Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Thursday 08-31-2000 9:00 PM EDT
‘Coventry’ and ‘Misfit’
Here begin the AFH Postings
RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Subject: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date:Wed, Aug 30, 2000 6:18 AM
The Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group Notice of Meetings
Date: Thursday, August 31, 9 PM to midnight, EDT, and Saturday, September 2, 2000, 5 to 8 PM, EDT
Topic:The Future History short stories: “Coventry” and “Misfit”
As usual, in the end of the logs of our last meeting, you’ll find we announced the readings scheduled for these next two upcoming meetings [see, the 8-17-00 and 8-19-00 meeting logs at http://www.alltel.net/~dwrighsr/heinlein.html]; but I’ve been a bit remiss in not posting a lead-off annoucement until now, only a bit more than a day before the Thursday meeting. IRL it’s been a busy fortnight for my family–my daughter’s gone back to college, happily, among other things.
There’s always been one unanswered question about “Coventry” that’s intrigued me: where geographically did they put it?
And, there’s always been one unanswered question about “Misfit” that also intrigues: why wouldn’t the parents of a son they named after Andrew Jackson sign the “Covenant?”
Perhaps the answers to both questions are related in more ways than we might think. Anyone what to give these two questions a shot?
There’s a lot more than just these little nagging questions in my demented mind to talk about concerning “Misfit” and “Coventry,” of course. What do you think about either of these stories?
See you at the meetings on AIM in “Heinlein Readers Group chat” tomorrow night and on Saturday and, hopefully, further on in this thread.
If you’ve any question on how to attend, how to download AIM, etc., see http://www.alltel.net/~dwrighsr/heinlein.html or drop me an e mail.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date: Wed, Aug 30, 2000 6:23 AM
There’s a law, I forget what it’s called, that says every post must contain at least one error designed to slip by spell checkers … here’s mine:
> Anyone what to give these two questions a shot?
should say, of course: “Does anyone want to give these two questions a shot?”
<G>
—
“I expect your names to shine!”
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Subject: Re: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date: Wed, Aug 30, 2000 6:35 AM
AGplusone wrote:
> There’s always been one unanswered question about “Coventry” that’s intrigued
> me: where geographically did they put it?
Montana/Idaho and perhaps the Dakotas, I’ve always thought.
> And, there’s always been one unanswered question about “Misfit” that also
> intrigues: why wouldn’t the parents of a son they named after Andrew Jackson
> sign the “Covenant?”
I think the line of reasoning is that AJL’s parents were Southern, perhaps even hillbilly, and never would have signed a treaty with damnyankees. I don’t know that this supposition holds up in light of later stories, but I get the notion that this is what RAH was thinking ca. 1939.
Those is my contributions; I’ll be at ChiCon during both sessions. Have fun!
—
|James Gifford – Nitrosyncretic Press – |
|”NitroPress” on AIM – See you at ChiCon 2000! |
|See http://www.nitrosyncretic.com for the Heinlein FAQ & more |
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Subject: Re: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date: Wed, Aug 30, 2000 5:02 PM
While I agree with Mister Gifford’s reply of Montana/Idaho, and maybe the Dakotas, I don’t know about Libby’s parents simply not signing by being Southern. That may have contributed, but anything that makes it illegal for me to use violence for certain offenses, is bound to get my neck stiff. The right to defend self, honor, and property are deeply ingrained in me, yet I got the feeling the Covenant forbade this, meaning you had to rely on proctors to do it for you. Not my cup of tea.
Filly
http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage
“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never look back.
We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour;
in other words, we are the hero of our own story.”
–Mary McCarthy
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Subject: Re: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date: Thu, Aug 31, 2000 3:32 PM
> The right to defend self, honor, and property are deeply ingrained in me,
yet I got the feeling the Covenant forbade this, meaning you had to rely
on proctors to do it for you. Not my cup of tea.
……quite so, Filly
Neatly sums up my ideas on the subject.
cheers
oz
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Subject: Re: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date: Thu, Aug 31, 2000 3:58 PM
A quick nod to all the regulars who will be meeting later tonight. Ebontress is not up to par and I choose to succor her (and chase two highly demanding, mobile tots) over the joy of meeting like minds. So, until the next meeting, my best regards.
Filly
http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage
“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never look back.
We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour;
in other words, we are the hero of our own story.”
–Mary McCarthy
—————————————————————————
Subject: Re: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date: Thu, Aug 31, 2000 4:03 PM
Filly writes:
>A quick nod to all the regulars who will be meeting later tonight. Ebontress
>is not up to par and I choose to succor her (and chase two highly demanding,
>mobile tots) over the joy of meeting like minds. So, until the next meeting,
>my best regards.
We’ll miss you, Filly. But until next meeting we hope you and Ebontress do well.
Getting back to my two little questions ….
Various guesses have been hazarded concerning the location of Coventry. I’m partial to a location including the Ozarks of Arkansas and Missouri, myself, if for no other reason than Libby considers them his home. My reasoning goes, if his parents refused to sign the Covenant, they’d have been exiled to Coventry and, as Libby was raised there, Coventry must have included them.
