Bob Tucker
Write this on the spine of the oldest copy of WONDER STORIES that you own: Monday, July 19, 1965 was a momentous day in history. On that day there occurred five seemingly unrelated events of vast import, each one touching on fandom to a greater or lesser degree, and at least two of which may yet plunge all fandom into war. The historic events of the day were these:
1) Dean and Jean Grennell were visiting the Tucker freehold.
2) Quark arrived in the morning mail.
3) One of my sons decided to publish a fanzine.
4) An incredibly evil scheme was hatched, the results of which may be visible to fandom this year or next.
5) Adlai Stevenson was being buried in Bloomington ten miles away, his home town, and some fifty thousand people were lining the streets to gawk at politicians in the funeral cortege.
Those five memorable points, in order:
1) The Grennells were making their first visit to the home of the Scion of Eofandom in ten years, having last visited here in 1955 while the house was being built. Dean was properly impressed to find that I had gotten it erected, and equally amazed to learn that my unregenerate offspring had not succeeded in tearing it down again in that same decade. He muttered something beneath his breath about wishing he had brought his striplings along for the day. We raised our beer cans high in a quiet toast to William Holden (that's an in-group joke, lads) and he showed me the very same Oldsmobile station wagon that had chased deer over snow-covered Wisconsin highways at eighty miles an hour. A bit of antler protruded from the radiator grille. I also found marks on the hood that appeared to be scratches caused by bear paws, but DAG declined comment.
In addition to the usual traveling gear, the Oldsmobile was packed to the gunnels with cameras and firearms, the owner's other two hobbies beside fandom and the begatting of children. My older boys were impressed with both but exhibited the keenest delight in the handguns, being as civilized as most. A few empty cartridge cases were passed around as keepsakes.
2) Quark arrived in the mail, and DAG snatched it up with sounds of glee to bite out the holding staple with one strong thunk of his teeth. I turned my attention to the daily chore of destroying bills and past-due notices, burning illegible fanzines, and hiding royalty checks from the family. In the opposite chair, the sounds of glee had turned to distress. My guest was growing red above the collar. He seemed aghast. There was some comment about him in Quark which sent his usually-sweet temper a'boiling. I'm sorry to report that I can't remember the offending matter at this late date; there is a hazy memory that it may have had something to do with political matters, in or out of fandom, but whatever it was, it rubbed DAG the wrong way. He waved his arms in the air and befouled the nearby fields with strong language ("he cursed like a trooper") while mothers ran to cover the ears of innocent children.
I attempted to defend the hapless, distant editor, suggesting that it was all a natural mistake and Thom Perry had confused him with someone else named Degler, but DAG would have none of it. His anger burned, and in the end he swore a terrible revenge, a mighty vow. Quark, he declared, would be gone within a year. The die was cast.
3) My son, David, who was eleven that year, was fascinated by the talk of fanzines. He had looked through mine infrequently, asking questions and staring at Rotsler illustrations, but until then had shown no real and fannish interest in them. Suddenly that day, he did, and I suspected a fan was born. In his childish eagerness and ignorance he prattled of fifty and hundred page issues, while DAG and I listened, thunderstruck; he talked of beautiful covers and big names on the contents pages and innumerable subscription dollars rolling into his pockets to spend on comic books and bubblegum. We cringed.
Less than a year later his first issue appeared. It was school-oriented, filled with juvenile offerings and the inevitable science fiction story about a mysterious submarine. It included a filler by Pong, and because of that and a covering page to make it eligible, it was put into a FAPA mailing under my frank. Three or four more issues have followed, and I was astounded one day to see a DOLLAR arrive in the mail for a long-term subscription. That made me realize that there was big money to be made in the fanzine business.
4) The incredibly evil scheme was really hatched in the quick, cunning mind of DAG as we sat in the shade of the century-old sequoia I had planted ten years before. An ingenious plan. I fell easily into the scheme with snorts and chuckles of diabolic glee, for it seemed so right, so timely, so long overdue. The dark plot is even now taking on substance and already a handful, a bare handful of far-flung fans, have gained an inkling of what is to come. They must know sooner or later, for perhaps a half-dozen of them will become embroiled before the plot bears flower. Time is not of the essence; our scheme has a deliberately slow-burning fuse. You may become aware of it this year or next, unless someone runs you out of fandom beforehand. A pity.
