familiar name. After a few days it even got to the stage that I knew some of the
people I saw around the convention at various times, mainly by face because I have a
terrible head for names.
                     The afternoon before the banquet Susan asked us to bring
along SynthiA and come to her room where she was trying to cheer up David Emerson, the
poor fan had just gotten away from the army after a few days and needed a bit of
cheering up. How a lot of electronic wiring could make anybody feel happy is beyond
me but David seemed to be suitably entertained and even a little less morbid looking
after a few moments.Susan took her ease in bed (if she really doesn't sleep much
during conventions she'd need it) and we spent a few hours getting acquainted, there
is a difference from sitting behind a table with lots of people and having the
chance to talk quietly. Too soon the banquet was almost upon us and we had to get
dressed up for it, which meant for me putting on a fresh shirt and a tie for the
first time in a couple of weeks. I was not too impressed by the banquet and the awards
but the Hugo to Susan as the best fan writer cheered us up immensely especially as
she had thought she didn't have a hope and had resigned herself to being one of the
"also ran's".
          There were a few parties we visited on the last evening of the convention
but early in the morning we stumbled into The party and found Susan along with a lot
of other beautiful people among whom were John Berry, Ed Wood and Dan Steffan. We
were in a bedroom of one of the suites and spent a lot of time drinking and making
merry. In the end they decided to go off and liberate the swimming pool and Valma
and I tottered off to bed. But we met Susan again in New York and spent a lot of
time with her there, and enjoyed her company immensely.

Bob Tucker is a living legend I suppose, we'd seen him a couple of times around the
convention but it was not until the AUSSIECON party that we had the opportunity to meet
him. We'd bought a bottle of Jim Beam (duty free) in Sydney with the intention of
presenting it to him and asking for a demonstration of how to drink it properly. We
got taught good. Valma gave him the bottle and asked for a demo and before we knew
it just about everybody in the room was raising a right arm and waiting for the
bottle to get back to Bob. The room was full and so it took a longtime before the
corridors rang to the cries of "Smooooooooth".
                                       Later we had to go to a Minneapolis
party for a short while to get our photo taken with all the members of MINNEAPA at the
con and spent a lot more time than we had expected there talking with lots of people
from Minneapolis whom we'd only seen briefly before. Out on the balcony we talked
with Jim Young about Minneapolis and the centres of civilisation on the North
American continent and I also had a quiet talk with John Brunner about his work. I
told him how much I'd enjoyed his latest book, the one with the happy ending, and he
said that he was sick of being depressing and would be writing more optimistic books
in the future. That was good news and since I had begun to realise that Brunner is a
rather underestimated writer whose works are really quite good I'm looking forward to
reading what he has to say next.
                            When we got back to the AUSSIECON party Bob Tucker
was still there and while I talked with many other people Valma seemed to get quite
pally with him. At about four in the
morning we decided it was time for
something to eat and went with Bob
and Rusty Hevelin to the coffee
shop (or whatever) where we fed
ourselves and filled in the time
waiting for the meals learning some
of the ancient mysteries of fandom.
Bob then took us to another room
where Jackie Franke and a few others
were letting the last of another
party die away. Bob sat in a chair
and we at his feet (which seemed
appropriate) and the time passed.
Rusty fell asleep on one of the beds

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