But why name the boy after Andrew Jackson? I’ve never really closely studied Jackson, and I’m not a historian, but this much I know to be true. While it is true that Jackson was born in 1767 in Waxhaw, in western North Carolina, his major adult career (until 1812) was in the territory of Tennessee, where he was admitted to the bar and became a public prosecutor in 1788. He helped frame its state constitution in the mid-1790s and was elected to Congress when it was admitted to statehood in 1796, became one of Tennessee’s US Senators in 1797, and a judge of its supreme court from 1798 to 1804.
As folk looked at it back then, he was a “westerner” rather than “southerner,” as were the Boones, and the Zanes, and all those others portrayed by Cooper and Zane and others who settled the territories across the Alleghenies and then, with the Crocketts and Bowies and Travises and Austins, et al., moved on further west. Jackson was also the first US President who came from a position of virtual obscurity, socially and financially, to achieve that high office. His small farmer father died during the Revolution, while Jackson was in his early teens; the widow lost the farm; and Jackson, at around fourteen or so, found himself a private with a musket in his hands fighting in the Revolutionary Army. After the war owning only the warrant for western land the Congress used to pay off its Army, he migrated west to Tennessee, there ‘read the law’ to qualify for bar admission on the frontier, married a woman with a ‘unsuitable’ reputation (over which reputation he later killed a man in a duel), and made his political and social reputation and fortune, such as it was, among those considered uncouth riffraff by many citizens east of the mountains dividing the original colonies from the frontier.
In 1812 when war broke out with Britain, as major-general of his state’s militia, he raised a force of 2500, led it to Natchez (a trading center in the old southwest territories including what would become the State of Mississippi, more than four hundred miles down the Mississippi from Tennessee), where he was ordered by authorities to disband it and return home. Instead, he marched them more than six hundred miles back to the Nashville, the Tennessee State capital and in September 1813 took them to war against the Creek Indian nation in Alabama, where, in March 1814, he won a decisive victory at Horseshoe Bend. In May 1814 he was appointed major-general in the regular Army and assigned command of the South. Pensacola in Spanish Florida was then being used as a base by the British, who had agitated the Creek and other Indian nations, and Jackson invaded Spanish soil, taking Pensacola. He there discovered British plans to invade and capture New Orleans, in the Louisiana territory purchased by Jefferson in 1803 from France, at the mouth of Mississippi. He marched his small force of regulars and militiamen to that city, where resided numerous citizens not enamored particularly with their new country since the 1803 purchase to defend it from invasion.
The British decision to capture New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi in 1814 was strategic genius. Had Britain done so and held it, the United States would have been confined to the Eastern Seaboard for a goodly time if not forever. Spain, now allied with Britain, owned Florida and the Gulf Coast. Transportation of such goods and crops as could be grown or obtained in the western territories from Ohio south to Mississippi and from the Louisiana purchase was then confined to rivers west of the mountains, all of which flowed eventually into the Mississippi controlled at its terminus by New Orleans. Keelboats which floated with or were poled with difficulty against the current were the mode of transportation along the Mississippi, the Ohio, and other rivers in the West. There were no railroads, steam was in its infancy, and the paddle wheel steamboats of Mark Twain were still a thing of the future. Canals were being dug, but they were limited largely to the North, i.e., the Eire Canal through Pennsylvania to Erie, Pennsylvania, on the eastern end of the lake of the same name. And the British were in Canada, always poised to again try to cut off the Great Lakes route through the St. Lawrence River and, perhaps, try the invasion route down the Hudson Valley, despite defeats by Arnold and Gates in the Revolution and Perry on Lake Champlain in 1814. Preventing crops from being taken to eastern markets would stifle the US from any western development on both sides of the Mississippi. The western territories, the old “Northwest” of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, etc., the tier of what are now states west of the Carolinas and Georgia (Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky), and the Louisiana Purchase would all die economically or fall into British hands if New Orleans was taken and held. The Hudson’s Bay Company, coming out of Rupert’s Lands with claims to parts of the Northwest wasn’t confining itself to that area, but competing directly all throughout Louisiana and elsewhere to exploit the frontier for Britain. New Orleans, so far as westerners were concerned, therefore, had to be held.
Jackson’s defeat from behind cotton bale and other barricades of an overwhelming invasion force of veterans of Napoleon’s defeat commanded by Sir Edward Pakenham, who was killed in the attack, in their set-piece assault at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, fought ironically some several days after a peace accord had been signed in Europe but not communicated to either side in New Orleans, made him a hero among citizens of the western United States. [“We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’ but thar ain’t a quite as many as thar was a while ago … and we fired again, and they ain’t a-stopped a runnin’ a-down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.”]
In 1818 Jackson again invaded Spanish Florida to aid filibusters and ostensibly fight the Seminoles, whom he drove deep into the swamps. Spain recognized a historical inevitability and sold its territories to the United States soon after and, after its purchase, Jackson was appointed territorial governor of Florida. He soon resigned but in 1823 was again elected to the US Senate. In 1824 as candidate for the US Presidency he had the highest popular vote, but not a majority, and lost in the electoral college. In the next election in 1828 he was elected President by a majority of electoral votes.
