ST. KILDA, BALACLAVA, ROSEBUD AND OTHER EXOTIC PLACES

by Bob Tucker

Australia is best explored on foot; not by "doing" a city a day in a mad rush thru museums, galleries, shrines and First Farm Houses, but by walking the safe streets of suburbs and small towns to mingle with the peasants. In turn, the Aussies seemed delighted with we American peasants and observed us as we observed them. It was delightful to prowl the streets of St. Kilda and Balaclava with Leigh Edmonds and Valma Brown, to see the famous PO Box 74, to look with utter disbelief at the low, low meat prices in butcher shops, and to drool over the hundred-and-one delights on display in the bakeryshop window nearby. In many respects those suburbs and small towns were right out of my boyhood, circa 1920-30. Many shops were the small mom-and-pop establishments I knew a half-century ago with their wares nakedly displayed in the windows, minus plastic wrappings, fancy boxes, or other costly trappings of commercialism. If a customer wanted a steak (prices ranged from 69¢ to 99¢ a pound) the shopkeeper pulled a tray from the window, cut it and rolled it in butcher's paper, weighed it and handed it across the counter. In some shops, bright red lights were concealed in the ceiling to make the trays of meat look more attractive -- a practice that I think is outlawed in most of the States. The bakeryshops were fattening. I was never able to pass a window without stopping. and seldom able to pass a shop without entering and sampling this or that pastry. Susan, John Berry. Rusty and I stayed several days with Leigh and Valma, and if we weren't feasting on a chicken dinner prepared by Susan we were gobbling chocolate or strawberry somethings brought home by Valma or myself. There was a party every night with Bruce Gillespie, Kristin Stempf, Peter Darling and others dropping in. I admit, I fell in love with Australia.

Wednesday, August 20th is an historic date, one sure to be noted in a future volume of Warner's history of fandom: seven pioneers arose at the crack of dawn (well, before noon anyway) to trek south for the world's first Rosebudcon -- whether or no the world was ready for it. Rosebud, Victoria was a pleasant and sunny resort town on Port Phillip Bay, well below Melbourne, and I found time to marvel that one state could have both Rosebud and Seymour within its borders. Indiana can't boast as much.

Leigh and Valm, Peter Darling, Mike Glicksohn, Sheryl Birkhead, and Rusty and I invaded the town for the day, holding the first ranquet at the Rosebud Hotel, strolling the streets and parkways, but looking in vain for suitable picnic tables. The best we could manage was a park bench but oh! the spirit was there.

We stood on a pier and watched the ships sailing off across the world, invaded secondhand shops to snatch up book bargains, and descended on the postoffice to airmail scores of poctsards to knowing friends at home. The postmistress carefully hand-stamped the sards so that recipients could read the postmark and smile their smirky smiles. (But two months later I learned with dismay that at least a half-dozen sards had never reached smirkers in the Chicago area.) Recent dispatches from St. Kilda advise that a second and larger Rosebudeon is being organized, with maybe others to follow.

I visited the famed Degraves Tavern that night, a weekly meeting place for Melbourne fandom, to discover the place packed. Every man, woman, and child who could pronounce the magic phrase "science fiction" was there for a final fling, before the North American visitors scattered themselves across half a continent -- as they did the following morning, from Brisbane to Ayres Rock and beyond. The tavern was a restaurant with drinks, not a bar in the Yankee sense. The evening was notable for many things, among them the first petitions being circulated for prospective 1976 DUFF candidates (four men and women are already in the running), and an excruciating pun acted out by a low character from Toronto named Glicksohn. ("One foot in degrave.") We apologized to our Australian hosts.

Several members of the Magic Puddin' Club gave Rusty and I a memorable farewell dinner the following evening and then trooped to the train for a fitting toast. The conductor blanched and our fellow passengers gasped when they discovered thirteen bodies in a sleeping compartment built for two: Leigh and Valma, Mike and Sheryl, Don Ashby and Judy Coleman, Ken Ford and Derek Ashby, Peter Darling, John Hamm, and Kristin Stempf, all awaiting the word. They were standing on the seats, the bed, the toilet, and packed into the shower when the merry cry rocketed the length of the car: "Smoooth!" A lustrous leave-taking.

And back to Sydney on a night train called "The Roarer." The conductor revealed his sense of wonder at our railpasses.

Keith Curtis, Jackie Simpson, and Don Thompson met us at the station and then accompanied us to a friendly tavern for breakfast. It was this day that we lunched with Peter McKay, exchanged stares with his bureaucrats, and visited Taronga Park to meet an ape who resembled a fan. Returning from the zoo at sundown, tired and weary of kangaroos and uncouth zebras, we dropped off Thompson at his hotel and journeyed on to Earlwood and the house on Undercliffe Road where Keith keeps his bod and his fabulous collection. (He showed me the cliff his road is under, sort of.) Jackie Simpson made supper for the hungry crew after first clearing books off the stove, the countertops. and out of the refrigerator (EE Smith and Thorne Smith are stowed in the freezer compartment.) It was necessary to clear away more books and ancient pulps before table and chairs could be found, and the beds were discovered only after hundreds of paperbacks were swept aside. Only the bathroom was free of literature, but then the light fixture in that room was broken. We showered and shaved and did other things there by candlelight, with the rising mists creating a romantic effect. And we gallantly offered to form a ring of candles around the tub while Jackie bathed, but she declined in a fannish manner. ("Fout off!")