Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

I got to Mehama on Saturday about 5 PM, a little earlier than I expected, even though I did make two longish stops: first at the Valley of the Rogue rest area/state park, where I took a walk along a portion of the trail between the rest area and the RV park portions of the park; second, at Cottage Grove where I stopped for fuel and lunch and walked down the Oregon Pacific & Eastern trail (on the bed of the former railroad) to downtown Cottage Grove.

Today, rather than get on the computer, we got to work, this being one of the few not-raining days we're expecting during this stretch. We need several days of not-rain before we can tackle That Darn Roof, so today was smaller things. We got out the ladder and Lisa repaired and unclogged rain gutters on her father's garage. We hauled five or six wheelbarrow loads of gravel from a pile on the property to near the old house where we spread it over a walking path that has been getting muddy. And after a shopping run to Salem, it seemed dry enough to break out the law mowers. Lisa got the big John Deere riding mower out and I got the small push mower. She did the big expanses of the field while I trimmed the edges and cut the small yard near her father's house.

To some extent, I did not feel like I'd done very much, but I was certainly tired at 4 PM when we called it a day because it was starting to spit rain again. I wasn't aware how worn out I was until I lay down and fell asleep for what Lisa said was about 2 1/2 hours. We had dinner and started to go for a long walk in the deepening twilight, but the rain had started up with more than the light force of that afternoon, so we were obliged to cut back our hike. While we were having dinner, Lisa's friend Scott called and expressed his concern that he hadn't seen me post a message saying I'd arrived, so Lisa sent me over to her father's house to get online and check the mail.

This afternoon, hazelchaz text-messaged me from FanimeCon, where Wendy and Richard Pini are appearing, saying that they said hello and asked if I had the time to come over from BayCon. I wrote back explaining that I was actually in Oregon, not at B -- I meant to write "BayCon" but accidentally hit send. I was touched that they asked after me. I was one of the founders of the MythAdventures Fan Club in the days of WaRP Graphics publication of the comic book, as those of you who have known me back to the late 1980s know. I also have a massive case of Elfquest Fanboy Syndrome that is in remission.

Tomorrow being a holiday, I may not be online much or at all. A lot depends on the weather. If we get any clear weather, there is more work to be done here. There always is more work to be done here, not all of which requires going up on slippery roofs.

[Note that my previous two entries were composed retroactively, after I'd heard the news below, but I wanted to try and preserve their tone without coloring them with the following bad news. I did not log in earlier because internet access is $9.99/24 hours and I was being a little cheap.]

While Lisa and I were hanging around the pre-con reception, we were informed by several people of some terrible news. Somewhat later, convention chair Dale Mazzola made an official announcement: Robert Asprin, Author Special Guest of MARCON, was found dead a few hours ago. Reportedly he suffered a massive heart attack.

As some of you know, I was the founder and for more than five years was President of the MythAdventures Fan Club. While I'd actually only met Bob a few times, I was really looking forward to seeing him again for the first time in many years. This is a very sad day.

Beyond the immediate tragedy, I find myself thinking like a conrunner about this: Author Guest of Honor Jody Lynn Nye (Bob's collaborator) and Editor Special Guest Bill Fawcett (Bob's business manager and close friend) will also not be attending on account of Bob's death this afternoon. My sympathies to them and to everyone else who was close to Bob, but my sympathies also to the MARCON committee, who will have to cope with having a major guest die the day before the convention and the resultant disruption.

And here I was mildly grousing pre-con that Bob and I weren't scheduled for any panels together. It shows how petty my concerns can be sometimes.

Edit, Friday 15:55: Fixed spelling error. Even when I ran the club, I was prone to the name error.