Jackson epitomized and catered to what could be called a populist spirit of voters on the western frontier of the United States of the 1820s and 1830s, in opposition to many interests in the more prosperous and therefore moneyed eastern tier of states. He formalized the split of what was called the “Republican-Democratic party” during the “era of good feeling” under President Monroe into two branches, along sectional and economic lines, with the Whigs succeeding to support from elements dissatisfied with Jackson’s policies.
He was anti-aristocratic; and when he invited the general public into the White House to celebrate his inauguration, and they are said to have trashed the place during celebrations, eastern newspapers expressed horror. His background, particularly his wife’s ripe reputation, and the fact he had killed a man to protect slurs against her honor, gave rise to published scandal so far as his opponents and newspapers supporting them were concerned.
He increased this enmity after his election by removing and replacing a legion of minor government officials with his own supporters on the principle (as was said of him): “To the victor belongs the spoils.” Questions of tariff and ‘nullification’ were prominent during his Presidency. He used the President’s veto power much more freely than had his predecessors. He opposed legislation for premature renewing of the Charter of the Bank of the United States (which was scandel-ridden and had driven many failures on the frontier and elsewhere) because he believed this centralized money power was working against him, a belief evidently shared, and on this issue rode to reelection by an overwhelming majority in 1832. During his second term he reformed the banking laws, and eliminated entirely the national debt in 1835, with surplus revenue being distributed to the states, the only time that has occurred in history. Other pro-western ‘populist’ policies effected during his administration included expulsion of various Indian tribes from their lands in states east of the Mississippi, including notably the “Trail of Tears” of the Cherokee, to Oklahoma; but popular sensitivity concerning this event by others than the Cherokee is a relatively recent development after the date that “Misfit” was written.
So, once again, I ask: what is it about a family naming a son “Andrew Jackson” Libby that would ensure against their pledging themselves to keep a Covenant that would ensure merely that they promise not to ‘harm’ another human in any way? And what, pray tell, does this say about the author’s view of a government under that said Covenant?
We might look backward to “If This Goes On … ” and forward to “Methuselah’s Children” in considering this question, as well.
See you tonight and Saturday.
—
“I expect your names to shine!”
—————————————————————————
Subject: Re: RAH-AIM Mtng Notice–8/31 & 9/2/00 “Misfit” & “Coventry”
Date: Wed, Aug 30, 2000 11:49 PM
On Wed, 30 Aug 2000 9:35:33 -0400, James Gifford wrote (in message <>):
> AGplusone wrote:
>> There’s always been one unanswered question about “Coventry” that’s
>> intrigued
>> me: where geographically did they put it?
>
> Montana/Idaho and perhaps the Dakotas, I’ve always thought.
>
>> And, there’s always been one unanswered question about “Misfit” that also
>> intrigues: why wouldn’t the parents of a son they named after Andrew
>> Jackson
>> sign the “Covenant?”
>
> I think the line of reasoning is that AJL’s parents were Southern,
> perhaps even hillbilly, and never would have signed a treaty with
> damnyankees. I don’t know that this supposition holds up in light of
> later stories,
Topical references from later stories:
In MC, Andy isn’t bothered by the idleness on the planet of the Little People, and says “I guess it’s my hillbilly blood.”
In TEFL, Andy Libby’s birthplace is specifically identified as Arkansas. Lazarus gives Laz and Lor instructions on how to drop Andy’s corpse on the south side of the Ozark Mountains, and explains that he had promised Andy he would take his body back to Arkansas and “it seemed to comfort him when he died.”
In NOTB, Elisabeth compares Beulahland to Arkansaw, Lazarus compares it to Mizzoura, and both agree it feels like home.
> but I get the notion that this is what RAH was thinking
> ca. 1939.
Hmm? Was the reference to Andy’s folks not signing the Covenant in the 1939 version of “Misfit”? I’d always assumed that this line was added in the 1953 revision for book publication…especially since “If This Goes On –” and “Coventry” were both written some months after “Misfit” was originally published.
(At least according to that book about Heinlein I bought on the Internet a while back…)
Richard Bensam
— http://home.earthlink.net/~rabensam/
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Here begins the Discussion Log
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SAcademy has entered the room.
AGplusone has entered the room.
ddavitt has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hello, everyone … let me check and see if anyone else is on-line.
ddavitt: Good evening everyone.
Doc4Kidz has entered the room.
dwrighsr has entered the room.
dwrighsr: Hi everyone. Hi SA. That’s me on the other login MaiKoshT
ddavitt: Is that working out as a good way of keeping the log david?
SAcademy: Good evening, all
AGplusone: Quite well, I think, David
AGplusone: … Jane.
dwrighsr: Yeah. It works fine. As I was explaining to SA. MaiKoshT has a better connection. I can remotely control it from here at home.
ddavitt: handy!
