joy of Lesbian Sex. summer and went year-round, taking an average of The creative writing class became my primary 21 hours per semester so I could get out before the social circle in college. Bertha introduced us to tuition hike could take effect. As a result, I numerous North Carolina authors: former Paris graduated in just a little over two years. Review editor Max Steele (author of “The Cat and I scoured the catalog for easy classes and the Coffee Drinkers” and the hilarious semi- exploited every loophole I could find to grab cheap science fictional “Promiscuous Unbound”), Ballad credits. One such opportunity was English 306 of the Flim-Flam Man author Guy Owen, and Lloyd Creative Writing (Fiction). You could take the class Kropp, author of the Sargasso Sea fantasy The Drift. every semester, and you were pretty much Lloyd, it turned out, was peripherally involved in guaranteed an A every time. College undergraduate fandom; he knew Roger Zelazny and Sandra creative writing classes aren’t known for producing Miesel. Lloyd Kropp was the GoH at a one-day actual writers, so I didn’t expect much. Charlotte comics and sf con we put on; we also The reality was amazing. Three people in a took a memorable trip to a Pghlange — I forget class of fewer than ten went on to have which year that was. professional writing careers. Julia Willis, who I ran for the editorship of the school literary looked like Amelia Earhart, became a well-known magazine, Sanskrit, which became my major lesbian author and a gag writer for Lily Tomlin and amateur publishing focus. The editorship came Joan Rivers. Her novel Reel Time, based on her with a princely stipend of $400 a semester, a large experiences as a movie projectionist, is lovely; her private office, and an expense allowance that paid book of lesbian etiquette, Who Wears the Tux?, is a my way to Noreascon I in 1971. riot. She now lives in the Boston area. Sanskrit was the first time I’d ever encountered Lloyd Rose moved to Washington and lived in type more sophisticated than a typewriter or the same apartment building as I did. She became lettering guide, and the first issue was hideous. (I the dramaturg for Arena Stage, and later drama thought that if they gave you 20 different typefaces, critic at the Washington Post. She’s written two you were supposed to use them all.) The well-received Doctor Who novels, as well as magazine’s business manager got $200 a semester, episodes of the TV series Homicide: Life on the so I eliminated that position after a year and gave Streets and Kingpin. (Lloyd, like Lee Hoffman, was the money to a student designer, Margaret Pierce. female. There’s a Southern tradition of women We did a total of five issues. In addition to student getting a family name as a middle name, and being material, Sanskrit also ended up publishing some called by that middle name: think Flannery Rotsler illos and other stuff that was originally O’Connor or Carson McCullers.) slated for Random Jottings 2. Waste not, want not. Our teacher was Bertha Harris. At the time, she The amateur publishing bug spread among the had published one novel, Catching Saradove, a creative writing circle. Julia and several others

I thought if they gave you 20 different typefaces, that meant you were supposed to use them all.

28 “My god,” said the Duchess, “get your hand off my thigh!” lived in an ramshackle country estate known as fannish visitors, including the late Mike Wood, an Duchess House, home of many memorable parties. Apa-45 stalwart then attending Michigan State They produced a mimeographed magazine, The University, and Jerry Lapidus, passing through on Duchess House Review, which ran four or five his way to New York. issues, if I recall correctly. The name was inspired by I’d met and fallen for a girl from Minneapolis Bertha Harris, who told us that a good commercial at the 1970 Midwestcon. We had an intense story had sex, royalty and religion. The perfect short correspondence and I visited her in Minneapolis story? “My god,” said the duchess, “get your hand the following spring. I unwisely invited her to visit off my thigh!” me in Alabama in return. (Pro dating tip: Avoid The Duchess House circle had many this.) We broke up later that year. adventures. We went on a pilgrimage to Flannery Charlotte fandom drove to the 1971 O’Conner’s farm in Milledgeville, Georgia, where Midwestcon in Eddie Ferrell’s Chevy, and as I we picked up some peacock feathers and talked to mentioned, I used the Sanskrit expense account to Flannery’s mother on the phone. travel to Noreascon I in Boston. I had to get the There was a memorable party at the house magazine’s business manager to sign off on the attended by Walter Starkie, director of Dublin’s trip; the price was that she got to go, too. She was Abbey Theater and leading expert on the Romani. more interested in a free trip to Boston than in Julia fed cat food to a particularly obnoxious drama science fiction, but did look around the professor, telling him it was paté; he raved about the convention out of curiosity. She met Isaac Asimov, dish. And there were numerous late nights that who, to her shock, grabbed her boobs. At ended up at the local Krispy Kreme, just in time for Noreascon, I was part of the Best Group Costume the fresh doughnuts. at the masquerade. We did a Cookie Monster skit I was known in the English department as a from Sesame Street. I was Cookie. science fiction fan, and in my last semester at I didn’t have much contact with official UNCC (which would have been the first semester of Southern fandom, but I did meet one Southern fan, my junior year had I gone conventionally), I became Lane Lambert, from Boaz, Alabama. (I wrote him an unofficial adjunct faculty member, teaching their on the possibility that he was a girl.) Boaz, another first science fiction class. They offered me money, dry Alabama town, was more or less on my drive but I needed credit hours more; we settled on 12 home from college, so I visited him on several semester hours with a negotiated “A,” but I had to occasions. His writeup of one of those visits write a brief paper about my teaching experience so appeared in Random Jottings 4/2. they’d have something concrete. On May 15, 1972, I was driving from I got out of college having written only four Charlotte to Decatur when my clutch broke just papers, none longer than five pages. I did get a great outside of Boaz. The problem was that I had a education, though — just not the one I was trunk full of liquor that I was bringing home for my supposed to receive. dad — and this was a serious crime. I called Lane to come get me, and to his horror I began loading the booze in his trunk. I managed to get the car Edsmith had invited me to be a founding into the local Buick dealership, and was sitting in member of SLAN-apa, still going strong today with the waiting room when all of a sudden a man ran over 500 mailings. I lasted three or so years before in, shouting, “Some [n-word] just shot George dropping out. I founded a children’s fantasy apa, Wallace!” While that turned out not to be the Apanage, but dropped out after two mailings. It also case, it did seem like a plausible hypothesis. At the continues to the present day. We hosted occasional

29 time, I had very long hair, and so sat very quietly I went to that Bubonicon as well. It was until the car was ready, feeling as if I’d been notable for the invention of “Science Fiction dropped into a Flannery O’Connor story (“A True Keepaway,” a game in which we all ran away Fan is Hard to Find”). and hid from George Senda after he’d generously Lane now lives in Boston and works as a bought everybody dinner. (It turned out to be on newspaper reporter. a fraudulent credit card, but we didn’t know that at the time.) I had gone to Bubonicon assuming there’d be a way to hitch a ride to LA, but that Edsmith went to the 1972 Disclave without turned out not to be the case. John D. Berry, Neil me; I don’t remember exactly why. At Disclave, Goldfarb, and a fan I don’t remember were all in he got involved with Ted and Robin White, which the same boat. led to his brief tenure as the Clubhouse reviewer After some investigation, John discovered for Amazing. That summer, he traveled with them “Auto Driveaway,” a service that arranged to Bubonicon in Albuquerque and from there on delivery of cars. They only had a car going as far to LACon.

SLAN-apa at Noreascon I (Boston, 1971). Top row, left to right: George Beahm, Bob Vardeman, Lisa Tuttle, Michael Dobson. Bottom row, left to right: Ned Brooks, Mike Wood, Jerry Lapidus, Al Snider, Eddie Ferrell. (Al wasn’t a member of SLAN-apa; he was just there when the picture was taken.)

