GOH: Glen Cook
Official Artist: David A. Cherry
Special Guest: Charles Ryan
Attendance: 970
Thomas, Don, and Renfield left a new (rented) house to travel to Springfield for Boskone. Thomas drove the Van (planning to stay a week with his brother & sister-in-law in Boston), Renfield drove his car with his bimbo Kim, and Don drove a Rabbit that was having increasing trouble with its cooling system.
There had been a freeze in Boston . . . although Bruce made it safely, Lisa and Melissa turned back at Boston and took the train/bus. Bruce, Thomas and Don hiked a thousand miles (or so it seemed) through icy sleet (Don remembers it as carbon dioxide freezing out of the atmosphere) to the bus station, then hiked back when it turned out that they had missed Lisa & Melissa's bus. Lisa & Melissa were waiting for them at the hotel, having taken a taxi from the bus station.
The con itself was a usual post-reformation Boskone. There were panels (Don was on one called "Writing in Someone Else's Universe"), there was a dealer's room, there was a bar.
It was bitterly cold, and Thomas and Don purt near ran out of money. The hotel room came to quite a bit more than they'd expected, and when they tried their magic money cards, the cards did not work (despite the fact that the bank had assured them the cards would work.) The boys were on short rations the whole weekend. Dinner Saturday night (about their only meal Saturday) came from McDonald's, and quarter-pounders and fries have never tasted so good.
Kim (whom they privately called "Kimbo the Bimbo") was a mundane who had latched onto Renfield. Quite obviously, she was at the con just to please him ("All right, dear, I've gone to one of your conventions, now we never need to go to another one"), and it was actually rather fun seeing her get completely weirded-out by the convention. And it was a Boskone, for ghod's sake!
Afterwards, Renfield and Kim went directly home; Melissa and Don followed Bruce and Lisa to New Hampshire, while Thomas accompanied them as far as Boston. Don spent the night in Portsmouth, then drove home with just enough money for tolls and a cheap meal. Along the way, the Rabbit's muffler fell off. Getting into Maryland was a thrill -- Don stopped at the first magic money machine, got cash and called Mom & Dad. Then he dropped the Rabbit off at the Volkswagen place, went to Roy Rogers', and ate himself into oblivion while waiting for Mom & Dad to come pick him up.
(The sequel came the next weekend, when Thomas and Don rendezvoused in New Hampshire with Lisa & Melissa and Bruce. There, they were snowed out of going down to Boston for the Arisia con. By the time Thomas and Don made it back to Bill & Nancy's, the Rabbit had frozen up entirely, and they wound up having to replace the entire radiator. The First National Bank of Mom & Dad wired them money by Western Union. The car hasn't been the same since. Someday, Don supposes, it will all be funny.
(At least they made something productive of the weekend, because it was on this trip that Thomas and Don came up with the general idea for Lightyears.)
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