AGplusone: Nice to be a network administrator IRL <g>.
dwrighsr: It has its perks.
AGplusone: Did I give everyone a sufficient headache in my last, looooong, post on Andy Jackson?
ddavitt: Only just read it David…
geeairmoe2 has entered the room.
ddavitt: Skimmed it quickly as I wanted to join in the chat. He was an interesting character for a president.
AGplusone: Hi, Will. How’re doin’?
AGplusone: He sure was. Reminds me of Lazarus, in fact.
ddavitt: I’m just on Amazon looking up Emerson hough; not heard of him before
geeairmoe2: Yo.
AGplusone: I hadn’t remembered him, either, Jane.
AGplusone: Don’t know if I’d ever read him. Presumably a writer of western romances.
ddavitt: Not as fampus as Zane Gray i think; more non fiction?
ddavitt: Famous that is…
ddavitt: One is dated 1921
AGplusone: Anything in print or in Gutenberg?
ddavitt: But all but one are out of print
ddavitt: The Covered wagon is available
ddavitt: Just reprinted in march 2000
AGplusone: “Covered Wagon” …. hmmm, sounds like a John Wayner for sure.
ddavitt: I think so. That would fit with the comments in the story
SAcademy: We called the station wagon, “The Covered Wagon”
AGplusone: Really? After that novel?
SAcademy: No, Just gave it a name.
AGplusone: Oh, shucks!
ddavitt: They’ve only recently appeared in the UK; I always used to wonder what they were when I read American books 🙂
SAcademy: We called the caddy “Sweet Chariot”
AGplusone: Robert may have liked those stories, however, to mention Emerson Hough in one of his stories …
ddavitt: Jack london also gets a mention…
SAcademy: I never heard him mention them.
AGplusone: he mentions it in MacKinnon’s early entry into Coventry, as supporting his belief he can make it, in the same sentence with Jack London.
ddavitt: macKinnon is a lit’ry man though.
ddavitt: “an expert in literary history”
ddavitt: aka not much use in Coventry….
AGplusone: And what I find is funny is MacKinnon’s belief that if they’d had what MacKinnon thought sufficient, Alaska would have been a ‘snap’ … LOL.
ddavitt: That bit of the story is hilariuos.
AGplusone: from London’s POV … very hilarious!
ddavitt: he packs medical supplies, though they probably won’t be needed (!)
ddavitt: thinks he can build a blaster, mine ore….
AGplusone: And splits his lip firing at a rascally rabbit!
ddavitt: it’s sad really….
AGplusone: ’tis, ROFL.
ddavitt: looks like we’ve started without meaning to….
AGplusone: I found it fascinating that the ‘judiciary’ in the US outside Coventry was staffed entirely by the pyshrinks …
ddavitt: Well, they had done away with the old system entirely…you would have been out of a job maybe David <g>
Doc4Kidz: (before you ask David, my sister hasn’t read this one.)
AGplusone: It would be a fascinating society … mind control … criminals and tort feasors would be ‘ill’ and need to be ‘adjusted’ … I was going to ask, btw, Doc.
ddavitt: Why? What does your sister do?
Doc4Kidz: she’s a psycholgist
ddavitt: Ah! thanks.
Doc4Kidz: and I can’t spell, apparently.
ddavitt: My spelling goes down hill as soon as I log onto AIM
AGplusone: But oddly enough, it appears that infliction of ‘mental distress’ isn’t a ‘harm’ that the Covenant protects … i.e., the person that calls MacKinnon whatever that name was, doesn’t commit a crime or a tort sufficient to give rise to correction under the Covenant.
AGplusone: The discussion about Novak specifies only “physical” and “economic” harm ….
ddavitt: Yes; like that Persephone character blatting on about sticks and stones….
ddavitt: She needed a swift kick if you ask me…oops, does that mean I need adjusting? 🙂
ddavitt: I think i have problems seeing how the populace would get accustomed to this way of life in only 2 generations…
Doc4Kidz: (I just IM’ed Mindyanne’s husband and she’s sleeping. Oh well)
ddavitt: Unless the years of the Prophet had had their effect
AGplusone: Be an odd society to us … but what would all of you think of living under it … nothing that doesn’t economically or physically harm another person is forebidden.
ddavitt: But we are all so used to being like mackinnon and judging others…difficult adjustment to make
AGplusone: Porn, for example, doesn’t physically harm anyone, at least directly and without a lot of suppositions.
ddavitt: Drugs would be legal, nudity is accepted, 90% of the laws would be redundant…too sweeping maybe?
ddavitt: Pimps might not be tolerated though
AGplusone: And by contrast, it seems to MacKinnon that everything is against some law or the other in Coventry.
ddavitt: Or pushers…
AGplusone: That seems speculative, Jane.
ddavitt: I have trouble thinking of Coventry as being smaller than the US; strikes me that there would be more people inside than out…
ddavitt: Which bit?
AGplusone: Pimps who assaulted their string would be in violation of the Covenant, but ones who didn’t physically harm them wouldn’t seem to violate the covenant.
ddavitt: What about if they took a cut of wages?
