Part III
Harry Warner, Jr. - On the Feast of Stephen, 1995
The long delay in thanking you for and commenting on the 11th issue of Skug is not a subtle
symbolic reference to the length of time since the tenth issue. Rather it's a simple, downright demonstration of how I've become senile, incompetent, undependable and generally a mess,
a sad change from the eager beaver loccer that once inhabited what remains of my body.
(But where does that put me since I promised this in December and here it is
February.- GSM)
But I was glad to receive it and to read it and I trust that you won't be too late with the
promised next issue.
Your trip account was the part of this issue that held my attention best, since you went mainly
to the parts of Europe that would attract me if I came down with Alzheimer's and forgot how
much I hate to travel and therefore went overseas. You even got practically all the German
names right, something fans rarely do when they write up their European travels. I envy
your daring in driving through unknown big cities with an unfamiliar auto and, I assume
suffering some culture shock from the strange directional signs. Like Patty, I'm unable
to drive an auto with manual transmission. Everyone told me when I first learned to drive
and used a car with automatic transmission that I would someday regret it, and I keep
wondering when that prophecy will be proved valid, 45 years after it was spoken, since
I haven't had a crisis with a gearshift vehicle yet.
(Now I'm wondering which German names I misspelled. Admittedly I did not put
umlauts everywhere and I may have occasionally spelled "Köln" as "Cologne," although
I suppose I could have put "Koeln" but that might have been even more confusing. The
directional signs were not as bad as the placement of the signs. The distance between
signs and exits was different and also there seemed to be fewer advance notice
signs. - GSM)
You didn't mention one thing that aroused my sense of wonder, your ability to get into East
Germany and Czechoslovakia without undue problems. It seems like only yesterday when
anything under Russian domination was almost inaccessible to the average tourist. Time
change, so I wouldn't be surprised to read in some future year how a fan found a place to
park in Manhattan.
(Since the trip was made after East Germany and West Germany became just
Germany there was no problem going between what used to be two separate countries.
There were differences, such as the East Germany buildings seemed older and/or in
worse repair than those in West Germany. We did have to stop at the Czechoslovakia
border (it was still one country then) but it only amounted to ten or fifteen minutes, if I
remember correctly. - GSM)
The little advertisements on the classified pages thanking St. Jude appear around here, too. Apparently part of the bargain involved in praying for a favor from that saint's intercession is
a public display of gratitude. Most of these ads appear in a tabloid giveaway shopper
distributed in this area. After an unusual number of the thank you notes had been appearing,
one week there was a new ad which said simply: "Don't mention it. St. Jude."
I would have been comfortable growing up in Japan. My parents taught me to get into the
habit of saving some of my income and I'm eternally grateful because without the investments
that have resulted from that practice, I would be on the very verge of poverty with no income
other than social security and the pension as a retired newspaper company employee. I'm still managing to put away some money every year, although it becomes more difficult all the time
with interest rates so-so and the cost of all essentials rising. I continue to try to save on the
theory that it might someday mean the difference between comfortable final years in a rest
home and miserable end to life in an inferior rest home.
I suppose Bill Breiding never solved the mysteries he encountered that day in 1987, since
there's no update to this matter appended to his article. Maybe an unusual type of Satanism
is being practiced in that remote area. (Wm. never solved the mystery, as far as I
know. - GSM)
You were wondering how many people watched Northern Exposure. In its last season, when
it was moved to a bad time slot and suffered from very bad scripts, it had an average rating
of 11.2. This tied it for eighth highest among all the CBS offerings during the season. CBS
had 21 series that finished with lower ratings. Its rating was higher than anything on the Fox
network or on the two new networks. It stood in 36th place among all network offerings for
the season (132 series existed in that season altogether). The decision by CBS not to
renew it is incomprehensible. Picket Fences and several other CBS series that had
ratings below that of Northern Exposure were renewed and given extensive advertising
campaigns. It's now running in syndication on over-the-air stations in Washington and
Baltimore, and I imagine one of the cable channels like Bravo will eventually pick it up for
national reruns, but I doubt if any more episodes will ever be created, a terrible shame.