30 as Phoenix, so we headed off through the desert Church. Ted read Richard’s story, and bought it in a Ford Torino with a cramped back seat. John for Fantastic: “The Kozmic Kid.” was the only one of us old enough to be an Richard subsequently dropped out of high official driver. school and moved to Falls Church. He started a There weren’t any Driveaway cars in Phoenix sequel but never finished it. Ted is still in going to LA, so we ended up stranded in a gas occasional contact with him; he lives in Austin. station parking lot. I had a vague connection to a Phoenix fan named Ken St. Andre (later known for Tunnels & Trolls), looked him up in the That same Disclave, Edsmith moved to phonebook, and prevailed on him to come pick Washington. One by one, my various college us up. We ended up on an overnight Greyhound friends mostly moved away as well. I entertained vague notions of graduate school, but had to LA, and from thence to the con. neither money nor direction. The director of the nature museum where I worked told me that my I didn’t have any particular career goals — at boss’s predecessor had joined the National Air least none that seemed at all practical — so when and Space Museum (NASM) at the Smithsonian, I finished college in December 1972 I was pretty and arranged for me to get a courtesy interview. much at loose ends. I had part-time three jobs: Nothing came of it. I attended Torcon in 1973, temp typist, substitute teacher, and weekend and tried to stay awake for all of it, which did not planetarium show operator at our local nature go well. museum. It was a depressing fall; I had neither a job While working at the planetarium, I got nor a clue. I sent applications to a few more tapped to be Arthur C. Clarke’s chauffeur when he people at NASM, and finally one ended on the came to Charlotte for a few days. We had one desk of Donald Lopez, assistant director of conversation in a coffee shop in between his aeronautics. Out of the blue, I got a phone call meetings, in which he showed me a $700 from him and went for an interview in DC. Even Hewlett-Packard calculator he’d just bought (four though it was clear I didn’t know anything about functions, no memory). “The slide rule is airplanes, he offered me a job. obsolete,” he informed me solemnly, and then I packed my meager possessions and drove demonstrated a superior method of approximating to DC, where I began work at the National Air π using the first three primes: 355/113 rather than and Space Museum on December 17 (Wright the more common 22/7. Brothers Day), 1973. I was a long-term substitute teacher. One day, one of my tenth-grade students, Richard Snead, asked me to read a few science fiction stories he’d If I had known how valuable my written. Two were about what you’d expect, but Smithsonian days would turn out to be, I the third was remarkable, and I told him I’d be wouldn’t have complained so much about the lousy pay. willing to send it to Ted White. “You know Ted White?” he asked with fanboy enthusiasm. “Know him?” I said. “I’ve smoked dope with him!” Ω I ended up taking him with me to the 1972 Disclave, where we stayed at Ted’s house in Falls

31 Sanskrit

IF I CAN THINK OF MY COLLEGE creative writing circle as an alternate fandom, then Sanskrit qualifies as at least a quasifanzine, and fair game for my fannish reminiscences. Here are a few pieces from the five issues I edited. Whitmel Joyner wasn’t part of the creative writing circle; his submission just showed up. Lisa Tuttle wasn’t part of the creative writing circle at my college either, but I’m fortunate to have been able to publish one of her early stories. There’s a poem by Jeff Beam, from the companion poetry program. Jeff went on an award-winning career as a poet and musician. One critic praised his work for its "transcendent, lush beauty, its minimal sacrament, simplicity and physicality.” I mentioned Julia Willis earlier; she wrote several one-act plays that were produced at UNCC and elsewhere; this is one of them. Mary Herrera was also part of the creative writing class; I don’t know what happened to her. Adrienne Marcus was a respected poet whose work appeared in The Atlantic and The Nation; she sold over 400 poems in her career and published several books. She was originally from North Carolina, but had moved to California. I met her by accident at the 1972 LACon; I happened to mention I was from North Carolina and it turned out she knew my writing teacher Bertha Harris. A few months later, she spoke at my college. I went up after her reading and re-introduced myself. She took me along to a faculty party and later sent me a poem for Sanskrit. She later married futurist Ian Wilson. I looked her up when I wrote this and learned she died in 2009. The alternate history version of Random Jottings 2 (incorporated in Random Jottings 4) also featured a selection of material from Sanskrit, including Lloyd Rose’s verse drama “The Vampire Sheep,” poetry by “Arabella St. Erth” and Madeline Shira, and “Memorandum to the Curriculum Committee” by UNCC poet in residence Robert Grey. There’s one piece missing here. For the very last issue of Sanskrit under my editorship, Ted White offered me a short story he’d originally written for a Roger Elwood anthology. Elwood had asked him for something shocking, and Ted evidently complied too well for Elwood’s taste. I really wanted to publish it. My faculty advisor was already going nuts, and it would have gotten a lot of negative publicity in the local press — two good reason to run with it. In the end, though, it just didn’t fit with the rest of the issue.

32 In Vasectomia Vita Est Whitmel M. Joyner

While he was working, and we were making talk, I kept looking at the big rectangle ceiling blocks That look like moonscape mockups and soak up his Nurse’s bug mouth out in the hall, or try to. They should have been more effective, maybe.

She had said to me, stentorianly, “Take off your pants and underpants and wait here.” Hush, damn it. Up front in the waiting room, Those guys with warts and women for clap tests Were no kin to me. He hemostatically secured each line. Later, while he was at work, Then a hefty prick to left and right, for pity’s sake. I heard her say the same thing Well, better that than laughing gas. To someone else. There came relief After slitting me with index finger and thumb, That she had not singled me out. With something like a crochet hook Like, had she said, “Weight here” instead? He pulled each efferens out.

She was antagonistic, I felt, because A sporting young man, he said, Here I was, without a houseful of “We’re going to go in high, Irrational noise, nor even a wife, In case you change your mind someday. Though I had one of those, once. Easier to reconnect up here in the straightaway She had looked at me funny, I thought. Than down in the esses,” But I, of all people, knew I was done chappin’ He said, changing gears. Before I’d even started. Stitched and dabbed and instructed and all, But back to the whacking. I thanked him and started out. After finding them with index finger and thumb, She looked at me that way again, As I trod tenderly down the hall. In case I should change my mind someday ...

Sure, girl. But you didn’t know my father.

33 Variations

THE SUN COMES IN through the kitchen The second feature is playing now, the one window. I’m watching the crumbs on the table; neither of us are interested in. The car smells like you’re watching me. If I were my mother I would bug spray and I’m still being eaten by mosquitoes. have cut the toast on a bread-board, and whisked You moved closer to me because you said the the crumbs off with a damp cloth into the sink, steering wheel got in the way. You wanted to get but I have never been my mother. in the back seat where it would be more I’m not even listening to you. I’m wondering comfortable, but I told you to go ahead: I was what I would say if you asked me what I was comfortable here. thinking. I’m thinking about thinking. We’re talking now, not watching the movie. I Your hand is lying in sunlight, and your signet pretend to follow the movie: to have something to ring shines. Once I thought men wore rings as an do when the silences come. I know what would affectation. Except for married men, of course. happen if we sat looking at each other, not They’re always an exception. You move your hand talking. I wasn’t interested in any of that in the out of the sun. back seat; I’m not interested in the front seat. I Do you think it is strange that I’m not filling didn’t want to come to a drive-in in the first place. the holes in the conversation? Have you ever I suppose you’ll want to kiss me when you listened to me? Ever? Are you glad I’ve finally take me home. Assuming that I’ve fended you off stopped talking to you? until then. You told me once I had a sexy voice, that my My mother warned me about people like you. whispering job in the library was a sin, a deprivation to all mankind. No — you never said Jefferson Airplane blaring from the next room so. It was someone else ... that strange boy who — even though we moved in here where it’s used to kiss me in the Texas Heritage Room, quieter. You’re telling me the story of your life, or underneath the painting of Stephen F. Austin. He something equally important. I am singing in my never asked me out but he came to the library a head with the music and noticing things about lot. You’ve never come to see me in the library; he your face. I know I should listen, in case I’m never saw me out of it. quizzed later, but the music is easier to follow, That’s funny, that I would confuse you with and I know the words already. him. You’re nothing alike. Will I someday blur the Your eyes are bloodshot. I remember when memory of you with that of someone yet to come? we first got to the party. You went off with some