AGplusone: And ‘pushers’ don’t physically harm users. Users have to use the drug before any harm occurs.
ddavitt: Depends on if the women could sack their pimp without fear of reprisal
AGplusone: Business deal … arms’ length contract.
ddavitt: Maybe…
dwrighsr: Or most of the wages, Wouldn’t that be ‘economic harm’?
ddavitt: But after the Prophet would they have still been around to such an extent?
AGplusone: Why not? Oldest profession after Shaman.
Doc4Kidz: would probably take about a week or two!
AGplusone: LOL
dwrighsr: What did all those ‘virgins’ do after he was put out?
ddavitt: have to bear in mind that the Covenant followed the Prophet, not simply imposed on today’s society
Doc4Kidz: I used to have a T-shirt identifying myself as a member of the SECOND oldest profession. People would stop me and ask “what’s the first?”
ddavitt: in some ways it’s a very minimal government..in other ways, incredibly restictive. I can’t make up my mind…
ddavitt: Really?
AGplusone: I wonder whether “Coventry” was changed very much in content after the chances to “ITGO” when reprinted … seems like the Novak passage “to insure greatest individual freedom” is in line with the later version of ITGO.
Doc4Kidz: “later version”?
ddavitt: Coventry came before the changed ITGO didn’t it?
ddavitt: Was it ever revised?
AGplusone: Question in my mind is whether that passage was rewritten or added … along with the Mark Twain speech in ITGO as a ‘later version’ when Revolt in 2100 was printed.
ddavitt: And what about Misfit coming before all of them? Were there different versions as someone suggested on afh?
ddavitt: Was the reference to the Covenant added to Misfit later?
AGplusone: Doc, the major change in ITGO was the addition of the Mark Twain character’s speech in response to the “bright young men’s” suggestion that the Cabal reprogram the population in ITGO … in the first version, the cabal accepted that suggestion.
dwrighsr has left the room.
Major oz has entered the room.
Doc4Kidz: that’s the version I have.
Major oz: ‘evenin, all
ddavitt: The magazine version?
dwrighsr has entered the room.
ddavitt: Hi Oz
Doc4Kidz: the Twain version
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
AGplusone: When RAH republished ITGO and the other two in ’54? he changed ITGO to the version you have with the inspired and impassioned speech
Major oz: ‘lo, Jane
AGplusone: Before that the magazine version had the cabal buying the idea that the populace had to be reprogramed or reeducated.
AGplusone: By the pshrinks …
AGplusone: Hi, Oz
AGplusone: So I wonder whether the passage in Coventry about Novak was rewritten or added.
Major oz: had to reload AIM……sheeeesh
SAcademy: I wonder whether John Campbell edited some things out?
AGplusone: It’s pretty clear he did in other works he published.
SAcademy: And Robert restored thm later?
ddavitt: Misfit, Nov 39, ITGO Feb 40, Coventry July 40, Revolt,1953
AGplusone: Or his “secretary” did … the business about Libby visualizing some equations as female breasts.
AGplusone: [That is contained in Methuselah’s Children … and was taken out before Campbell published it.]
ddavitt: We need someone with the magazine versions….
AGplusone: All we have to go on is what Gifford notes in his RAH:ARC … which isn’t all-inclusive … cannot be.
ddavitt: But I suppose it isn’t vital; how they are now indicates that Heinlein wanted them all to link which works well.
ddavitt: They form a nice trilogy.
SAcademy: The magazine versionsd all went to the library.
AGplusone: There’s a part of “Misfit” that I love … the business about what my uncles and father called the “C’s” …
ddavitt: ?
AGplusone: anyone know what I’m talking about?
geeairmoe2 has entered the room.
Major oz: no
Doc4Kidz: the depression works projects?
dwrighsr: The ‘CCC’ , the Civilian Construction Corps. From the depression work projects
AGplusone: One branch of them …
Major oz: sure — the Civilian Conservation Corps
Major oz: ?
dwrighsr: We have a ‘CCC Camp Road’ near where I live
ddavitt: as i said…what about the girls? what did they do if they were misfits?
AGplusone: all my uncles who were old enough and my father had some association with that agency … and all had very high praise for them.
Major oz: ….in Coventry?
dwrighsr: Joined the ‘W.E.N.C.H.E.S’
ddavitt: No, Misfit; libby gets assugned to the Cosmic Construction Corps
dwrighsr: 🙂
ddavitt: <g>
AGplusone: In “Misfit” … the Cosmic Conservation Corps is obviously modeled on the C’s.
Major oz: ellucidate, ple-ase……
AGplusone: In the late 30s, unemployed boys and young men were put to work by the Roosevelt administration on work projects called the Civilian Conservation Corps, administred by Army officers and NCOs.
ddavitt: It’s a programme for youngsters who don’t fit in; sort of a Foreighn legion
ddavitt: In the book
ddavitt: fresh start.
AGplusone: Was more of a unemployment, get the kids off the street before they turn into gangsters or permanently unemployed program.