(My viewing has become worse. Now I regularly watch "Space Above and Beyond,"
"Voyager," "Deep Space Nine," "Babylon 5," "X-files," and "3rd Rock from the Sun."
"American Gothic" was in that list but I believe it is being canceled. Add all the movies
we can get with our satellite dish and it becomes too extreme. - GSM)
It was the only series I've watched regularly in recent years. I don't match your ability to watch
a lot of television. I do treat myself to baseball in season and the rare, occasional offering of
serious music. Currently there's nothing on the networks that interests me enough to get into
the habit of watching every episode. Instead I'm spending this winter videotaping as many
episodes of Newhart as possible from its reruns on The Family Channel (this is the second
of the series starring Bob Newhart, the one in which he's running an inn in Vermont).
It occurs to me that you may doubt the genuineness of this loc since I probably haven't had
occasion to write you since I finally retired the typewriter that I had used for all fanac for four
decades. Too many things went wrong with it and it's almost impossible to find someone
who can repair an ancient, non-electric typewriter at an affordable price. So I dug out this
tiny Royal portable that once belonged to my aunt and had been sitting in a closet for more
than thirty years. It worked to perfection at once and even the old ribbon that was on it all that
time gave pretty good results except for the few inches that had been exposed to air for
one-third of a century. I have some trouble with spacing because my right thumb is numb
from having been caught in a car door several years ago and because sometimes I pound
the keys hard enough to cause the machine to jump in the air and indulge in an unwanted
space when it comes back down again. (This conjures up quite a sight. I'd love to
see the jumping typewriter. There are no typewriters left in this household, only keyboards
attached to our PCs. - GSM)
Harry Warner, Jr.
Hagerstown, MD
Milt Stevens - 01/02/96:
Thanks for the copy of Skug #11. If you kept to your stated intention of publishing another
issue by the end of the year. I've already missed your next issue. Of course you didn't say
which year, so I may yet make it.
I enjoyed the one Corflu I attended in 1992. I haven't been making a great many cons in
recent years, but I will make LACon III this year. When I retire, I intend to hit at least some
Corflus and Dittos. If nothing changes in the intervening time, I will retire four years from
today's date. Surfing the net is another thing I'm postponing until retirement. I'm almost
sure I'd enjoy it and might even find it downright addictive. However, I'm not currently
in the market for something which would gobble up lots and lots of my time. I have
enough other things to gobble up my time at the moment.
I haven't seen one of those replica radios in the form of a juke box. I have seen solid state
radios which looked like old vacuum tube radios. I imagine they're sort of nostalgia items
for people who remember the radio era. The things that impress me as curious are some
of the more bizarre models of telephones. Like who needs a telephone in the shape of a
football.
Death is something I've always had a problem reacting to. Death doesn't impress me as
being sad or unfortunate in most cases, it just sort of is. Some ways of dying can be quite
unpleasant, but death itself is largely neutral.
Rich Coad didn't tell us whether Dave Rike launched a movie career after being discovered
at the porn screening. Dave could probably use the extra money, and he certainly would
get to meet new people. With porn in general, I get more erotic effect from the mildest stuff
while the hard core stuff doesn't impress me as erotic at all. I'm always willing to eyetrack
those Playboy lingerie issues.
Until next issue, whenever that is.
Milton F. Stevens
Simi Valley, CA
WAHF: Debbie Notkin - kith@slip.net, John Busco, sfgirl(?) - SFGirl5757@aol.com, John Benson,
Dorothy Jones, Luke McGuff, Steve Stiles, Arthur D. Hlavaty - hlavaty@panix.com, Kate Schaefer -
kate@scn.org, Candi Strecker - strecker@pop.sirius.com, Fred Haskell - falh@maroon.tc.umn.edu,
Nigel Rowe - Nigel.Rowe@Mosby.com, Steve Schwake, Bill Loftis
Oh, for the unitiated, WAHF = "We Also Heard From". Actually I suppose
I should use IAHF.
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