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I have to admit, when Stanley Schmidt told
me that he was going to be Guest of Honor at Bucconeer I didn't know
for which of his many professions he was being invited. Was he Editor Guest
due to his long tenure at Analog? Was he Writer Guest for his many
short stories, novels, and nonfiction books? Or was he Science Guest in
recognition of his expertise in practically every field of knowledge?
It really doesn't matter. When you invite Stan to a party, you get the whole person. Unless he's making a point, he doesn't switch hats from editor to writer to scientist to musician to historian to whatever-he couldn't carry enough hats, nor could the people around him keep them all straight. He's just Stanley Schmidt, Renaissance Man.
I learned that about him early on, shortly after he bought my first story for Analog. It was a backpacking story set in Wyoming's Bighorn mountain range, and in his letter of acceptance Stan mentioned that he had once been through the Bighorns by car, but had never had the chance to get into the back country.
I didn't know him at all at the time, but he had just bought my first story so I figured he had to be all right, so I wrote back and invited him out for a pack trip with me sometime. I never expected him to take me up on it, but it seemed polite to make the offer.
Little did I know that Stan and his wife, Joyce, love to travel. They go all over the world, and they love to get off the beaten path. A camping trip was just the sort of thing they liked to do and the Bighorn range was one of the few places they hadn't already been. It took a while for us to hammer out all the details, but eventually I found myself leading the way toward Mirror Lake, one of my favorite places in all the world.
I tend to brag a bit about the Bighorns. It's paradise on Earth, the fishing is so good you get tired of reeling them in, there's wildlife everywhere—that sort of thing. So I was a bit worried that reality wouldn't live up to the hype I'd given it.
No problem. Stan and Joyce didn't care what I'd said about the place; they were interested in seeing it for what it was. So interested, in fact, that they were willing to take the trip even though they had both contracted a respiratory ailment commonly called "walking pneumonia". Never mind that Mirror Lake is at about 9,700 feet, or that we would be two days from help if they contracted the real thing. They were game for the hike.
Great, I thought. I'm going to go down in history as the guy who led Stan and Joyce Schmidt to their deaths in the Wyoming wilderness.
Oh me of little faith. They walked me, and my wife, Kathy, into the ground. We climbed switchbacks, forded streams, slogged through swamps, and after we'd arrived and set up base camp, Stan pulled his recorder (the wind instrument!) from his pack and began to pipe us a few tunes.
So the next day I led them another couple of miles up the trail to Lost Twin Lakes, where the air is so thin even the mountain goats gasp for breath and the fishing was so good that we grew tired of reeling them in. Stan and Joyce were suitably impressed, and the clean air even seemed to help ease their pneumonia a bit.
And all through the trip we talked about the geology of the mountains, the types of flora and fauna we saw, clouds, the stars, fishing techniques, map-reading techniques—every subject under the Sun. In the process Stan taught me at least as much about my own back yard as I taught him.
Since then we've travelled together whenever we get the chance, and I cannot imagine more perfect travelling companions than Stan and Joyce. They're eager to explore, and their intense interest in anything different makes each new discovery an adventure. They read up on places before they go, too, so they know where adventures are most likely to be waiting.
Yet they're not averse to passing time just admiring the scenery. We've spent many an hour over picnic lunches alongside picturesque lakes, and Stan even plays tunes for us on that same recorder he carried all the way to Mirror Lake, and which he carries practically everywhere he goes.
Perhaps surprisingly, we don't talk much about writing during our travels. It's not due to author-editor tension, nor disagreement about style, but simply because the subject seldom comes up. We have too much else to talk about. Stan is so well read there's hardly a subject that he doesn't know at least in passing, and what he doesn't know he loves to ask intelligent questions about, so we find ourselves exploring practically anything that catches our attention.
After you have spent the last few hours on a guided tour through darkest Africa by way of the Fermilab or Betelgeuse, that this is normal around Stan. He's not just the editor of Analog, not just the author of half a dozen books (including the writer's guide, Aliens and Alien Societies), nor is he just a scientist who is good at English. He is, quite simply, one of the most fascinating people you are likely to meet no matter where your spheres of interest coincide.
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