Major oz: CCC was a horrendous boondoggle. It did some great things — roads, bridges, trials, etc. — but at a cost of thousands per foot.
dwrighsr: There were projects for others too, such as the Writers Project 🙂
AGplusone: But much like what Heinlein describes in “Misfit” …
Major oz: But it was ok — FDR just printed more money to pay for it.
Major oz: Like the murals in the post offices
AGplusone: It got the kids off the street … and was well thought of by folk who went through it.
Major oz: As it would be, they could eat.
ddavitt: What do people think of the idea? they were doing very technical work; moving asteroids and such; quite dangerous with lads who think they can bound outside without a space suit…
Doc4Kidz: magnificent mural in the lobby of my HS. Recently restored by the Alumni Assoc.
Major oz: Gifts to the starving are always well received. Ask the ones who paid for it, however.
AGplusone: Like a boot camp for kids … instead of rifles they gave them picks and shovels and put them to work … and taught other trades. All the mountain roads in Southern California still show traces of the work they did.
ddavitt: I don’t think we had anything comparable in the UK
AGplusone: And they built municipal buildings, parks, etc.
Major oz: Lots of good stuff
Major oz: yes
AGplusone: Anything anyone could think of to keep them busy.
SAcademy: And leaned on shovels
Major oz: that’s the point
ddavitt: I have read about it of course.
AGplusone: Sure, some did, I’m sure, when the sergeants weren’t around, just like they do in the Army.
Major oz: History from the view of the apple sellers
Major oz: It is seldom written by those who sign the checks
ddavitt: Time of the Jarrow marches back home; we suffered the depression too…I suppose WW2 ‘helped” in a way
SAcademy: There were aabout 20 men “working” on the lawn back of the Fifth Ave. library in NY
AGplusone: Thing is: history comes from both that view and from the view of the ones unaffected substantially by the depression, who of course always criticize such as “boondoggles” …
Doc4Kidz: (anyone interested go to http://www.bthsalum.org/mural.htm)
Major oz: post hoc, ergo etc……..?????
AGplusone: or another of that communist Roosevelt’s schemes to turn this country into Russia.
Major oz: not far from the truth
ddavitt: Does the CCC imply that not everyone can be either adjusted or exiled?
AGplusone: All I know is my old man and uncles thought it was a good deal to teach a kid to work …
Major oz: Ask the parents of Andrew Jackson Libby
Major oz: Always thought that was the province of the parents.
ddavitt: Not all the boys were at fault precisely..Libby certainly wasn’t a criminal or anything.
AGplusone: when he couldn’t find work elsewhere after school because grown men were selling apples, as they put it.
Major oz: Interesting…..the depression never hit the rockies.
SAcademy: At five cents each, and I haven’t eaten a Red Delicious since the
Depression.
ddavitt: It’s pretty incredible that, even with little schooling, no one spotted his talent, not even himself.
Major oz: some dust bowlers and the cities.
geeairmoe2: I have to bail out. I’ll try to wander back when/if the NasalCrom kicks in.
Major oz: Jane, I don’t think he saw it as a talent
ddavitt: Even in Coventry he could have been useful.
ddavitt: No; he probably thought everyone was like him. One tends to.
dwrighsr: It probably had the effect of making him a ‘freak’ more than anything else.
Doc4Kidz: doesn’t work too well, does it?
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
Major oz: Like I always was able to look at two separate objects and thought the whole world could.
ddavitt: But a useful freak, as we can see from the reaction of the superior officers
AGplusone: Do you agree with the thesis in “Coventry” Doc, that very few doctors would fail to comply with the Covenant, and then only the bunglers would not?
dwrighsr: Remember the attitudes of the other kids around him. “you are always showing how much you know!” or something like that
Major oz: He just wanted things to “be straight”
ddavitt: He was an insecure personality…I think he and macKinnon are very similar
Doc4Kidz: I don’t know if you can generalize like that. If docs had a strong agreement like that, we’d have no managed care!
ddavitt: Of course, as we find out later, he’s really a girl….:-)
Major oz: I know so many just like Andy
Major oz: MUCH later
ddavitt: And similarities with max, another wild talent.
Major oz: shy hillbillies that have some highly focused talent
AGplusone: What kind of ‘strong agreement’? Doc. And I don’t agree that shyness is a feminine trait Jane.
ddavitt: Max is a bit more confident and well adjusted though
ddavitt: Never said it was.
Major oz: My most brilliant digital logic student was one from the Olympic rain forest.
Major oz: fit Andy’s description to a tee
AGplusone: Then the sex-change isn’t really relevant, is it :-)?
ddavitt: I meant ( rather joking) that it could explain his insecurity and low self esteem
AGplusone: Phillip Owensby may be by later. He has expressed to me the belief that it’s something a little more complex … maybe we could ask him? Phillip’s from that part of the country.
Doc4Kidz: I mean we don’t agree now on issues which threaten us financially and morally, so I doubt that docs as a group would almost unanimously accept or reject “the covenant”. It sounds good in the story, though.
Major oz: that part……?
Major oz: “…..”
