MY MILLPHILL REPORT
Part 2: The Rest Of Friday
by Helen E. Davis
The train pulled in around 2:40, and I went straight upstairs to the Convention Center, still pulling my luggage on my little cart behind me. I had decided that I would most likely meet Catherine at the convention itself – surely she would look for me there when I hadn't shown up at Barnes and Nobles. At least I could catch Yuri Mironets, a mutual friend, at his coffee klatch which was set to run from 2:00 to 3:00. I checked in at registration, was given a one-day badge ("Sorry, but we're all out of the full convention badges,") and went in search of the Overlook Café where the Coffee Klatches were being held. Unfortunately, Yuri had broken up his Coffee Klatch early, and so I had missed him. I also learned that you had to sign up the Coffee Klatches, and that there was still space on the George Scithers Coffee Klatch, so I went back and signed up for that, then headed for the hotel.
Checking in was easy, though I found no messages waiting for me from Catherine, darn it! The room was lovely. For the first time that I have been checking into a hotel as a part of a four-member family, I found four sets of towels in the room. But this one time I was to stay by myself. There was even a huge bottle of water offered to me – for a mere four dollars. I briefly refreshed myself and headed back to the convention, hoping that someone would recognize me.
I'll point out here that, in thirteen years of friendship with Catherine and six years of friendship with Yuri, I had never met either of them in person. They were correspondence friends, and although I had seen pictures of them, I doubt I could have recognized them. I have a brain that processes images very poorly, and tend to remember people on their speech patterns and mannerisms, not their faces. So I walked through the crowd, attempting to read badges which had been designed not to be read by anyone with normal eyesight. Names were the smallest type on the whole badge.
I did not find my friends, but I did manage to find where the Authors were autographing books, and poor Lois McMaster Bujold was still signing books an hour after she was supposed to have left. She graciously signed my copy of Curse of Challion while I held up the wall for a few minutes, and then I went to the George Scithers Coffee Klatch.
George Scithers has been a presence in my life for the last twenty-five years. He edited the first Prozine which I was interested in reading on a monthly basis. He may not have sent me my first rejection slip, but he certainly has sent me more than any other editor in the field. And most importantly, he added a little something to his rejection slips in the early days, which has been of great use to me all my writing life: a short course on typesetter's symbols and a clear statement of standard manuscript submission format. One of my main goals for coming to Philadelphia was to see this person who had so influenced my life.
I found George Scithers to be a nice, polite person, very neat, with a dapper red hat. The conversation ranged around names, and how they define people, typesetter's marks, and how people who critique manuscripts refuse to use red pen, which most writers would prefer.
Afterwards I returned to my room, and found a message waiting for me. I also found that I could not get the message through my phone, for some reason, and had to go all the way down to the front desk and get it there. It was from Catherine, and had her phone number. The front desk would not let me use their phone, so up I had to go all the way back up to call her and make arrangements to meet.
After catching up with Max and Catherine, we were joined by Yuri Mironets, who is the Chairman of the English Department at Far Eastern University in Vladivostok, Russia. He teaches a popular course in Science Fiction, and has graduate students writing theses on the subject. For many years American and British Fans have supported his efforts by sending him books and other course materials. Catherine had organized a fund-raising movement to bring Yuri to World Con, accomplishing this feat in a bare three month's time.
Rather than the dour person I had expected from his letters, Yuri seemed cheerful and quite excited to be at Worldcon. Dinner was the only time we could pin him down, for he was constantly running off, meeting people, and taking pictures. I'm not sure how many pictures he took, but I assume that his film took up a major portion of his return luggage.
We four went to the Striped Bass and had an excellent dinner. After good food and conversation, we went over to the Barnes and Nobles I had missed seeing earlier in the day, attempting to catch the Young Author's program which was being held there. I wanted to see if I could get an autograph from Tamora Pierce for my daughters. The Philly Fantastic had left, but we hung around this rather unique bookstore until we were kicked out at closing time, at which point we caught up with the Philly Fantastic at a restaurant. More food and conversation followed, and finally we went back to the hotel. I stopped off at the Con Suite on my way back to the room, even if it was hard to find, and talked a bit with the three people there. It wasn't a very active place, but they did have fresh veggies to munch on.
Then I went to my room, read a bit, and eventually went to bed.
ADDENDUM:Catherine, reading this, detected certain errors of fact. One, although she left a message at the hotel, she never spoke with Helen until they met. She rather suspects Helen has forgotten she got a message off the voodoo board, Telling her she was looking for a man in a red shirt and a woman in a blue dress at the Art Show. {Helen now recalls that she spoke with Max, not Catherine.}
Also, we went to the Sansom Street Oyster House, which is not as fancy by many degrees of elegance as The Striped Bass -- closed for Labor Day weekend -- but is rated as having the best seafood in the city. We would return again to this location, but that will wait until later. Other than to mention Helen seemed appalled at eating oysters, an odd thing in a girl who grew up -- mostly -- in Louisiana.
Editorial note: "rather unique"? {Helen hear notes that she grew up in Shreveport, which is in Northern Louisiana and rather far from the coast, and whose best seafood place is Red Lobster, followed by Captain D's.}
We caught up with Philly Fantastic at The Olive Branch.