I founded Chimera...but I was never a member of it. Here's how that
happened.
I arrived at UNC-CH in August 1978. I quickly discovered the Foundation
Bookstore (which a while later, after I left, became Second Foundation).
As it said on the business cards, it was then "the only sf, fantasy, and
comics bookstore in the Carolinas". Already being an sf reader and an even
longer time comics reader, I'd stop in there once or twice a week.
I also soon discovered there was an existing sf club on campus. I don't
recall that much about it, save for two events. One was minor; a group of
about 10-15 people getting together at someone's apartment to watch the
Dr. Strange tv movie. The other was more major, and given that it occured
in September 1978 may well have been my introduction to the club.
At the time, the Carolina Union had a projector style large screen tv in
the lounge on the second floor which overlooked the information desk. The
club arranged for it to show the 2 hour premiere of Battlestar Galactica.
Now, as people know now, and quickly realized at the time, Battlestar
Ponderosa was pretty bad. But beforehand, people had hopes for it. So there
was a crowd of around a hundred people watching. This was the first "new
thing" after the original release of Star Wars after all.
Eventually came the climatic scene. The Cylons are closing in on the
Galactica (Boy were they closing in. The person watching the sensors was
saying "20 microns and closing...10 microns and closing". The majority of
the audience who knew that micron is an actual measurement unit was going
"*Damn* they're close!").
"We interrupt this program for a special announcement from ABC News." What?
Huh? Cut to the White House, where Carter, Begin, and Sadat are about to
sign the Camp David peace accords. It went on and on, and eventually an
announcement started crawling across the bottom of the screen stating that
the ending of BG would be shown in its entirity once the ceremony was over.
One problem though. The Union closed at 11 pm. At 10:55, with the ceremony
still going on, one of the two people at the Information Desk downstairs
gets on the PA system and the following dialogue ensued:
PA system: "The Carolina Union will be closing in five minutes..."
100 people overlooking the Desk: "HELL NO!"
PA system: "...except that we will stay open until Battlestar Galactica is
over."
100 people: "THANK YOU!"
PA System: "You're welcome."
Anyway, the club just seemed to fade away over the year. I was busy with
other things; I got into College Bowl, and I came into UNC-CH as President
of the long-established Chess Club due mainly to the former President and
accredited Tournament Director wanting to retire, and I was the only UNC-CH
attending or entering accredited TD. This involved running an all-day chess
tournament in the Union once a month, as well as showing up for a lot of
weekly meetings. I also was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the statewide
North Carolina Chess Association in early September. So between those
things and being a Computer Science major (i.e. time consuming programming
courses), I didn't do that much with the club or really notice that when it was gone.
I did keep hanging out at Foundation. As a side note, by December 1980, I'd gotten hired to run the store on Saturdays, due in main part to my comics
knowledge. And, as then owner Larry Shapiro said to me "You're the most
normal person who hangs out here." In April 1981 my mother and stepfather
came down one weekend and came with me to the store as I opened up. After
looking around, Mom's comment was "So they actually pay you to work here?"
(i.e. I'd probably work there for free).
I don't recall the exact date, but probably fall of 1980 I decided to try
to restart an sf club. This was helped by the Union film committee deciding
to do an sf film marathon. Only specific film I recall was Five Million
Years to Earth, one of the Quatermass films. That and the theme of one film
from each decade from the 40s through the 70s. I got consulted on what
films would be good choices, and in exchange for my advice I got to stand up
before each film was shown and pitch the sf club.
The club got a few members, but declined fairly quickly. In retrospect,
there were two reasons for this. First was that we didn't really have good ideas for interesting activities to encourage people to want to attend meetings or do get-togethers outside of a formal meeting setting. I was also getting very busy with coursework; to make a very long story short, I figured out that I might have a chance of getting into grad school after only three
years at UNC-CH...and without a Bachelor's. But this required a killer
course schedule Spring 1981 to ensure I'd finish all the required CS
courses.
The second reason was that I was the wrong person to create/lead an sf club at that time at UNC-CH. I'm simplifying things tremendously here, but the year before I'd been involved in a relationship which had a bad ending. The type where other people choose up sides between the two parties. So a fair number of people who would've been interested in an sf club in general
weren't interested in one I was leading. By the end of the 1981 Spring
semester, membership was down to three people, myself, Danny Reid, and
Paul Thompson.
As it turned out, I managed to pull off the trick of getting accepted to
grad school without a Bachelor's. At Yale no less. Which meant that I was
leaving UNC-CH. I made arrangements to hand off the Chess Club to an
entering freshman who was an accredited Tournament Director, but didn't really worry about the sf club. I figured if they were interested, Paul and Danny would continue it.
However, as part of my job at Foundation, I'd gone to UNC-G's Stellercon
during Spring 1981 to basically be their dealer's room. There'd been this
fairly hyper high schooler from the Greensboro area there, who was going to
be attending UNC-CH next year, and I mentioned the club to him.
Cut to September 1981. After a summer job in Boston, I was back at Chapel
Hill for a couple of days. I had to pick up the rest of my stuff to take
to New Haven. The near Labor Day timing was due to the North Carolina
Chess Association having its annual meeting that weekend. I was midway
through a two-year term as President, and needed to chair the meeting
which'd elect my successor to fill out the rest of my term.
I was walking through the Pit when the aforementioned hyper high schooler
came up and said something along the lines of "I heard you're leaving,
what's happening with the sf club?". I figured that with a whopping two
members left it'd be pretty much dead, so I basically said something like
"Well, it's pretty much yours if you want it. Here's the names of the
remaining members who you can look up in the Student Directory. Good
luck!".
Said hyper high schooler, now freshman, was one Robert Hurt. Who certainly
did a *much* better job than me of organizing an sf club! The club
eventually became Chimera.
A few of postscripts; starting with the 1982 Boskone, the Boston area sf
convention, I started getting into the mainstream of sf fandom. In summer
of 1984 I was at a con, and saw something, either a t-shirt or flyer for
Chimeracon, that made me realize that there was still an sf club at UNC-CH.
Said something was there due to Dorothy Wright. I somehow figured this
out and also ran into her. I introduced myself, and we talked about the
current status of the club. At some point in there, I also got a Chimera
t-shirt, which I still have.
On January 1st, 1986, I moved to LA. I went to Worldcon that year in
Atlanta, where I ran into Robert Hurt (with various other Chimerans) for the first time in five years. It turned out that he was also in LA, attending grad school at UCLA. And he'd really proven that he was much better than me at organizing an sf club by starting up another one at UCLA, this one called
Enigma. A few weeks later, when classes started up there, I started attending the weekly Enigma meetings as sort of an associate member and even served
as sort of an eminence gris for their first convention in the Spring of
1987. I moved away from LA, but I still see Robert regularly at the San
Diego Comiccon and various other cons, particularly since I returned to
California (this time Silicon Valley) in '96. I also see Danny Reid from time to time at cons as well, most recently Readercon '96 and Intersection, the '95 Worldcon.