From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fantasy Mystery
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 19:36:21 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 6:47 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fantasy Mystery

> All mysteries are fantasies, since in real life detectives don't try
> to figure out who committed a crime, they try to figure out how to pin
> it on someone regardless of their guilt.

Are you speaking of police detectives, or private detectives?

> But here are the solutions to three non-crime-related mysteries:
>
> 1) The archives of this email list are at http://www.wsfa.org/list/
> They contain all but the last two days of postings, indexed by date
> and by sender.
>
> 2) I only found 21 names of people present at the 1953 Disclave, even
> though several sources say 22 people were present.  I just noticed
> that the con chair, Bob Briggs, was not on the list.  Presumably he
> was present, but didn't bother to write his own name.
>
> I noticed that because I am working on the "fifty years ago" column
> for the WSFA Journal, and was trying to figure out whether in 1954 the
> club really contained both a Briggs and a Griggs.  If I'm reading the
> handwritten minutes correctly, Briggs suggested the club buy $1 worth
> of uranium stock, but Griggs nixed the idea.
>
> 3) I solved that mystery by doing a Google search on our own site.
> Yes, there was a Bob Briggs and a Nelson Griggs in the club at the
> same time.

I could have told you that.   Bob Briggs (who is still active today in
SAPS) was the person to whom I was directed by Bob Tucker, when I asked
Tucker if he knew of any DC-area SF fanclubs.   Briggs, when I called him
up, was friendly and invited me to my first WSFA meeting.  He'd dropped out
of active attendance, but showed up (at an apartment in Georgetown, the
club's last meeting there, so it never really engraved itself on my memory)
more or less on my behalf.   I was then 16.   As the club revived itself
that fall, he began attending more frequently.  I borrowed fanzines from
him to read.

Nelson Griggs was then the club president; I succeeded him at the next
election (no one was nominated to run against me).   At that time we were
meeting at Dot Cole's (just outside Rosslyn, just off Route 50).
Subsequently meetings moved to Griggs' house in Wheaton, where they stayed
until they moved to Miz Cullen's place.  Didn't we hash all that out just a
few months ago?

--Ted White