5) Adlai Stevenson had died in London a week earlier. The body was flown first to Washington DC, and then to Springfield, Illinois, where it was transferred to a hearse and carried fifty miles along Route 66 to Bloomington for burial. Bloomington is the hometown of the Stephenson family. Adlai's sister still resides there and the town's oldest cemetery contains the family plot where several generations lie, including Adlai Stephenson I, who was vice president of these United States under Grover Cleveland. Bloomington is so proud of its native son that it twice snubbed him in the national elections, giving instead a landslide of votes to his opponent, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1952 and 1956. Within a day after his death, hastily printed placards appeared in shop windows bearing his picture and the legend "Our Fallen Statesman." Several pious businessmen announced they would forego profits on the day of the funeral and close their stores for an entire hour in respect for the fallen statesman.
Whoever was in charge of funeral arrangements made over the event into a production, only slightly smaller in size than the funeral of President Kennedy. A church was kept open 24 hours a day, enabling those voters who had snubbed him to walk by the casket and perhaps snitch a flower as a souvenir; a University field house was obtained for a giant memorial service; an enterprising insurance company opened its large meeting hall to incoming reporters and established a press headquarters there; telephone crews erected a radio relay tower atop the city's tallest building just in case the TV networks decided to carry the funeral "live"; and the police announced that parking along the funeral route would be prohibited, which was fair warning to every motorist who had planned to leave his car on the street the night before to gain a ringside seat the next day.
The local rocket went up on Sunday afternoon, when word that President Johnson and his family would attend the services the following day.
* * *
Bloomington's normal population of about 37,000 nearly doubled overnight as the gawkers and camp followers poured in from outlying villages and farms to watch the show. Hotel and motel rooms couldn't be had for a premium. Chartered busses from somewhere -- perhaps Chicago -- brought in about 200 newsmen, sob sisters, camera crews and Big Name Announcers; another 70 White House and Washington correspondents flew in with the President. Swarms of high and low politicians suddenly decided that they too should attend the funeral, and the delighted townspeople were treated to the rare sight of droves of governors, lieutenant-governors, senators, garden variety congressmen, Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, metropolitan mayors, and a covey of lesser lights such as nationally known authors and actors who wanted to be seen in the parade. Some of them may have attended because they really wished to pay their respects.
State, county and city police joined forces with the Secret Service in such numbers they were bumping into each other on street corners and, for all I know, frisking each other as suspicious characters. A call went out to locate and bring in -"for safe keeping"- the local anarchist, but he was never found. Postal inspectors roamed up and down the streets the motorcade would follow, checking mailboxes for concealed bombs. City garbage crews were sent along the same route to remove garbage cans from sight and hide them behind houses. All local ambulances and hospitals were put on a standby alert, and two "escape routes" were laid out between downtown and the airport, in case something happened. Four Secret Service men took their stations at the City, two to handle crank calls and two to render harmless any bombs as might be found. Off-duty firemen were called in and posted at the airport with a fire truck. The church that would be the scene of the funeral ceremony was checked brick by crevice, and then a snow fence was set up around it to keep out the rabble. One imaginative newsman, irked because the Secret Service would not permit him and his cronies to crowd the casket at the cemetery, put a story on the wire to the effect that an unruly crowd rushed the barriers and trampled graves in their eagerness to get close to the actual burial. The local chief of police indignantly branded him a liar.
And all the while, I sat at home in the cooling shade of the century-old redwoods with nervous tendrils twitching, turning pale every time the phone rang -- I hoped it rang not for me. Monday was my day off, I was being royally entertained by the Grennells, and the last thing on earth I wanted or needed was a call to work, a call to come into Bloomington and elbow my way through that mob. Color me chicken.
