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Memoirs of a Superfluous Fan, 1944

Page 17

victim of Progeria, a term meaning pre-mature ageing. At sixteen I am supposed to have looked nineteen, and from my eighteenth to my twenty first birthday only one bartender asked for my draft card. The youngster outlook with which I entered the club gave way gradually to a more tempered view of the situation, and while only twelve months previous the sight of original cover illustrations, scientifiction cinema stills, and the rarer magazines sent plain and unadulterates thrills of excitement throughout my nervous system, a year later I had a much more controled view on the importance of fan activities in a person's life. 

Contact with mature but unconventional persons such as Henry Kuttner, Shroyer, and their group within the club, and later Charles D. Hornig, made me more quickly aware of the difference between teen-age behaviour and adult behaviour. Naturally, I cannot say that  I grew-up over night, or that I ceased being stupid or juvenile at times, but my outlook not only on scientifiction but "outside" life as well was greatly influenced by a premature desire to get over the growing-up process, urged on by a wish to imagine myself as developed a conversationalist as the abovementioned figures of the old LASFL.

RUSS HODGKINS had a meticulously well-kept scientifiction collection, plus a well-rounded library on technical and sociological subjects. One of his characteristics was an incessant filing, cross-filing, and counter-filing of all the various items in his shelves. One could find any given story by either magazine, author, or title, and there was still a fourth file where stories were listed by type. This order-mania was conveniently extended to the LASFL mimeograph and equipment, which received far better care than they have had at any time since. Hodgkins at the time was employed by the Bank of America. which may account somewhat for his preciseness. He had been there for nine years since graduating from high school.

Ray Bradbury, who played a prominent role in the local chapter until late in 1941, was one of the many interesting persons to acquire the Sunday-at-Hodgkins' habit. In the same manner that my outlook was tempered by contact with the older members, it was tempered by closer association still, with attending Los Angeles High School. His ambitions were along the theatrical line, but the feature which marked him among the members of the group was hid mad, insane. hackneyed humour, which was the especial anathema of Hodgkins. But underneath this ribald and uncontrolable Bacchus, which produced such things as "Hollerbochen" "Hollerbochen Returns", "Mathematica Minus" "Formula for a stf.-Story," "Verse of the Imagi-nation". and many others in the old mag, was a deep understanding of people and the signs of the times. 

Bradbury was  natural semantist and possessed an excellent ability to see through the shame of the political and economic game of hide and seek which characteristic of those last years before the outbreak of war. We knew that this present war was coming, that it was a deliberate machination, and that we would probably have to fight it. And at the same time we were always living and talking of man's possibilities. of the worlds we could build. In early 1938 I wrote an article for the high school paper speculating on the effects on Los Angeles if war were declared with Japan and the city bombed. The Dean of Boys called me to his office at the request of the journalism instructor and asked me if I didn't think this to fantastic and disturbing a subject to put before the tender minds of high school children ! So you see, we knew which way the wind was blowing, but unlike my non-scientifictional extra-intelligent friends, we SFL members has the nostalgia of seeing the world we believed

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victim of Progeria, a term meaning pre-mature ageing. At sixteen I am supposed to have looked nineteen, and from my eighteenth to my twenty first birthday only one bartender asked for my draft card. The youngster outlook with which I entered the club gave way gradually to a more tempered view of the situation, and while only twelve months previous the sight of original cover illustrations, scientifiction cinema stills, and the rarer magazines sent plain and unadulterates thrills of excitement throughout my nervous system, a year later I had a much more controled view on the importance of fan activities in a person's life. Contact with mature but unconventional persons such as Henry Kuttner, Shroyer, and their group within the club, and later Charles D. Hornig, made me more quickly aware of the difference between teen-age behaviour and adult behaviour. Naturally, I cannot say that I grew-up over night, or that I ceased being stupid or juvenile at times, but my outlook not only on scientifiction but "outside" life as well was greatly influenced by a premature desire to get over the growing-up process, urged on by a wish to imagine myself as developed a conversationalist as the abovementioned figures of the old LASFL. RUSS HODGKINS had a meticulously well-kept scientifiction collection, plus a well-rounded library on technical and sociological subjects. One of his characteristics was an incessant filing, cross-filing, and counter-filing of all the various items in his shelves. One could find any given story by either magazine, author, or title, and there was still a fourth file where stories were listed by type. This order-mania was conveniently extended to the LASFL mimeograph and equipment, which received far better care than they have had at any time since. Hodgkins at the time was employed by the Bank of America. which may account somewhat for his preciseness. He had been there for nine years since graduating from high school. Ray Bradbury, who played a prominent role in the local chapter until late in 1941, was one of the many interesting persons to acquire the Sunday-at-Hodgkins' habit. In the same manner that my outlook was tempered by contact with the older members, it was tempered by closer association still, with attending Los Angeles High School. His ambitions were along the theatrical line, but the feature which marked him among the members of the group was hid mad, insane. hackneyed humour, which was the especial anathema of Hodgkins. But underneath this ribald and uncontrolable Bacchus, which produced such things as "Hollerbochen" "Hollerbochen Returns", "Mathematica Minus" "Formula for a stf.-Story," "Verse of the Imagi-nation". and many others in the old mag, was a deep understanding of people and the signs of the times. Bradbury was natural semantist and possessed an excellent ability to see through the shame of the political and economic game of hide and seek which characteristic of those last years before the outbreak of war. We knew that this present war was coming, that it was a deliberate machination, and that we would probably have to fight it. And at the same time we were always living and talking of man's possibilities. of the worlds we could build. In early 1938 I wrote an article for the high school paper speculating on the effects on Los Angeles if war were declared with Japan and the city bombed. The Dean of Boys called me to his office at the request of the journalism instructor and asked me if I didn't think this to fantastic and disturbing a subject to put before the tender minds of high school children ! So you see, we knew which way the wind was blowing, but unlike my non-scientifictional extra-intelligent friends, we SFL members has the nostalgia of seeing the world we believed