34 on a Theme Lisa Tuttle

friends of yours, I was swallowed by some friends You’re lonely and swimming in childhood of mine (no interchangeable parts), and I wonder when I fall asleep. if perhaps you passed around a joint. I don’t know how someone who is high acts, but I remember There is light coming from the bathroom. reading Check These Signs. Your son may be a You’re wrapped in the coverlet, on the bed, drug abuser in a magazine. I have never abused working up courage to tell me. I put on a blouse, drugs — I have never even been kind to them. didn’t button it, and now I’m sitting on a chair, Last night you wanted me to go to bed with wondering if you’re wishing I would get dressed. you and I told you I didn’t know you well enough. You’re telling me things for sympathy, and I Now I suppose you are giving me a concise wonder if I look sympathetic. But it probably history of yourself so you’ll be able to refute me if doesn’t matter; because my face is probably in I try that one again. If you try again tonight I will shadow; and you don’t look at me very much. You tell you that my mother always waits up for me. looked at me a lot when I had my clothes on. Before we came here. The room is dark; I can’t look at you while It is too much trouble to listen to you. Your you speak. You’re telling me of your childhood, I voice is too soft. Something about your mother. I think, and about the medals you won for knew you were a virgin, I don’t care why. I know swimming. And of a lonely first summer away at you’ll tell me. camp. How do you know that I’m not sleeping? I I really feel like getting into bed alone and can see you lying beside me, your body looking finishing The Source. I feel like reading for hours dark against the sheets. Your hands move on end, and not having to worry about other occasionally when you talk; and I feel the fingers people. I wish I’d thought to bring the book along. clench and move against my thigh, between us. What if I began to talk to you, and told you I am lying on my back, flat. Like a mummy about my childhood. And my first lover. And why wrapped in sheets; but the sheet is bunched at the I let you pick me up. end of the bed (my feet brush it) and the blankets I’d tell you how lonely I am, if I believed it. fell off long ago. The room is warm. But right now I want to be alone. But I know what I am wondering. Do you know that I have I am supposed to do. I am supposed to sit here never slept with a man before? Could you feel my and listen. tenseness, even through excitement; and then my crazy relief that it hadn’t been so bad after all?

35 You’re sleeping. All my life, I say to you, I You must have told me goodbye when I have been lonely. I keep finding people who are wasn’t listening; suddenly you’re not around supposed to be cures for that; but it doesn’t work. anymore. I’d begun to be bored, uncomfortable, When you were awake you spoke to me of around you. I was wishing you would leave; loneliness. How empty your life was before you when it started we made an agreement that there found me. were to be no promises, no regrets. Now you say you’ve found someone to But now I have to find someone else. I told communicate with. Someone who understands you how afraid I was of being alone; how lonely. you. Now you have a purpose. You told me everyone was like that. Find another purpose. Don’t lie to yourself. I I told you that I needed someone, but that I hope I don’t understand you; if I do, you bore me. didn’t ever want to get married because I didn’t I’ve never been so close to anyone. I feel I feel I could love anyone all my life. And you told know you completely, you said. me everyone was like that. You don’t know me, I say. I told you more, and you told me more, when But we were meant for each other; we’ll neither of us was listening. always be together. I suppose everyone is like that. And perhaps I’ll say goodbye in the morning.

The rooms are bleating now like old sheep. tuneless in knifing time, the shadows faint. ending, turning, streetlamps approach us, glare sidewalks up. Sinning old warriors weep in the gutters lit like the lamps and on street corners I watch them staring, wretched faces, cool, damp, and menacing; gargoyles of the night. oh! like the time of cypress trees bending swamplike — wet and wild as mountains mold memories. warriors turn inside themselves. the clocks click tock and tempt in windless rooms. i see them: mist-ridden ghosts of yesterday and my dead age, wrinkled in the palm of august Jeffrey Beam

36 Body and Sole a play by Julia Willis

CHARACTERS A moderator, Ruth Emma Jean Kurst Homemacher, Miss America 1952

RUTH RUTH Good morning, ladies, and welcome to Broad Let’s see, you were from Iowa — World. Today, I’m going to be chatting with Mrs. Arthur Homemaker — EMMA JEAN That’s right, Ruth, the Corn State. EMMA JEAN That’s Homemacher, Ruth. RUTH I couldn’t agree with you more, Emma Jean. Aside RUTH from your beauty and poise, I believe it was the Oh, how silly of me. But I knew her better as talent competition that won the title for you. Emma Jean Kurst, way back in 1952, wasn’t it, Emma Jean? EMMA JEAN That’s what everybody said at the time, Ruth. EMMA JEAN That’s right, Ruth. RUTH That was certainly a night to remember. For those RUTH of you who’ve forgotten, Emma Jean astounded And those of you who’re like me and have a both judges and audiences alike by memory like an elephant (or like a steel trap, my simultaneously canning 24 jars of peach butter husband says), you’ll remember Emma Jean when and knitting a two-piece wool suit in three she graced our fair states as Miss America of minutes flat. Am I correct, Emma Jean? 1952, isn’t that right? EMMA JEAN EMMA JEAN Yes, you are, Ruth. The skirt had box pleats. That’s right, Ruth.

37 RUTH RUTH It certainly was an accomplishment. Oh, yes, of course. Well, we’re all so glad to see you after all these years. Tell us, what have you EMMA JEAN been doing to yourself? Well, I must admit we were a little worried about the competition. Miss Texas had planned on EMMA JEAN playing “Because” and a patriotic medley on her Well, I drink a glass of hot water every morning teeth — before breakfast and exercise regularly.

RUTH RUTH Oh, yes, I remember. But luckily for all of us, she Now that’s a smart tip, ladies. But I’m sure you’ve developed a terrible case of pyorrhea on the been doing more than that — afternoon of the finals. EMMA JEAN EMMA JEAN To keep myself looking and feeling fine, I read the Yes, she did. Word of God and take hormone pills.

RUTH RUTH Well, Emma Jean, you made a lovely Miss That’s wonderful, Emma Jean. But how about your America. family?

EMMA JEAN EMMA JEAN I toured all 48 states. Yes, I do, Ruth.

RUTH RUTH And Puerto Rico, I believe. You’ve married Doctor Homemacher?

EMMA JEAN EMMA JEAN Well, yes, but I — I have married Doctor Homemacher, a most humane gynecologist and often a successful RUTH surgeon for women. We have been graced with That’s where you were hospitalized with six beautiful children. dysentery, wasn’t it? RUTH EMMA JEAN Six. Well, yes, it was, Ruth. EMMA JEAN Six, yes. An even half a dozen. We love them so. RUTH What did I tell you, girls? A mind like an RUTH elephant. I hope I’m not embarrassing you, Emma Well, it sounds like you’ve been mighty busy. Jean. How do you find time for everything?

EMMA JEAN Oh, no, go right ahead. My husband is a doctor.

38 EMMA JEAN RUTH I find the best time to plan family menus is while Yes, Emma Jean, that’s fine. Do the children help mowing the lawn. you?

RUTH EMMA JEAN I’d never thought of that. But the children and the The children. We have six beautiful ones. housework — you must be very efficient. RUTH EMMA JEAN I know. Do they help you? Yes, I am. Many times. EMMA JEAN RUTH Yes, the children help you. How do you do it? We’re all eager to know. RUTH EMMA JEAN In what way? I trust in the Lord and am very satisfied. EMMA JEAN RUTH Very often they change their own socks. You seem to be very self-possessed. RUTH EMMA JEAN Hear that, ladies? And Doctor Homemacher? Yes, I am possessed. EMMA JEAN RUTH My husband, a most humane gynecologist — Self-possessed. RUTH EMMA JEAN Yes, does he help around the house? It’s so hard to I am very happy, Ruth. get the man to do anything.