You remember me: I'm the chap who toils in the Technicolored Entertainment Industry. I not only crank the talking pictures and set up the scenery for traveling road shows, but I am on call to supply crews for movie, newsreel and TV camera crews when they are in the field, my field. We all belong to the same guild, you know, and this is an interlocking monopoly. My local group supplies cablemen, electricians, spotlight operators, assistant this-or-that, or whatever a TV or movie cameraman may need in the way of help while working in the field, and if just one of those cameramen covering the funeral decided he needed help, he would pick my name and number out of the handy little directory in his pocket and I would be obligated to go into town and find a crew for him. I didn't want that. Not that day. I didn't want to fight the mob and then fight the Secret Service people who didn't know me and hadn't previously cleared me for such close work; I didn't want to tag around after some crazy cameraman, toting his dirty cable, while he whispered to the minister to speak louder or asked the President to turn his best profile this way a bit. I didn't want to have to find the power supply in that outdated University field house -- I knew where it was, and I know what it would entail: some genius had put the incoming power under the floor, under a corner of the basketball floor, and more than once I have been a member of the stage crew which has had to move people and chairs off that corner of the floor to reach the electric outlet. (It is the only outlet offering 440 service, and the only safe outlet which cannot be lost in the middle of things when some damned fool somewhere in the building turns off a switch. We split the 440 into the number of circuits needed for the stage and have learned the hard way not to rely on anything else stuck into the walls and called a "wall plug.")
Most of all, I didn't want to be trampled by 200-plus scoop crazy reporters bent on reaching the same spot at the same time --- remember those two escape routes set up by the police? That many rampaging newspeople may be compared to an equal number of water buffalo in headlong flight, wouldn't you say Mr. Warner?
Luckily, happily, the phone did not toll for me that day. My fellow monopolists in town ignored me. I saw some of the TV shots that evening and noted with relief that every cameraman in sight was using hand-wound cameras and existing light, be it church window or fieldhouse basketball lighting. I would have felt as silly as hell standing in the church (if I ever got into the church) panning lights back and forth from minister to coffin to President, while the crazy cameraman muttered directions from a corner of his mouth. (All TV cameramen are crazy. That is a good story for a future day.)
* * *
The afternoon waned, as afternoons do in the temperate zone, and the Grennells repacked their bear-clawed Oldsmobile for the next leg of the journey; they were on a combination business-and-pleasure jaunt and the next stop was the business kind. DAG asked for the quickest route to Peoria, a wicked city famed in song and story. Regretfully, I had to tell him it was too late to go there for business, because a reform administration had closed down all the interesting shops.
Somewhat pained, the meanwhile casting anxious glances at his wife, DAG denied being interested in that kind of business and asked again for the shortest route. Recognizing an opportunity, I told him. I said, go into Bloomington on this road, then turn west on Route 150 -- it was as simple as that and even he couldn't get lost.
The man blanched. Into Bloomington, he quavered? With that awesome procession under way? With his car loaded to the gunnels with arms and ammunition? Was I crazy? Didn't I realize what would happen to him and his wife? Think of the children alone in the world!
But I quickly assured him there was absolutely no cause for alarm; after all, he was a privileged character. Law officers around the world recognize their own kind and smooth the way for each other. All he need do was flash his Germantown police card, get off a snappy salute, thrust his head through the open window and yell out "TEN --- FOUR!" He could whiz right along.
DAG stared aghast. (He has aghast eye.) He cringed, and cried out that he would be flang into jail to rot.
No so, I assured him. If the very worst happened and the lawmen failed to honor his credentials, I, personally, would intercede on his behalf. I pointed out that now I had a powerful friend in court, a powerful political crony, and if the locals were so ignorant as to harm him, I would speak to my friend and spring him.
His following question was somewhat sarchastic.
Drawing myself up pridefully, I said that now I was the only remaining Democrat voter in Copake County, and my powerful ally in Bloomington would realize that. He would welcome the opportunity to do a favor before flying back to Washington. Together, we would and could spring DAG before the rot set in.
The craven faaan found another route to Peoria.
--- Bob Tucker, Eof
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Hard copy provided by Geri Sullivan
Data entry by Judy Bemis
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