keeping each other occupied and the
locals might not have been getting
the full value for their money. But
nobody seemed to complain.
                      Valma and
I somehow missed the celebrity party
which was held early on during the
convention, we didn't even know that
it was on because nobody told us
and we hadn't looked at the programme
to find out for ourselves. So we
missed out on being people of some
minor importance and so missed out on
getting our own plastic straw boaters.
Pete went along and got his, he wore
it for the rest of the convention and
it suited him perfectly, he looked exactly like a Void Boy and when I told him this
he seemed quits pleased.
                     After the banquet at which both Peter and I had to make
speeches we realised that we hadn't said all the things that we had wanted to. Peter
had done a lot better than I, being older (not much Pete) and more experienced in
the ways of talking to crowds of fans but he had still not done a few things he had
thought of. I hadn't said anything that I wanted to, one look at the crowd spread out
to filling up the ballroom was more than enough to bring on a state of shock in which
everything fled from my mind. Later we plotted out the sorts of speeches we would
have made if we had done it properly and the speeches we would make when they rolled
back time again. After such planning we would have wowed them but of course while I
suppose Pete might have had some idea that he had to say something I was not told
that I was expected to make a speech until just after the meal had been served. I
might have guessed but nobody on the committee had told me and so I felt reasonably
certain that I was safe.
                     On the last evening of the convention, when everybody was in
desperate search of a dead dog party worth attending Peter and Valma and I trooped
around looking as well. We found ourselves in a large suite where Pete went off and
talked with somebody he knew and we ended up talking with Will Straw and a couple
of others. Later Pete came into the room and started talking with Ted White about
feuds and stf and it was the first time that I'd heard him talking about science
fiction for the duration of the convention and I must say that he wears the hats of
fannish and sercon fans very well. I wish I could do the same, but I just reads the
stuff you know.
             Pete was only in America on a shortened TAFF trip, he'd had to leave hi
wife and child back in England because there was going to be another child waiting
for him when he got back. More dedication has no fan than that he would leave his
family at a time like that but I suppose that a birth in the family isn't one of those
acts of god which are the out from having to make the trip. Even with his short
stay I'm sure Peter would have learned a fair bit about America and its fans, he's
a smart fellow. He's also a very loveable person and we were truly sorry to see the
last of him. We'll have to get over to England one of these days - '79 maybe.
Susan Wood probably did more for AUSSIECON at the convention than any Australian
there. She spent prodigious amounts of time sitting behind our table collecting
money from people and being a nice person. How she could possibly be up and active
at such an unlikely hour as ten in the morning was a secret which she never
revealed to us, it is something which I would have given my right arm to know for
after a long night getting up at all was torture. Valma tells me that the secret is
that of not getting any sleep at all but I find this difficult to believe.
                                                              Susan seemed
to know everybody worth knowing and a few not so that with her at our table it was
a certainty that everybody would get to visit us sooner or later. I would hate to
have to recall the numbers of people who were introduced to me over that table and
the numbers of times I looked up to see a stranger identifying itself with a

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