RUTH EMMA JEAN Isn’t that wonderful, ladies? Doctor Homemacher empties his own ashtray once a week. EMMA JEAN I am very happy, Ruth. RUTH Imagine that. RUTH Do the children help you around the house? EMMA JEAN I am very happy, Ruth. EMMA JEAN I am very happy, Ruth. RUTH Well, Emma Jean, it’s just a delight to hear how smoothly things run in your household —

39 EMMA JEAN RUTH I am very happy, Ruth. Yes.

RUTH EMMA JEAN Well, it’s a charming collection of Emma Jean’s I am very happy, Ruth. own tasty recipes — RUTH EMMA JEAN Good. That’s all the time we have today. It’s been I find the best time to cook is while beating the a pleasure reminiscing with you, Emma Jean. carpet. EMMA JEAN RUTH That’s right, Ruth. I am very happy. Now that’s an idea. And the book is called Body and Sole, isn’t that right, Emma Jean? RUTH That’s right, Emma Jean, you are. EMMA JEAN That’s right, Ruth. EMMA JEAN I am? RUTH That’s an odd name for a cookbook. RUTH Yes, you are. EMMA JEAN A sole is a kind a fish. EMMA JEAN Yes, I am. And I’d like to take this opportunity to RUTH thank my parents, my family, my friends, and Yes, I know. most of all, Miss Wombeck, my home ec teacher.

EMMA JEAN RUTH They say the title will sell it better. So until tomorrow, ladies, this is your friend Ruthie saying, “Keep ‘em smiling!” RUTH I’m sure it will. EMMA JEAN That’s right, Ruth. EMMA JEAN They tell me the check is in the mail.

RUTH Ω Isn’t that fine?

EMMA JEAN I am very happy, Ruth.

40 The Fireball Mary Herrera

because there was finally quiet in her house with BLOSSIE MINTON worked for Granny Hall, her brothers quit fighting. my grandmother, cooking and washing dishes and She turned to start back to the house, but cleaning up Granny’s store. She was a poor quick as a bolt of lightning in a storm, a bright hillbilly girl who just went to the fourth grade up light, shiny as the sun, shone from behind a tree at Valmead School and started dipping snuff when ten yards in front of her. It was a ball of fire, big as she was twelve years old. Her teeth were black a washtub, and it started flying towards her, and rotten and some of what were left were green slowly at first, then faster and faster, she said, like at her gums. a bullet aimed directly at her head. Little pieces of The Mintons lived in a house with a rusty tin sparks fell on the ground like from a sparkler on roof and grey boards that had never been painted, the Fourth of July. She dropped the bucket, cool half a mile up the road from Granny’s store, way water splashing on her bare legs, and, screaming back in a little holler, a tiny valley, circled by at the top of her voice, ran to the house. three mountains which were humped like a sway- Her family met her at the door. “What’s the back mule. If you walked up the railroad track matter with you, you fool girl?” her papa asked and over the trusul — educated people say trestle her. “Did a copperhead wrop itself around your — and along the path around the side of the leg?” He laughed, and punched the shaking mountains it was shorter, and you could meet the Blossie in the shoulder with his fist, laughing ball of fire. again. Behind the house, which is now my Uncle “It was a farball flying right at my back. I Clyde’s summer cottage, was a spring where the could feel it like the devil hisself had his hand on Mintons got their water. The house was in a me.” Her face was white as a corpse and tiny clearing, but the spring was at the foot of the beads of sweat, like shiny diamonds, shone on mountain at the back of the cabin. her forehead. Blossie said one evening when it was nearly Her mama and papa laughed at her again, dark, she went to the spring for a bucket of water, and her mama said she was crazy as a mad dog and it is dark and gloomy at the foot of those or had been drinking some of the likker her papa mountains when the sun is down behind the trees made. and the shadows of the mountains cover everything like a big black coat. She squatted “You better leave that stuff alone. It ain’t for down, shooed the bugs away (mosquitos an inch girls anyways. Done got one feller on the chain long), and dipped the tin bucket in the cool water. gang, and it makes girls go plumb crazy. Ain’t When the bucket was full, she straightened up nobody sees no farball less they got a guilty from leaning over the spring, happy, she said, feeling inside,” her papa told her. “Just go to bed

41 and it’ll rain tonight and that’ll put out that far.” now or that a bear had her though no one had They all laughed again. seen a bear in those parts in years. They carried her home, one carrying her shoulders and two Blossie and her two sisters slept in the same carrying a leg each, and they laughed all the way bed, and she said even though she didn’t like to up the path at her story and told her they would sleep in the middle, that night she was glad to get my mama, who was a nurse, to cure her of her sleep between them, even if they did stink and spells, for they thought mama could cure kick her. anything, just like a doctor. “They smelt worse than a slop jar that ain’t “Pat’s got all kinds of medicine for anything. been emptied in a week, but if that farball come She put that black salve on my sore and it drew through that window, it would of got one of them all that festering out, better than Rosebud or Vicks. first.” She’s the only one of them Halls worth anything, She wouldn’t go out of the house for three and she used to be a nurse over at Morganton and days, but she began to think it really might have she knows all about crazy people.” been her imagination, spots in her eyes, she said, When they laid her down on the bed, and started going out alone in the dark again. everybody looking at her and laughing, her mama Anyway, she had a boyfriend and he said it was noticed a burning odor. more fun to be with her in the dark. “Can’t do no loving in the daylight,” he told her. “Something’s burning in here. You boys been putting them cigarettes out on the floor again? You One night she was going home from work in going to burn this house down,” she told her sons. Granny’s store — Granny had made her stay late She looked at them angrily. to finish the ironing — alone on the path with bushes, trees, and rocks on the mountainside and The Mintons searched the house for the smell a field on the other edge of the path, when and found nothing and as Blossie sat up in bed to sudden-like, the ball of fire rushed toward her. look around to see what was going on, her mama saw the end of her long brown hair. She turned to run back to the store, and the ball of fire was in front of her, blocking her path. “My god, her hair’s been singed. It stinks like She turned to run to her home, and again the ball it’s been burned,” she said as she touched of fire was in front of her. She started to cross the Blossie’s hair with disbelief. “But it ain’t no field, and on the ground right in front of her was a farball. Ain’t no such thing. She probably stuck copperhead snake, its eyes shining up at her like her head in the oven putting in biscuits down at a cat’s eye or like two green clear marbles. Mary Hall’s store.” Her legs wouldn’t move, she said, as though There was silence in the house like at a they were not connected to her body. “It was like funeral. Everybody stared into each other’s eyes my legs was stuck in the ground like a big rock and their mouths hung open. nobody could move. I could feel my life just None of them wanted to go to bed that night, running out my fingers and toes I was so weak, ut but finally they all fell asleep, sitting in chairs and then Jesus saw fit to save me. That copperhead laying on the floor in their clothes. When the sun just burned up to ashes under that far and then came up the next morning, old man Minton was that far just went away quick as it come.” sitting in a chair by the front door with his Right then her papa and brothers come shotgun on his lap, heaven only knows why running down the path. They had heard her though cause you can’t shoot a fireball dead. His screams — that was before TV and they were too eyes were closed, but the kerosene lamp on the poor to buy a radio so you could hear a sound a floor beside him was still burning. clear mile echoing between those mountains and None of the Mintons ever saw the fireball rocks — and thought she had gone plumb crazy again, but they looked out the door before they’d

42 set foot outside, and one wouldn’t walk down the he looked out and there was nothing strange, path to the road after dark without a brother or nothing unusual, except there was no sound. sister along. They went to church every Sunday, “I watched for an hour. I had my loaded for a while, and Blossie told me she never stole shotgun right beside me. Weren’t a thing out there any more money out of Granny’s white washpan I could see but something was there you can’t see down at the store where Granny kept her money. or hear. I knowed it as sure as I know my own I hadn’t thought of the fireball for years until name. Then I just rolled over and went to sleep. I Uncle Clyde told me he was sleeping alone in figured if it was going to get me, weren’t nothing I that cabin last summer, and a little after midnight could do about it. Never did happen again but I he woke up, as though an invisible hand had ain’t going to forget it. touched him, and he knew something was wrong I wonder if it was that fireball looking for because all the crickets and nightbugs had Blossie. stopped singing. There was dead silence. He said

ATER

I am called The dark one. I lead. I am the shaper of labyrinths, the holder of thread. My realm is black, Surrounds the eye, Or the soft dead moon.