AGplusone: ‘hillbillyland’ for lack of a better term, although that’s somewhat offensive.
Major oz: could be anywhere — ever been out to the end of Long Island?
Doc4Kidz: yes
dwrighsr: Depends on how it is said
AGplusone: I know, Oz … had some folk from there living next door to me in Los Angeles for years.
markjmills has entered the room.
Major oz: As I live deeeeeep in the Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozarks, I knows ’em when I sees ’em.
ddavitt: How do people rate Misfit as a story? I found it a bit too heavy on the maths.
Major oz: That was just illustration
Doc4Kidz: I liked it a lot Jane, but then Libby is one of my favorite characters.
Major oz: Andy needed to demonstrate his talent.
dwrighsr: Welcome ‘mark’
AGplusone: Hello, Mark, welcome. We’re discussing the culture of the Ozarks and other parts of the country and whether it’s truly different in how people present themselves.
markjmills: Greetings, all. Sorry to be late for my first chat here. Could you tell me where we are tonight?
Major oz: …..brought your own wallpaper…..??
AGplusone: Discussing “Misfit” and “Coventry” from the Future History.
markjmills: Thanks — I’ll listen for a while before chiming in.
ddavitt: As I said on afh, it’s like a fictionalised maths lesson at times. I put it down to it being a very early story; i think it would have been hidden better in a later version.
ddavitt: Hi mark
AGplusone: I’ll mail you a log up to now if you pop your e mail on screen to me, or by IM …
AGplusone: On the way …
Major oz: side issue: why do you put an “s” on the end of “math”. It is something I see from time to time and don’t understand.
ddavitt: Why do you americans leave it off? 🙂
TAWN3 has entered the room.
Doc4Kidz: “mathematicS” I suppose.
ddavitt: we call it “maths’ I don’t know why, just seems to flow better.
dwrighsr: Because there are more than one of them !
ddavitt: “have you done your maths homework” for example
TAWN3: Good evening everybody.
dwrighsr: Hi Tawn
ddavitt: Hi Tawn
Major oz: ….wasn’t the Q. My experience is that Brits and Canadians use it only as sparingly as the Yanks.
SAcademy: Hello Tawn
Major oz: …..and I have never heard aussies or kiwi’s use it.
TAWN3: Good Evening SA
ddavitt: Just One Of those Things i suppose
TAWN3: Hello everybody else.
AGplusone: Hi, Tawn … sent Mark.
dwrighsr: Probably one of the dialectical differences. Jane are you aware of others English don’t use it that way?
dwrighsr: …English who don’t ….
ddavitt: Nope; everyone I know says ‘maths”
dwrighsr: Veree Interesting
Major oz: ….anyhow: back to the question. He used only elemental arithmatic in the story. He only alluded to more advanced math.
AGplusone: Hope you all don’t walk funny too 🙂
ddavitt: Why do you pronounce ‘herbs” as ‘erbs”?
ddavitt: _That’s _ funny!
Doc4Kidz: it’s like they say “new York HAVE won the World Series”!!!
markjmills: I suppose Americans say “math” because it’s always plural anyway — there’s no such thing as a mathematic, is there?
Major oz: then, of course, there is al-yoo-min-ee-um <g>
ddavitt: But sometimes the ‘problems’ seem to be a bit artifically grafted on to the story….just MO/
AGplusone: For example, Jane?
Major oz: But that WAS the story, wasn’t it?
ddavitt: Well, the bit where he’s discussing roofing over the canyon
AGplusone: You read the sliderule wrong all the time … at least I used to …
AGplusone: That’s why you did it at least twice.
Major oz: what about that bit, Jane?
AGplusone: Basically, it’s a very simple practical surveyor’s trick … clever, actually.
ddavitt: the guy doing the work feeds libby all the relevant figures and libby extrapolates from them; IRL, the guy doing the work probably wouldn’t know them and wouldn’t have time to chat…
AGplusone: The hardhead would run a level circuit to points all over the circumference … and waste days.
Major oz: I thought that one was NEAT
ddavitt: But misfit seems to be H’s second story ( according to grumbles) so i think it might still not be H at his best. usually the lessons slide by and you don’t notice them as much, just absorb them
AGplusone: So did I, and I was a surveyor for about a year.
Major oz: It is like ths lazar-leveling of a foundation in use today
dwrighsr: You had to have something like that volume discussion to introduce his ability, otherwise no-one would have been aware of it.
ddavitt: What about the asteroid moving? that seems pretty hi tech stuff for the period in which it’s set?
Major oz: and pretty high level math
Major oz: time relevant stuff as in differential equations, etc.
Major oz: in n-dimensilns
Major oz: dimensions (duh)
ddavitt: i did like the bit where he deduces Pythagorean proposition, derives Newton’s laws and kepler’s all in an hour 🙂
Major oz: Good illustrations.
Dehede011 has entered the room.
Major oz: I have seen it done (never could have myself)
ddavitt: good grief no.
Dehede011: Evening , folks.
