We are asking Santa Claus for a new typer. This 'un's as stiff as an old maid's knees, as battered as Harry the Bee's triumphal Chariot (if not moreso), and as old as yed. We don't ask Santa that it be nice and new and electric like some typers we know, only that it be a decent stencil-cutter and an improvement over this 'un from the typist's point of view. So this issue may be Underwood's last stand.
Strange as it may seem, we who live here right on the edge of the Okefinokee practically, are having our Pogo's imported. Bill Morse of the RCAF who's stationed some miles above the Arctic Circle in Canada has been so kind as to clip the daily strips and send them to us. They don't appear in the Savannah papers and it is practically impossible to find the mag on the local stands. So Bill sends them along. All we can say is nutsabobble, and thanksabob, Bill.
We are very pleased at having been made an Honorary British Fan. It's one of the nicest things that ever happened to us. Thanks alot, fellows.
Hah, sez we. In fact double hah. Hah, hah. So there. That is to Mr. Korshak who thinks that fans are going to give up their pet pastime of fannish names for things like conventions. He thinks we will surrender the simple Chicon for a mouthful like Tenth Annual Science Fiction Convention. From an old guard fan like Korshak this is ridiculous. Fandom is (or was) a hobby, not big business. A hobby is where people have fun, and when you get so serious and constructive that only the "adult" and "intellectual" elements have fun, us masses go look for a nice quiet drunken brawl. We behaved pretty well at the Nolacon for the sake of Harry the Bee and decent newspaper reports. There were only a few zap guns and there were a lot of people bored stiff, who thanked ghod that we unsophisticated characters had a madhouse like 770 wherein they could take refuge. Fie, Erle, does the American Legion have respectable conventions? We were ready to stand up to anybody who started hollering "Huckster" and "A convention run by the pros." We were, that is. But this is all beginning to smell like a big book-selling deal. We don't mind book-selling at a con. We like pros who are fans too, like Bob Bloch, and a lot of others. But we don't like the idea of spending our hard-earned cash to shuffle off to a series of lectures on new stf books. You fellows can have your "mature aspects of sf". We want to have a little fun. You couldn't call the fracas in 770 respectable. Or the Little Men brandishing zap guns either. We plan to attend the Chicon. That will be the gathering that launches a 770 the II and the fans who gab together about big little things and little big things. But as we see it, Mr. K. this attitude of yours is likely to bring you trouble. Fans aren't going to let themselves be pushed around. If they want to have fun, they'll do it anyway. And your "serious constructive" convention won't be able to do a thing about it. If it comes to a choice for us, we'll take the Ohio Lake Affair this year, Mr. K. We like "the kind they don't lock up." Tenth Annual Science Fiction Convention to you. Did you ask fandom if it wants a respectable Convention?
Of course we may be wrong, so we're willing to listen to the next guy's opinion.
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Updated June 17, 2001. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.