You have called me other Names: given me to love. You have invented war.

I am the wife who takes And turns you feminine again. In the dark, Your face rises, Your bones unsettle and you Cry, taking The shape Of Woman.

Adrianne Marcus

43 Life in Greater

that contained a few more exhibits and a small IN EARLY DECEMBER 1973, I loaded up the car planetarium; earlier, the Liberty engine had been and drove from Charlotte to Olney, Maryland, a designed there. Across from the Air Building was fringe suburb of DC, stopping overnight at Ned aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley’s Brooks’s house in Newport News. workshop. It was now a (literal) bughouse: the I had an aunt and uncle in Olney who were best way to clean bones of organic material was willing to put me up until I could get myself to lower them into a pit of ravenous beetles of a settled in DC. It took me nearly two hours each certain species. Both buildings were torn down, way to get to work, but that was okay because I and today there’s a lovely park where they stood. met this girl, Nora Kozlosky, on the bus home NASM had recently obtained Congressional during my second week in the area. Nora was funding for a new building of its very own, and I actually recruiting for Nichiren Shoshu (the “nam was part of the staff expansion. I started as a myoho renge kyo” people), but I didn’t mind. She research assistant in the Aeronautics Department, took me to a few meetings, and instead of where I helped develop the Gallery of Air recruiting me, I talked her into leaving the group Transportation, and later switched over to the after doing a little research into the cult’s origins. planetarium, in charge of the public contact side. We were together for four years. But this is about my brilliant fannish career My uncle worked for IBM; one of his team rather than my brilliant museum career. (They members, Rich Hurley, needed a roommate, so I were, sadly, equally brilliant.) Perhaps the most ended up in a townhouse in Wheaton, which cut significant thing is that the staff included fan and my commute to only seventy minutes each way. astronomical artist Ron Miller; my office was Hurley’s house was near Nora’s, so it all worked across the hall from his. It is also, of course, out. Nora and I moved into an apartment in inherently fannish to have astronauts roaming the Hyattsville (thirty minute commute) two years halls: our director, Mike Collins, had been the later. command module pilot aboard Apollo 11. At the time, the Smithsonian’s National Air Arthur C. Clarke, having survived my stint as and Space Museum (NASM) was mostly located his driver, was a friend of Astronautics in the old Arts and Industries Building, later Department director Frederick C. Durant III and condemned as unfit for human habitation to no visited from time to time. It was a relatively small surprise from anybody who’d worked there. There staff, so everybody knew everybody. Frederick was a quonset hut (the Air Building) next door Durant was responsible for the only Lunacon I

44 Falls Church

ever attended: I had to shlep a big pile of Ludek rich brown invited me to join his D&D group Pesek art to NYC for sale. Bonnie Dalzell was and a year or so later I started one of my own; hired as a contract employee to create a series of rich was, I think, the only member of my gaming imaginary animals for an interactive exhibit. group who was also active in fandom. All the Between work, commute, and girlfriend, there members of that group had their characters wasn’t much time, energy, or money for fanac. I Tuckerized in modules I wrote when I worked for was still a member of SLAN-apa, but not or long. TSR. My fanac was now down to a few cons. Aside I returned to work at The Résumé Place after from that single Lunacon, I attended Disclave folding The Washington Job-Hunter. I got to when it was still held at the Sheraton Park, and know the office manager, Deborah Singer, and went to Discon IV in 1974, the last Worldcon I about a year after we met, we started to date. attended for many years. Once again, I was at a career crossroads. I Nora and I broke up in late 1976, and I was in talks with the owner of The Résumé Place bought a co-op in the same apartment building as to buy the DC office as a franchise, and at the Edsmith. (15 minute commute.) Two months later, same time applied for a job at TSR. (John Edsmith moved to Boston. Sapienza, who was writing for Dragon at the I worked for the National Air and Space time, was extremely helpful to me in preparing Museum until 1978, then got a job as a for my interview.) The TSR job came through in professional résumé writer. After a year with The the fall of 1983, and I promptly asked Debbie to Résumé Place, I opened my own shop, and folded come with me. A few weeks later, I proposed. In it five years later after an attempt to start a December of 1983, we moved to Lake Geneva, magazine called The Washington Job-Hunter (art Wisconsin, for my new job as a games editor for directed by Dan Steffan) failed. I was still a fringe TSR, and the following July 4, we were married member of the Falls Church circle. In my capacity in Baltimore. as a Universal Life Church minister, I officiated at This year marks our 30th anniversary Dan and Lynn Steffan’s wedding. (Much later, I together. also officiated at the wedding of Alicia Brown, rich and Colleen’s daughter.) Ω

45 The Wreck of the

Geneva is mentioned frequently in the soap opera GAMES FANDOM ISN’T TRUFANDOM, but it’s still The Young and the Restless; the main action is set in fandom. I had been an occasional hobby gamer Genoa, just a few miles to the south. over the years, ever since Lon Atkins introduced me The Wrigleys had a mansion in Lake Geneva; to Diplomacy at that long-ago DeepSouthCon. I so did other Chicago monied families. The Wrigley played some of the early Avalon Hill titles, and may mansion had been divided into apartments; Gary still have somewhere a copy of the first issue of lived there at one time. I am told that the master Strategy & Tactics, the SPI house organ (later bedroom was on hydraulics: at the touch of a acquired by TSR). Hobby gaming was generally too button, the roof would roll back and the entire time consuming for me, but thanks to rich brown bedroom rise to the rooftop. It sounds cooler than it (as previously noted), I ended up with a rather nice was: the hydraulics were always leaking. AD&D gaming group. One of the two Playboy Club Resorts was in I had written a couple of articles for the TSR Lake Geneva, though by the time I got there it had magazine Dragon. The first, an article on Oz in been turned into an Americana. When it was still D&D terms, got lost in the stack and was never Playboy, it briefly employed Lawrencia “Bambi” published; the second, a piece amplifying the Bembeck, later convicted of murdering her material spell component rules, was accepted. I husband’s ex-wife. She escaped jail, fled to applied for an advertised job as a games editor, but Canada, plea bargained down her sentence, and didn’t hear anything for months. There were two died a few years later. Although she was a campus rounds of layoffs during that period, and the person police officer at the time of the murder, it was the to whom I’d sent the application was no longer Playboy connection the media liked. there. The new head of games editorial found my This little town of about 5,500 people (off application, called me, and thanks to a good word season) ended up with a third source of notoriety from the magazine editor, I got an offer. when local shoe repairman Gary Gygax, who ran a Lake Geneva, in southeast Wisconsin, was a small hobby game company on the side, suddenly popular Chicago area resort town, home to about hit the big time with Dungeons & Dragons. From a 5,500 people in the off season. The town had an couple of guys around a kitchen table, TSR became odd history. It was the home of Andy Gump creator the fifth fastest growing privately held company in Sidney Smith, and Mr. Boffo creator Joe Martin. America, eventually employing 380 people before There’s a statue of Andy Gump in one of the parks. the Law of Fad Gravity kicked in. By the time they Soon there will be one of Gary Gygax. Lake

46 Lucius Newberry

hired me, the layoffs were already underway; the The Lucius Newberry was a paddle-wheel company eventually would drop to about 80 excursion boat that carried up to 500 people employees. around Lake Geneva. It was built in 1875; the I didn’t know quite how vulnerable I was when contemporary description says, “furnished I came to Wisconsin, but quickly found out. throughout in elegant style…with a handsome Normally, a games editor like me would be fairly upright piano.” In December 1891, it caught fire anonymous as far as senior management was — hobos smoking on or near the boat, concerned, but when they found out I used to work investigators concluded — and burned.To keep for the Smithsonian, I found myself drafted as an the fire from spreading, firemen cut the mooring informal consultant on the Lucius Newberry matter.

