Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 02:41:45 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Jack L. Chalker" <jchalker at miragepress.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: WSFA, deep into the past
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Although I never was involved when they were on a Sunday, I don't doubt
that they were. Even I didn't think Joe came in that late, though; I would
have sworn it was more like 1960. It seemed like he was always there. Joe,
Don, Tom Haughey and I were the young turks at that point--the kids. The
rest of the Baltimore group--Mark Owings, Dave Ettlin, and, slightly later,
Ron Bounds, Jerry Jacks, and others who later made up the nucleus of the
Baltimore club came in in early 1962 through mid-1964. Together with the
initial foursome we became almost a club within a club. Of the bunch, only
Haughey and I did fanzines with any sort of regularity and interest,
although Don had the mimeo and printed the first batches. Ted White was
gone by the time I got there, but not by much, and I heard a ton of stories
about him from older members, particularly Phyllis Berg, who always claimed
she got him thrown out of the club. I never got the story nor pressed for
it, but she and a number of other members sure didn't like him. I don't
think I met him until some early convention, either the 1961 Philcon, early
sixties Disclave, or whatever.
     That religious attack on Buck Coulson's YANDRO, a very popular fanzine
of the time, took MY fanzine, MIRAGE, from about a hundred copies, half
given away, to over 600 copies, mostly paid. I never lost money on an issue
after that. I made a career after that of not being politically correct and
it paid off nicely. I remember the '61 Philcon when Andy Main came in,
found out the fellow over there was me, and damned near choked at the site
of the "fanatic" with a drink in one hand and a cigarette hanging from his
lips listening to Steve Kolchak tell dirty jokes.... I never was forgiven
by the yes-men of the east, but I later became casual friends with the
Coulsons....
     If in fact Miss Cullen was hosting meetings on Sundays as early as
1956-57, though, her later hosting of the railroad society on Sundays might
have been the cause of WSFA having to switch. I wouldn't know--it was a
done deal by late 1959 when I got there. But, I can assure you, I made just
about every meeting for the first few years after I got there, and it was
ALWAYS on Friday evenings, never Sundays.

At 02:19 AM 6/11/2004, you wrote:
>"Jack L. Chalker" <jchalker at miragepress.com> wrote:
> > I would suggest that determining when the club switched from Sunday
> > to Friday would be best answered by Dick Eney, who's still very
> > much around, or, if you wanted a quick memory type thing, by John
> > Sapienza, who is the only person I can think of who was a member
> > then who is still a member now.
>
>Actually, I think it would be best answered by *me*, even though I
>didn't start attending Disclaves until the 80s, or WSFA meetings until
>the 90s.  I have all the official archives, including handwritten
>meeting minutes dating back to the 1940s.
>
>I'm pretty sure Joe Mayhew's first meeting was on Friday, May 5, 1961.
>I'll make it a point to check for your first meeting.  Not immediately,
>though, since I'm going to Conterpoint this weekend.
>
>I'm also pretty sure that the meetings switched back and forth between
>Fridays and Sundays more than once.  They definitely started on Sundays.