Carolyn Waterson Wallace
1981 - Watching the landing of the Space Shuttle Columbia (Enterprise?) in Hinton James 7th floor lounge. This was when the Space Shuttle program was just beginning and so was Chimera. I later reprised my recollections of this event for the Morehead Planetarium newsletter The Sundial, inviting planetarium members to join the club.
'80-82 - Hanging around the Hinton James and Morrison computer rooms, learning about email and (VERY BASIC!) computer programming for the first time from Chuck and Danny. Now looking at the booming internet industry, I think back and realize that even then, we were looking to the cutting edge!
'83-84 - Getting SF authors to visit our club meetings. In 1983 I was working for St. Thomas More School in Chapel Hill. I became acquainted with Eva McKenna (now deceased), the school librarian; her husband was Richard McKenna (also deceased). Richard was an author, best known for his novel The Sand Pebbles, which became a movie. However, he was also an SF author; Eva once gave me a copy of his short story collection, Casey Agonistes and Other Stories. She was also friends with Manley Wade Wellman and his wife. My memories are a little foggy, but I believe that all three of them visited a Chimera meeting together. I do remember Mr. Wellman being there, and I remember seeing a Nebula award for the first time. It was only many years later that I found out that Eva and the Wellmans were also friends with Harlan Ellison, which brings us to:
4/86 - Harlan Ellison speaks at the UNC campus. I know Danny Reid was the main force behind getting Mr. Ellison invited to speak; I know now that it was the presence of Mr. Wellman and his wife Frances that prompted Mr. Ellison to accept. The reason I know this is because Mr. Ellison discusses this visit in the introduction to Angry Candy (a very sad and moving story - Mr. Wellman died the next day and Mr. Ellison missed seeing him by half an hour). From the tragic to the ridiculous - my claim to fame from this event is that Mr. Ellison paid me $20. (I usually pause at this point to let people's dirty little minds wonder...*grin*) Actually, I owe this little anecdote to Danny; Harlan needed a couple of warm bodies to sell books to the audience; Danny suggested me as one of those bodies. Thus, $20 from Harlan Ellison!
Various - Getting authors/artists to come to Chimeracons. I got to see Orson Scott Card just as Ender's Game was hitting its stride. Allan Wold, Karl Edward Wagner, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis, Colleen Doran, Joe Bergeron, are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.
1986 - Going to WorldCon '86 with a whole passel of Chimeroids. I remember Harlan Ellison won a Hugo for Paladin of the Lost Hour, and Back to the Future won Best Dramatic Presentation. We were packed eight to a room, I think. I didn't take any pictures and I don't know who else attended but Clay Russell and I think Anne Worth and Rick McGee. Clay and I had just started dating, and you know how that goes - not a brain cell left for anything else *grin*. It was (and still remains) the biggest SF convention I have ever attended. It was an astonishing experience. In '94 I went to Dragoncon with with another group of Chimeroids that included Richard Taylor, Shannon Wikle Sudderth, Phil Lee, Greg Dreher, Mark Swift, and Laura Haywood. (Ed. note - Who could ever forget Mark Swift and his "chainmail bikini lass"? I'll have to dig up my pictures from that con. *grin*)
80's - This isn't really Chimera, but I'll include it because Chimera later absorbed the Guardians of Light and Time, UNC's Dr. Who fan club. It was summer, and the Dr. Who Fan Club of America was doing an American tour with Jon Pertwee (Dr. #3) and Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane). Chuck Andrews was President of GOL&T and he and I were about the only UNC club members still in residence (we also had a Raleigh woman named Kathryn Keeter and an NCSU student named John). As the local fan club, we decided to welcome them to UNC. The actors stayed at the Carolina Inn and we got permission to leave presents in their rooms. We had roses for Ms. Sladen and Mrs. Pertwee, homemade fruit baskets, and musical greeting cards (just out then, and all the rage!) for Ms. Sladen and Mr. Pertwee. Later, in the autograph line, I happened to mention to Mr. Pertwee that our club had arranged the presents. He got up, kissed me on the cheek, and told me how surprised they had been and how much he appreciated us remembering his wife. The leader of the tour told us that Mr. Pertwee had come running out of his hotel room to show him the musical card, saying he had never seen anything like it. Ms. Sladen admitted that when she first opened the card, she threw it across the room, thinking it was a letter bomb. Then as the melody became recognizable (As Time Goes By), she realized everything was all right. Someone from Raleigh had built a full-scale model of the Police Box/TARDIS, which we had on display at the Student Union. WUNC-TV used the model to videotape some promos with Mr. Pertwee and Ms. Sladen, but incompetence on their part destroyed the tapes so they were never used.
'94 - I got to produce STAR TREK: Orion Rendezvous at the Planetarium, and Chimera showed up at the premiere in costume, along with ST clubs from around North Carolina. We had a lovely contingent of Klingons, and a group of Starfleet officers from Fayetteville. The show brought me two special SF momentos: I wrote "thank you" letters to LeVar Burton, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and Jonathan Frakes, who had lent their characters and their voices to this show. I received a lovely, personal letter from Mrs. Roddenberry and a picture from Mr. Burton.
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