47 ropes and the Lucius Newberry was swept out onto solo. It was a fascinating time; I didn’t know the lake, burning until it eventually sank. much about marketing and I knew nothing about I’m not sure how Gary became involved in the distribution. My bosses, Jack Morrissey and Mike effort to raise the Lucius Newberry; but there were Cook, taught me. I survived the firing of Gary piles of retrieved wreckage leaning against the back Gygax and the company’s acquisition by of our warehouse. No one knew what to do with it. Lorraine Williams, and was promoted again to They decided they would donate it to the the position of Director of Games Development Smithsonian, and they asked me what I knew about and Marketing, with dreams of becoming TSR’s the process. Stan Lee. There was, of course, no way the Smithsonian It didn’t work out that way. The politics were would have been interested, but I explained the toxic and the finances were constrained and my process and helped find the person to call. This put leadership skills weren’t up to the challenge. The me in contact with Gary Gygax for the first time. jobs needed to be separated. We tried to hire a Generally, we don’t think of fandom as a director of marketing, but failed. There were, business asset, but it has actually come in useful in however, other people who could run the games my career. I knew Gary had been in games fandom; department. I’d done some play-by-mail Diplomacy myself. “Do I didn’t want the consolation prize of you know John Boardman?” I asked. marketing, so I jumped at an offer to be a vice I actually didn’t know John, but that really president of the US branch of Games Workshop. didn’t matter. I survived the next round of layoffs Five years after arriving in Wisconsin, we were and the one after that. (Much later I finally met John moving back east, this time to Baltimore. and thanked him for his help in my career.) We rented a house in the Otterbein In one layoff, they let the entire marketing neighborhood, a few blocks from Baltimore’s department go, and then they promoted me to do it Inner Harbor. It had been one of the “dollar

An Amazing® Coincidence!

GARY HAD PURCHASED AMAZING AND FANTASTIC from Sol Cohen some time before I joined the company, installing George Scithers as editor. The magazine staff wasn’t in Lake Geneva, so I had nothing to do with them until one day George Scithers came into my cubicle after I’d gone into marketing to complain about the lack of marketing support he’d been getting. While I’d run into George at a convention or two (last time was, I believe, Torcon), I didn’t know him nor did he know me. The first time I’d met him, he’d launched into a gratuitous attack on Ted White, and I couldn’t resist yanking his chain a little bit. (This was after Ted’s arrest.) “I’m very glad to see you,” I said, “because I’m a huge fan of the magazines and will happily do anything in my power to help you.” His eyes lit up and he leaned forward. “In fact, I’m such a fan that I was involved with the magazines back when my very good friend Ted White was the editor,” I said. The light went out of his eyes. “I hear he’s going to jail for a long time,” Scithers said. He got up and left, and I never heard from him again.

48 houses” sold to investors who agreed to rehabilitate about five years, Debbie was traveling as much them. A year or so later, we bought a townhouse in as I was, and for nearly five years we mostly saw the suburb of Ellicott City. Downtown Ellicott City each other only on weekends. We call that our was a historical preservation district, filled with “second dating period.” quaint shops; we lived there for eight years. For my 40th birthday party, the Stileses I left Games Workshop after a year and change helped Debbie throw me a surprise party; John to become vice president of Discovery Software Sapienza and a number of Falls Church fans International in Annapolis. Discovery had been an were there. Amiga game company and was trying to move into Fred Pryor sent me overseas several times; I Macintosh productivity software, specifically in did speaking tours of the UK, Ireland, Australia, scanner applications. We had a pretty neat product and New Zealand. The “down under” trips were in development — but it stayed there. Although I’m rough. I have been in Melbourne four separate a pretty good salesman, I could only sell vaporware times and have never managed to leave the hotel for so long. The company stopped being able to pay except to return to the airport. salaries after about six months, so I picked up the On one trip, (1) I left from Baltimore on Macintosh on my desk and went home. Friday, (2) arrived in Wellington on Sunday, (3) That was the end of my career in the games taught a public open enrollment seminar on industry. Monday, (4) caught a plane for South Island Monday evening, (5) taught an in-house program It’s always useful to have a marketable for a manufacturing plant on Tuesday, (6) flew to commercial skill, and my résumé writing skills have Auckland that evening and taught there on been quite profitable over the years. I had already Wednesday, (7) flew to Sidney and taught a worked for The Résumé Place twice; I came back to public seminar on Thursday and an in-house on the company again following Discovery’s collapse Friday. Sunday, I flew to Canberra, (8) taught on and worked there for another year while I cast Monday, (9) flew to Melbourne, taught on around for yet another career direction. (I figure that Tuesday, (10) then Adelaide on Wednesday, and I’m now on my fifth career. As rich brown would (11) Perth on Thursday (in-house) and Friday say, that’s not too many.) (public). Saturday (12) I flew to Brisbane, got Sunday off, then Brisbane Monday, (13) Sidney again on Tuesday, (14 Melbourne on Wednesday, In the early 1990s, I became a seminar leader (15) Canberra on Thursday, (16) one more Sidney first for Fred Pryor Seminars, then SkillPath, and gig on Friday, and (17) home on Saturday. now (mostly) Management Concepts. The job was made for me; public speaking comes easily. I’m I’ve seen a lot of Australia but experienced actually much better teaching management than I little of it. was doing it. Those who can’t, teach — but that’s a good thing. Experts never understand why other I did have fun in Perth, though. On my first people are having trouble. trip, I was invited for a barbecue by the parents In the beginning, I was on the road about 180 of one of Debbie’s professional colleagues, then days a year. It’s unfortunate that this didn’t coincide was taken stargazing by someone from my with my period of fannish activity; I was probably in seminar, who headed the local amateur your city sometime during that period. I did have a astronomy club. On my second trip, I got a call few fannish contacts and visited them when I was in after the seminar: “My wife came to your town: John D. Berry in Seattle, Arnie and Joyce Katz program.” I immediately wondered what cultural in Las Vegas, Edsmith and Lane Lambert in Boston. faux pas I had committed, but he went on, “My My wife and I became good friends with Steve wife says you knew Mike Collins the astronaut.” and Elaine Stiles and had dinner with them every When I told him I did, he said, “I’m his month or so. It was difficult to align schedules; for biggest fan in the world. I’d love to meet you.”

49 He was a taxi driver, and I had to go to the leaving them in airplane seat pockets when I airport the next day, so he picked me up a couple of finished with them. hours early and took me on a wonderful tour of the I bought a copy of an Dale Brown military area, and in exchange, I told him astronaut stories. thriller — I forget which one — in the Adelaide We exchanged Christmas cards for years. airport bookstore and partway through the flight to Perth I put it down because it was absolutely Our son James was born in 1995 (I was 43), and awful. I enjoy technothrillers; I liked Tom a year later, Debbie, who was at the time a partner Clancy’s early books well enough that I acquired in a management consulting firm, got offered a job the boardgame licenses for TSR. In a momentary with GATX Terminals in Chicago and subsequently fit of “I can do better than that,” I got out a became vice president of human resources and a notepad and started making a list (pace Mark major part of turning around the company. Twain) of Dale Brown’s literary offenses. We lived in Palatine, Illinois, one of the When I finished, I had a list of criteria I northwest suburbs (home of Fred Pohl, though I thought important in writing a good military didn’t meet him there), and I reconnected with a thriller, and that led me to trying to come up number of my TSR friends — though many of them with a story that met those criteria. That had moved to Seattle when the remains of TSR were occupied me the rest of the way to Perth, and I bought by Wizards of the Coast. With a young worked on it partway to Brisbane as well. child, I cut down on my travel and became a part- I realized that I didn’t have the chops to do it time writer/stay-at-home dad. solo, so on a seminar trip to Wisconsin a few months later, I pitched the idea to my good It was on my first Australia trip that I came up friend and TSR colleague Douglas Niles. He with the idea that would eventually become my first liked it; we wrote a proposal. We didn’t get alternate history novel with Douglas Niles, Fox on much traction, but a few years later Brian the Rhine. Surviving a two week business trip takes Thomsen, who was TSR’s book department head a lot of luggage, and I had little spare capacity for at time of the Wizards acquisition, picked up our books. I survived by buying books at the airport and proposal along with some other proposals that

Another Amazing® Coincidence!

