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Memoirs of a Superfluous Fan, 1944

Inside back cover

occasions, much to the disatisfaction of many members who are annoyed at my insistance on carrying out the business at hand with no side-show, or to hell with it all. Finally dues were kept at 15¢ on condition that the club design a coat of arms and produce some stationary for members' use. Stationary came two years later and the coat of arms after three years. Hodgkins returned at the end of this, and everyone proceeded to reach into the grab bag, and to gab far into the night.

There was one more meeting of the LASFL that year, a fifth Thursday affair in Hollywood. This meeting started something new and far-reaching, and properly belongs in the 1939-40 section of this narrative.

Nineteen thirty seven and 1938 go hand in hand in my interpretation of the club's chronology. Though the latter year differed from the previous in the matter of publishing activity, the stage was peopled with essentially the same characters, and the same plot, and the same spontaneity among the membership. I like those days and weeks, partly, I suppose, because there was a certain element of newness about associating with a group of that nature. We actually did live in comparative harmony then; there were few if any frictions, and very little gossip. The Old LASFL was perhaps the ideal fan organisation, because each and every member had an ernest [sic], sincere interest in science fiction and its hobby aspects. The activity was therefore undiluted with cynicism, vicarious motivation, and petty jealousy which later wrecked the LASFS. And there were no members whose presence was undesirable to the rest, another feature of the LASFS which caused much unpleasantry.

in this first volume of my memoirs I may have waxed pedantic and dull at times. I was young then, and I can only record my emotions and remembrances as they seemed at the time. In the next volumes things pep up, with remembrances and anecdotes about the many professional authors that flocked to Los Angeles at one time, visiting fans, social events, and the like. But if the reader has come this far with me, he will appreciate in the following volumes why it was necessary to go into such minute detail of the years 1937 and 1938, for it is on this framework that the history of the next four years rested.

The coming year of 1939 saw many sudden, abrupt changes... the beginning of the two years transition period from the LASFL to the LASFS. The following December was to see the face of Rome greatly changed.

T. Bruce Yerke,
December 14, 1943

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occasions, much to the disatisfaction of many members who are annoyed at my insistance on carrying out the business at hand with no side-show, or to hell with it all. Finally dues were kept at 15¢ on condition that the club design a coat of arms and produce some stationary for members' use. Stationary came two years later and the coat of arms after three years. Hodgkins returned at the end of this, and everyone proceeded to reach into the grab bag, and to gab far into the night. There was one more meeting of the LASFL that year, a fifth Thursday affair in Hollywood. This meeting started something new and far-reaching, and properly belongs in the 1939-40 section of this narrative. Nineteen thirty seven and 1938 go hand in hand in my interpretation of the club's chronology. Though the latter year differed from the previous in the matter of publishing activity, the stage was peopled with essentially the same characters, and the same plot, and the same spontaneity among the membership. I like those days and weeks, partly, I suppose, because there was a certain element of newness about associating with a group of that nature. We actually did live in comparative harmony then; there were few if any frictions, and very little gossip. The Old LASFL was perhaps the ideal fan organisation, because each and every member had an ernest [sic], sincere interest in science fiction and its hobby aspects. The activity was therefore undiluted with cynicism, vicarious motivation, and petty jealousy which later wrecked the LASFS. And there were no members whose presence was undesirable to the rest, another feature of the LASFS which caused much unpleasantry. in this first volume of my memoirs I may have waxed pedantic and dull at times. I was young then, and I can only record my emotions and remembrances as they seemed at the time. In the next volumes things pep up, with remembrances and anecdotes about the many professional authors that flocked to Los Angeles at one time, visiting fans, social events, and the like. But if the reader has come this far with me, he will appreciate in the following volumes why it was necessary to go into such minute detail of the years 1937 and 1938, for it is on this framework that the history of the next four years rested. The coming year of 1939 saw many sudden, abrupt changes... the beginning of the two years transition period from the LASFL to the LASFS. The following December was to see the face of Rome greatly changed. T. Bruce Yerke, December 14, 1943