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Page 8 of 'A Short History of Baltimore Fandom' © Jack Chalker | ||||||
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Base in Panama and I also managed to
make it to the 1967 New York Worldcon. I often
commented that it was sometimes hard to remember which was which. | 
Having graduated in June 1966 from Towson
State, I'd secured a junior high English teaching
position with the Baltimore City Public Schools --
but my interest was history and that was what I
wanted to teach (preferably at the high school
level). I had had a double major, so my teaching
license allowed either one. After coming off active
duty, I secured the high school history and geography
position I'd been wanting, and concurrently
entered grad school at Johns Hopkins. I also resumed my
social fan activities, but not my leading
position in the club. From the end of 1967 through
1969, Jay and Alice Haldeman ran the club and
Ted Pauls ran the Balticons, with Don Sobwick and
wife Debbie (a Philadelphia fan he'd met at a Disclave in
Washington) still doing the late after-meetings.
It was also during the 1960s that Baltimore and
Washington combined on what was to go down as
one of the great hoaxes of that decade, the 'Bermuda in 1970'
worldcon bid. This came about
because of conversations with Dave Kyle at the `68
Worldcon in which he evidenced a lot of worry that
the Heidelberg in 1970 committee could stay together or pull
things off. He was on their committee but only in a titular capacity;
they weren't listening to folks who knew worldcons, he said, and
spent most of their time arguing with each other to
the point of yelling, screaming, and resignations.
Since there was no question they were going to win,
he wondered if there wasn't something that could
be done to scare the hell out of them. Back in
1964, Harlan Ellison and Bob Silverberg had almost won the
worldcon for 1965 by bidding a joke
Virgin Islands blast that would be held on the beach
at Saint Croix. I suggested we come up with a
more credible hoax that, considering the near win
of the V.I. gag bid, might scare the hell out of the
Germans and give them something to rally around
and compete against. Dave suggested Bermuda
because he had a relative there who could do
remailings, and it was on.
Bermudacon was never real, and probably is
unique in fannish history in that it was perpetuated
through the next year by both BSFS and WSFA, all
of whom knew it was a hoax and none of whom
blew the gag. The Kyles were living in England
then, and gave credibility to us by asserting to the
Heicon committee that it was real. Other than that,
it was entirely a Baltowash affair. I remember
Charlie Brown actually calling a WSFA meeting in
the early summer of 1969 and, with everybody
sitting there and keeping quiet, asking Jay Haldeman if
Bermuda was real. Jay assured him it was
and even talked it up; various 'news' items were
being passed to him on slips of paper while he was
talking with Charlie. After he hung up there was
the longest group laugh I can ever remember. To
this day, I'm told, Charlie insists that Bermudacon
was real.# # #
In 1971, BSFS effectively fell apart in one of
those personality splits, when it was felt that people
who had little in common with the regular club
members (and who had never contributed a thing to
actually making the club go) had engineered a coup
to take over the club. In protest to it Not Being Fun
Anymore, almost all of the regular members resigned
and, that evening at Don Sobwick's, formed
the Baltimore Science-Fantasy Group. To avoid
any more political problems, it was made a private
group to which admission was by consent of the
members. There was no constitution and a collection was
taken up each meeting to cover expenses.
The BSFG continued into the mid-1970s, meeting
at the Sobwicks and other members' homes; it finally
faded out after the Sobwicks moved away.
With the problems at BSFS, organized club
focus for the area returned to WSFA. The insurgent
BSFS types never even attempted to hold a meeting
or to see if they could still have a solid club. That might
have been possible if they had really been
interested in running the club. Instead, they proved
why folks didn't want them, and none of them were
active in fandom after that.
Balticon continued, however, under Ted Pauls,
although there were increasing complaints that it
was rather dull and automatic and had become
mostly a giant weekend fair for his TK Graphics
book operation. Still, it continued, mostly at the
Lord Baltimore, and did have some occasional
memorable moments, such as when, at the Chinese
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