WHILE I WAS WORKING AT GAMES WORKSHOP, I got a call one day from an agent asking about licensing the computer game rights to our boardgame Blood Bowl, a hyperviolent fantasy American football game with orcs battling ogres. (We even made cheerleader miniatures for all the different fantasy races.) “I represent Katz Kunkle Worley,” he said. “You mean Arnie, Bill, and Joyce?” I replied. I could hear the agent’s eyes light up with dollar signs over the phone when I said I knew them. I took down the rest of the initial information, and about five minutes later the phone rang again. It was Arnie. The licensing decision wasn’t mine, but I framed it as positively as I could and sent it to the UK home office. It was eventually approved, and it put me back in contact with Arnie; I visited him in Brooklyn some months later. Arnie returned the favor. Games Workshop and I weren’t a good match, and I was looking for something else. Arnie introduced me to the head of a small local computer game company with the grandiose name of Discovery Software International. I joined them as a vice president as they tried to launch some non-game software. The company went under just about a year after I joined, but the introduction was timely and still much appreciated.

50 had been floating around southeast Wisconsin for a Through my neighbor Josh Gilder, who was while, and managed to sell it to Tom Dougherty. Fox the Reagan speechwriter wrote the “Go ahead, on the Rhine came out in 2001. It sold fairly well — make my day” speech for the Gipper, I met hardcover, two book clubs (thanx and a tip o’ the Ralph Benko, who tapped me for the invitational Hatlo Hat to Moshe Feder), and softcover — and Cordwainer Smith society; I am officially a Lord that led to a sequel, Fox at the Front, and an of the Instrumentality of Mankind under the nom unrelated third book, MacArthur’s War. In my de Smith Lord Sto Odin. Evidently there was a bit opinion, we got steadily better with each book.. of an upset when Harlan Ellison discovered he (Another Hatlo Hat tip goes to Ted White and the hadn’t been an original member. As far as I Vicious Circle writer’s group, who collectively know, no new lords have been created since. contributed a lot to the second two books.) Sales, Ralph also got me involved with the however, did not keep pace with quality Samaritans, about whom I’ve written elsewhere. I improvements, and then, sadly, our editor and made new friends in Humayun Mirza (author of champion Brian Thomsen, who had been our From Plassey to Pakistan) and Mark Davis (author champion, died suddenly in 2008. He was only 48 of Digital Assassination). years old. My son grew. In high school, he joined the Fox on the Rhine had the distinction of being a volunteer fire department and is a firefighter/ question on Jeopardy. In the category “Alternate rescuer and EMT. He’s a high school senior as I History,” the $20 answer was “He was the fox in Fox write this, and has been accepted for the West on the Rhine,” the question, of course, being “Who Point Class of 2018. was Rommel?” Both Fox books (but not MacArthur’s Debbie worked with Giant of Maryland, US War) have their own Wikipedia pages. I hasten to Foodservice, SAIC, and now Alliant Techsystems. add that I have had nothing to do with any of the When people ask me for advice on how to be a Wikipedia pages about me or my products, so a writer, my answer is simple: marry well. It’s third hat tip to the Wikipedia gnomes who oversee because of Debbie that I’ve had the luxury to the D&D pages. pursue some of my career dreams. Reviews for the books were generally positive, and we did get attention from one of Amazon’s top I never lost my interest in fandom, and in reviewers: Newt Gingrich. He really liked the book spite of all the evidence to the contrary, still and even featured it on his website. Newt and I are thought of myself as a fan. Eventually, I started still on very opposite sides of the fence politically, doing something about it, but in the meantime, I mind you, but I have to say I feel a lot more need to address a very important issue. positively about him. And I sort of like his moon colony idea.

In 2001, the parent company of GATX Terminals (who, among other properties, owned the Edmund Fitzgerald of song fame) decided to sell the business now that it was healthy again. Debbie ran the layoffs, including her own. (She did get lovely parting gifts and a copy of the home game.) We moved back to the DC area and settled in Bethesda, Maryland, where we still live. I found my professional writing niche in nonfiction, primarily business “how to” books, and do a lot of public speaking and training.

51 Bring me the Head

IN TSR’S BETTER DAYS, once a month everyone got a free set of new product releases, all shrink- wrapped and mint-in-box. You could make few bucks selling them on the side; I ended up with big boxes of shrink-wrapped product and eventually gave most of it away. You could grab extra copies of your own stuff as long as you didn’t get greedy. There was a lot of product. At our height, we had the games department, the education department, the book department, the magazine department, the art department (who put out an annual calendar), the miniatures department, and the needlework department all releasing new products. (Yes, we had a needlework line.) There were always surprises in each month’s set of releases. One month, it was the first set of TSR’s Windwalker books, a novel imprint unconnected to any of our trademark properties. One of those books was connected to fandom: Sharyn McCrumb’s Bimbos of the Death Sun, a murder mystery set at a regional science fiction/gaming convention. The murderer is unmasked in a role-playing game. Thematically, it was made for us, but from the marketing perspective, it’s a whole different answer.

TSR’s first foray into book publishing had come in 1982, before I joined the company: the Endless Quest® choose-your-own adventure titles. Several became best sellers. (There were also Endless Quest® curricula for reading, math, and history; these did not do as well.)

52 of Alfredo Garcia! Sharyn McCrumb!

Eventually, TSR started thinking about releasing a fantasy novel with a linear structure. Meanwhile, game designer Tracy Hickman had conceived a massive twelve-module AD&D® campaign called Dragonlance. It seemed like a natural for a companion novel, but they didn’t trust Tracy to write it as he’d never written a novel before. They hired a moderately well-known fantasy writer to develop a draft, but nobody was happy with the result. TSR eventually gave Tracy, partnered with Margaret Weis of the book department, a chance, and the collaboration was magic. Dragonlance was one of the biggest properties TSR had, except for AD&D® itself. Suddenly, we were a regular presence on the New York Times best-seller list. TSR published Dragonlance books, Greyhawk books, Forgotten Realms books, and more, all tied to AD&D® game lines and trademark properties. (Somewhat off topic, I was an editor on the Dragonlance module line for DL3-5. I got a co- author credit on DL5 for finishing it up when Tracy was overloaded, and a solo credit for putting together DL5, an anthology of background material culled from the initial proposals on a very short time frame to fill a production hole. A couple of years later, I designed a Dragonlance boardgame, my only published piece of traditional boardgame design. It’s kind of a 3-D version of Milton Bradley’s Dogfight; I was very happy with it.)

