My Convention Career: 1980

• Deep South Con, Atlanta -- Back from Israel, I surprised everyone by showing up unannounced. Only Donald Cook, at whose house I stayed the night before, knew I was coming ahead of time. Great fun seeing old friends, although experiencing my first and only hangover thanks to the evil influence of buddy Stven Carlberg was definitely Not Fun.

• Noreascon Two, Boston -- Thanks to faking out the airlines that I was a foreign citizen, I got to make a surprise appearance at worldcon, too. I was busy for part of this con promoting "Jerusalem in '82," a con proposed by the newly formed Israel Science Fiction Association that I had helped found, which was mentioned in Isaac Asimov's Hugo ceremony speech! Also the site of my very own personal Harlan story, when he grabbed me in the hallway to use my staff badge to get him into the huckster room (as if the doorbot wouldn't have let him in!) so he could find his publisher and explain why he had just had to punch out a hotel guest.

  My first real worldcon work assignment was helping Ross Pavlac with line management at the masquerade, and hanging out in Ops.

• LosCon, Anaheim -- My first Western convention was an odd experience, since the mores were much different than the Southern cons I was used to. For example, the con suite actually closed, and the filking was done in a bardic circle rather than people taking turns performing. Not to mention the fact that I hardly knew anyone outside of Mike Glyer, a disconcerting experience after years of friendly, comfortable DSCs.

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