From: Walter Miles <waltmiles at comcast.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>,
    WSFA Official List <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 19:41:26 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Lucius Shepard, 1947 - 2014
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 03/20/14, you wrote:

> A good friend, a great writer, past Disclave GoH (1989, along with
> artist J. K. Potter).

There was a party a Kim Stanley Robinson's house the night before Disclave.
My apartment was around the corner, so Mike entrusted me with the job of
ferrying Lucius, Ellen Datlow, and Michaela Roessner to the party.  On the
way back to the hotel in New Carrollton, there was a horrendous traffic jam
on the Beltway combined with very strange behavior in my transmission.  We
were very close to an exit, and several lanes from the right.  Lucius got out
of the car and began to, um, "direct traffic," most of which did not want to
be directed, while trying to squeeze by on the right shoulder or slice over
to the exit.  Somehow, I think by blocking oncoming cars with his
considerable bulk, he managed to clear a way for me to get the car off the
Beltway.  We found our way over the back roads to the hotel, not much the
worse for wear.  At the con, he christened me "Helldriver," but the really
remarkable thing about that night was *his* fearless/demented adventure as
a pedestrian in the middle of the Beltway.  Me, I was just lucky enough not
to become known as the "guy who killed the Guest of Honor."

I had not seen him for over a decade, and I'm surprised how much this hits
me.  Very sorry to hear it.

Lucius answer to "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Well, the chicken took a good look at the road, figured it wasn't packing,
and he could probably take him if he had to."