Tag Archives: chicago

Looking back at the 1969 Worldcon

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Seeing Larry Niven at Windycon 51 reminded me that back in 1969 I went to the World Science Fiction Convention for that year, St. Louiscon. It was my first Worldcon and only my second SF con. I went with friends from the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club, which I had discovered the year before. Some of us put together a costume presentation for the masquerade, in which we won the prize for best group costume. For this effort we dressed up as characters from Randall Garrett’s novel Too Many Magicians. The novel does not say much about how the characters were dressed, so someone in our group (I am sorry to say I have forgotten who) suggested an 18th century look and help us pull it off.

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A church in Operation Midway Blitz

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Mia and I left Windycon before 9AM on the morning of November 9. As we now regularly do, we went to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston, where we had been members from 1977 to 1997. I immediately saw that the church was very full for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost. The worship was as lovely as ever.

But things have changed

Chicagoland: Capricon 45 and St. Luke’s

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Mia and I enjoyed Capricon 45. It was held at the Sheraton Grand Chicago, February 1-4, as it was when we attended last year and three years ago. As on those occasions, we were very happy to be at a con in downtown Chicago again, with an almost infinite supply of places to eat and drink in walking distance of the hotel. As in previous years, some of our Chicagoland fannish friends did not attend, but others did, and we enjoyed seeing them again.

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St. Luke’s in November 2024

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As we have done on several previous visits to Chicagoland, Mia and I left Windycon about 9AM Sunday, missing the con events of that day. Once again we went to worship at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston. This is what we did after after Capricon in February of this year and Windycon last year and in 2021. We are always glad to be back there, see old friends, and see that the parish is thriving.

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Windycon 2024

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My wife Mia and I spend the weekend of November 8-10 in Chicagoland at Windycon, a science fiction convention that we have frequently attended since the 1970s, and which we went to last year. This was Windycon 50. I went to Windycon 3 back in 1976, and Mia and I both went to Windycon 5 in 1978.

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Fletcher Pratt

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Somehow Facebook led me to a gaming website to show me Adventures in Fiction: Fletcher Pratt. In fact I was interested. I have read and enjoyed several of his books. In the fantasy genre these include the Harold Shea stories, co-authored with L. Sprague deCamp and the more serious novels The Blue Star and The Well of Unicorn.

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St. Luke’s in February 2024

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As Mia and I have done on other recent visits to Chicagoland, we left Capricon early on Sunday to go to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston, which had been our spiritual home from 1977 until 1997. An unexpected treat was that the preacher that day was the Very Rev. Joy Rogers, retired Dean of St. James Cathedral. She began her ordained ministry at St. Luke’s while we were members and we remember her fondly. We also saw some other friends from our time.

Capricon 2024

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Mia and I enjoyed Capricon 44. It was held at the Sheraton Grand Chicago, February 1-4, as it was when we attended two years ago. We were very happy to be at a con in downtown Chicago again, with an almost infinite supply of places to eat and drink in walking distance of the hotel. It is much more alive than downtown St. Paul or Minneapolis, and the people seemed friendlier. As happened in 2022, some of our Chicagoland fannish friends did not attend, but others did, and we enjoyed seeing them again.

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St. Luke’s again

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My wife Mia and I left Windycon about 9AM last Sunday, missing the con events of that day. It took about an hour, in perfect traffic conditions, to reach the east side of Evanston. Just like two years ago, our objective was St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. It continues to thrive. We were able to talk to some people we knew from of old. Mia and I were members there for 20 years. It is one of the key places that made us who we are. Though the buildings are very different, our present parish, St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in St. Paul, feels very much like St. Luke’s and we instantly felt at home there when we first walked into it on Maundy Thursday of 2019.