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by Jack L. Chalker
The big snow storm in January of 1996 brought back memories of the founding of BSFS. It was an early storm in December 1961. I was essentially Baltimore fandom at that time. A group had been oriented around Johns Hopkins University but as the principals graduated or left for other things, the club died out. Every couple of weeks I rode a Trailways bus to Washington for WSFA meetings.
I was attending Baltimore City College. When I left school to catch the first of my two buses, there was over six inches of snow. Bus after bus passed packed to the limit and beyond. Finally, I was able to get on one. The bus got as far as the 41st Street Bridge and then got stuck in the middle, right over the Jones Falls Expressway. A small, convivial group of survivors was left on board. One was David Ettlin and we eventually got to talking about science fiction and fandom.
It wasn't until almost 7 p.m. that police and city crews rescued us and a kind-hearted couple in a Jeep got me home, but the die was cast. Soon David was going to WSFA with me. Then I met Mark Owings, and there were three. Along with Enid Jacobs, and a friend of Dave's, we made up a group that socialized and went to WSFA meetings.
Coming back from a WSFA New Year's party, crowded in the back of a bus, Ettlin proposed that we form a club to meet on the weekends between WSFA. We weren't math majors, so we picked second and fourth Saturdays (WSFA was and is first and third Fridays) and these days are often not a week after WSFA but the next night!
The first meeting was in Dave Ettlin's family basement, with the principals present, and Joe Mayhew from DC. In the early days Ettlin was the big recruiter and the club mushroomed to a dozen or fifteen people. The meetings, held in members' homes, were popular and we became a nationally recognized SF club. Mark, Joe, and I are still members of the club. Dave Ettlin, now editor of the Baltimore County edition of the Sunpapers, still keeps in touch.
The club was a living entity and existed for its own sake. The business meetings were formal, but they were also jokes. The Constitution Committee was permanent; it just kept writing new constitutions that were adopted consistently. The official chairman's censure was to ask for a vote to keelhaul the offender to the USS Constellation.
The club elections became very big because they were so meaningless. But they were wonderful parties, so BSFS decided to have them every six months! Fans from WSFA and clubs in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York would come down. By 1966 we had to rent a function room at the Holiday Inn to hold the mobs. In other words, Balticon created itself. We decided to hold a once-a-year weekend convention and go back to holding annual elections.
It was all so long ago, but unlike good memories of old times that were there and then gone, I look around today and see a large active BSFS preparing to help run the second Baltimore Worldcon from its own clubhouse.
Have fun, enjoy! That's the best legacy all us old farts can bequeath you.
© 1996 Jack L. Chalker. All rights reserved.
[Expanded versions of this article may be found in Mimosa 20 and the Balticon 30 program book edited by Hal Haag. Ed]
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