Shore Leave is the longest-running Trek-themed con in the Baltimore area.
Thomas remembers that he was, once again, wearing a borrowed flight suit. The whole Boogie Knights crowd was there, as well as Will Burnham. Once again, Thomas commuted to the con -- his father didn't want him staying with strange people, and so drove him to the con and picked him up when it was time to come home.
This time, Thomas had his own con badge; he used the fannish name "Ylan" (pronounced "Why-Lan") (from a character of his named "Ylan Firesign.") For a time, many of Thomas' fannish friends knew him as "Ylan."
This was probably Thomas' introduction to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A dealer was playing tapes of the radio series, which was just filtering into the U.S. Thomas remembers listening to the first two episodes and laughing his fool head off. Since the tapes weren't for sale, he bought the book, and over the next few months, completely memorized it.
It was probably this con (or possibly Starbase Baltimore) where Thomas participated in the Masquerade, going on stage as an Insectivorid from Micronauts.
 |
|
||||
 |
 |
||||