53 From choose-your-own-adventure to franchise take Sharyn to DragonCon in Atlanta. When fantasy was a very logical step, but going from sending out the Edgar copies to the committee, I franchise fantasy to a diversified list of standalone noticed that one of the members, Frank Denton, novels struck me as less so. TSR’s brand was had also been in SLAN-apa. powerful, but narrow. “Windwalker” was an okay I don’t think talking up the book at Random name, I thought, but that TSR logo on the front House did much, but Bimbos did win that Edgar, cover was the dominant brand identity. Personally, I and I was always up for attending a con on the would have separated the lines more clearly, but company dime. that wasn’t how the company rolled. I wanted to publish the Tom Clancy games, for example, under (Sharyn later wrote an article for Publishers our SPI brand, which was associated with Weekly titled “Having TSR Publish Your Book is wargames, but I had to release them as TSR games Like Having the PLO Cater Your Wedding.” It was instead. accepted, but the TSR legal department was unhappy, so PW never published it. I asked You can imagine how well my suggestion to Sharyn if she still had a copy I could publish in name our mass market board game line “Lucius Random Jottings, but it had been written back in Newberry Games” went over. the stone-tablet-and-floppy-disk era and couldn’t be located.) The only one of that first group of TSR Books I actually read was Bimbos of the Death Sun. I I met Sharyn for the first time at that mentioned to the book’s editor that I used to be DragonCon. We hit it off immediately. Sharyn is fandom, but the book was already out and any help pleasant, smart, and funny, with wide ranging I could have provided was now moot. In any event, interests. Sharyn was a member of the I found only one obvious error: Sharyn refers to a Appalachian Studies faculty at Virginia Tech; I fugghead as a “crottled greep,” evidently unaware have family in the region, stretching from that greep is a banquet food staple. Hickory and Lenoir in North Carolina up to I’ve heard that some fans complain about her Widener Valley in Virginia. We talked about portrayal of fandom, but I didn’t have a problem publishing, we made comments during the with it (except for the greep thing). At best, only masquerade, and we talked about fandom. Her some fans are slans, and she was clearly writing experience was mostly from conventions; I told about those other ones. her about Claude Degler and F. Towner Laney and the Enchanted Duplicator. I had been told that Sharyn and her agent were real pains. Most of our freelance authors were good (That DragonCon was memorable for me in with whatever pittance we offered, but those two another respect, I had not been in contact with wanted us to treat Bimbos as if it were an actual Hank Reinhardt, my early fannish mentor, for book, with marketing support and everything. (The nearly twenty years. He was selling swords at the nerve!) convention, and we reconnected there. I was able to see him on several occasions before his There were a few problems with this. First, I had death in 2007.) no actual book marketing experience. Second, I had no money and no staff. Third, TSR Books was pretty low on the priority list. It’s never fun to talk with After the con, I bought some of her other people when the only answer you have is no. mysteries and read them. They come in two basic flavors: mysteries with a comic edge and more The bad reputation was overrated; Sharyn’s serious mysteries usually rooted in Appalachian agent was forceful, but reasonable. I agreed to talk folklore. Her Appalachian work is better known, the book up at Random House, submit the book for at least outside of fandom. She’s had several an Edgar Award for Best Original Paperback, and

54 New York Times best-sellers and has won numerous I searched my conscience for recent crimes, awards in addition to her Edgar, including Best rounded up the usual suspects, and came up Appalachian Novel. blank. I put on my best Lucy Ricardo innocent face I have a particular fondness for her comic and waited. mysteries. She’s got a rather sharp sense of humor. “Your name is in Zombies of the Gene Pool. In Missing Susan the murder keeps trying to kill a How exactly are you involved with that book, particularly obnoxious member of a group touring anyway?” I thought about pleading the Fifth. crime sites in England while the erstwhile detective “Didn’t you like it?” I asked. slowly discovers that a crime is unfolding around her. There’s If I’d Killed Him When I’d Met Him…, in He didn’t. which one character dies at the hands (flippers?) of He wasn’t the only one. Ted White observed, an amorous dolphin: her last thoughts as she is “She doesn’t like us very much, does she?” Don being dragged under are about how you can’t trust Fitch, in the Blat! #2 lettercolumn, went a bit males. farther. "It seems that, like Laney, she feels that she has 'outgrown' fandom, and like many religious converts and reformed smokers and drinkers, she At DragonCon, I’d pushed her to think about feels that she has to validate her new position by writing another Jay Omega mystery, this one set in fanzine fandom. She said she might if she could ridiculing those who have not ascended to her find the right story, and some time after the con, I heights.” got a note from her saying she had started the book, I don’t see it that way. For one thing, I don’t working title Pat Malone Thought That He Was think she ever was in fandom, at least not the way Dead, and asking if I could loan her some fanzines. we’d think of it. And though she does ridicule I read a few early draft chapters as well. The book some of the characters, she does the same thing in underwent a title change , and in 1992 it was her non-fannish comic mysteries, skewering published as Zombies of the Gene Pool. Zombies people on an equal opportunity. After all, people in marks the first time someone dedicated a book to murder mysteries are generally not nice people, me. ”To Michael Dobson, the State of Franklin which is why they get tangled up in murders in the Science Fiction Society, and F. Towner Laney.” (I first place. Even so, there are sympathetic scenes, later learned that the State of Franklin Science especially in Zombies, to balance the more cutting Fiction Society is Curt Phillips.) ones. But maybe that’s just me; your mileage may vary. I enjoyed the book. While the portrayal of fandom in Bimbos is a little on the thin side, Zombies of the Gene Pool is a surprisingly Still, I’m up for a third one if she ever decides sophisticated and (in my opinion) sympathetic to write it. portrait of fandom. She did her homework, and her parodies of fanwriting are spot-on. From a fanzine death notice: “Others will have to eulogize Pat Malone, the man. I knew him as a typeface with one half the ‘S’ missing. It summed him up very well: the half-essed Pat Malone.”

It turns out that not everybody in fandom shares my opinion of Sharyn’s two books about fandom. At Steve Stiles’ fiftieth birthday party, I was tending the grill when various Falls Church fans arrived. Dan Steffan’s first words to me were, “There you are! You’ve got some explaining to do, Dobson!” Sharyn McCrumb

55

The Prodigal Fan Returns

mere half decade. I had visited Israel and the I HATED TO ADMIT IT, but my gafia seemed to Palestinian Territories with the Samaritans, and have become permanent. I was no longer a fan. I wanted some place to write down my experiences. was not pining, but passed on. I was a fan no Random Jottings 4, the Alternate History Issue, more; I had ceased to to be. I was an ex-fan. appeared the following year in Seattle. I didn’t My version of Jophan’s quest could equally attend the Winchester Corflu, but I did publish have been Pinocchio’s: slowly, I turned myself Random Jottings 5, the memorial issue for my into a Real Live Boy. Fandom still mattered to me, father, who died in January 2010. From that time but its power in my life had nothing to do with on, I’ve published a new issue every Corflu. the state of my fanac. By all indications, gafia was For years, I attended the occasional con, then to be my permanent state; I would never again an occasional con and an occasional fanzine. Pub My Ish. Now it’s an annual con and an annual fanzine. I’m Frank Lunney, my NFFF compadre from so part of two lists, but seldom participate; I enjoy the long ago, was perhaps the most important single fanzines I get but too seldom LoC them. Still, this factor in my degafiation. I hadn’t spoken with is by far the highest sustained level of fanac I’ve Frank in years — decades, actually. I was ever reached. attending my first Worldcon in many years, I like it. I finally feel part of fandom, still on Millenium Philcon. I was there primarily to the fringes in some respects, but it’s good to be promote Fox on the Rhine, but ran into Ted White, home. and ended up sitting next to Frank at dinner that And so it was that late in the afternoon Jophan night. came at last to the tower. Frank followed up with me after the con, and with his introductions, found myself in contact with people I’d been aware of and admired for many years. In 2003, I decided to attend the Madison Corflu, because it was close to Doug Niles’s house in Delavan, and we had a working trip scheduled. As the con approached, my old insecurity about not being much of a fan kicked in — so I decided I’d do a fanzine for the con. Random Jottings 2, the Name Dropping Issue, appeared a mere 34 years after the previous one. By comparison, the gap between Random Jottings 2 and Random Jottings 3 was nothing — a

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