AGplusone: Hi, Ron … we’re talking about Libby in “Misfit”
TAWN3: ARC says it was RAH’s second SALE, and that there were six unaccepted stories before it. ARC, page 108
Dehede011: That is the tradition as I remember it.
ddavitt: fair enough…still very early on though.
ddavitt: Hi ron.
Dehede011: And later he sold those stories that were initially rejected.
TAWN3: Hi Ron
AGplusone: In a lot of ways, “Misfit” is a proto-juvenile …
Dehede011: Hi, y’all.
Major oz: agree
ddavitt: How does he stack up as a hero? i love the bit where he rips out the charges
AGplusone: has a lot of the same instructional techniques RAH used in all his juveniles.
Major oz: Kinda the inbetween, like ST
dwrighsr: ‘Misfit’ is very similar to ‘Starman Jones’ IMO. As has been pointed out already.
AGplusone: Aimed at a bright kid … who could understand what he was writing with a little effort.
ddavitt: ‘he knew what he had to do but he was afraid’ but he went ahead anyway.
TAWN3: very reminiscent of the juveniles.
ddavitt: “courage of timidity at bay’ ; lovely image, I can see him standing there embarrased but determined.
AGplusone: And it has the prototypical ‘sergeant’ (or petty officer, or master gunner) who teaches by example present in many of them.
SAcademy: Nite all. I’m tired.
SAcademy has left the room.
AGplusone: Night SA
ddavitt: Night SA
Dehede011: I get the feeling in these stories that RAH really enjoyed bright kids.
Dehede011: NIght SA
Major oz: nite,
TAWN3: Night SA
Doc4Kidz: goodnight
dwrighsr: I suspect that was a great deal of Heinlein himself in there. I asked Virginia once about that trick of David Lamb’s on getting the seconds to graduation and she said that Robert could do it himself.
markjmills: Goodnight.
ddavitt: yes; look at peewee in HSSWT; he always sticks up for the kid that other children would make fun of. That appealed to me no end as i was one of those kids..(.though not as bright as the Heinlein versions!)
ddavitt: Yet H realised the safety of not being a pink monkey….
dwrighsr: I suspect that you are Peewee grown up 🙂
ddavitt: Not sure if i say thanks or throw a virtual cushion at you david 🙂
dwrighsr: That was a compliment.
Dehede011: I also understand that RAH could calculate in his head at a fantastic rate but unlike Libby he counted out loud.
Major oz: much of the “amazing stuff” is simply applied trivial data.
ddavitt: then thank you sir <curtsey>
dwrighsr: Pas de quoi
ddavitt: What talent would you pick? max’s or libby’s?
Major oz: Like the speed of light is 186 million mps, and the diameter of earth’s orbit is 186 M miles.
Major oz: …..giving 1000seconds for light to cross the elipse.
Major oz: Lots of that stuff going around
ddavitt: Almost seems meant doesn’t it….
TAWN3: I seem to remember him writing about getting through Annapolis by memorizing logirythms (sp) while doing menial freshman chores.
ddavitt: I’d love to have recall of all i’ve ever read…
TAWN3: Or perhaps it was Lazarus who was talking about it, yet it seemed like RAH saying it.
Major oz: I would have gotten better grads, had I such.
Major oz: grad”e”s—–flunked spelling
ddavitt: How about there being a Blackie in both stories? is that a real person?
ddavitt: Or just a common nickname?
Major oz: common…..like Red
Major oz: or Blondie
AGplusone: Common nickname, but remind me, who was the “Blackie” in Coventry?
ddavitt: Border guard who takes M’s stuff..not a bad guy really
AGplusone: The one who tells the other not to kill MacKinnon?
markjmills: “Not bad” ’cause he could’ve been worse?
AGplusone: … that MacKinnon is just dumb.
ddavitt: That’s a bit confusing..just looked and no, seems to be the other one; who’s also called Joe
ddavitt: No, i’m wrong
Major oz: Q: did I come in too late for a discussion of how the Covenant got bastardized in only two generations after the Second Revolution?
ddavitt: Let me read it slowly ,g>
Major oz: Or if, in fact, is was
markjmills: What do you ‘bastardized?’
dwrighsr: Bastardized in ‘Coventry’ or in ‘MC’ ?
AGplusone: No, let’s take that one up, Oz, after a five minute break to water the cat … starting at 15 past the hour …
markjmills: Whoops, “mean”…
AGplusone: You have the conn, Oz.
Major oz: hokay
ddavitt: someone else read that bit; i think there’s a mix up
ddavitt: i can’t sort out which is which and who fires..
AGplusone: afk to water cat … who is glowering at me from atop my chair [Bob says: I’m perfectly capable of ‘watering’ myself, human idiot.]
Major oz: My idea is: as the revolutionaries were so adamant re: liberty and the sanctity of self, how did society come to diddling with the mind?
Major oz: It sounds like a satire on what FDR did to Jeffersons masterpiece.
markjmills: Might the distinction be the voluntariness of the diddling?
Major oz: no,,,,,the forcing of having to choose
Major oz: The terminal phase of “implied consent”
ddavitt: two men, one asks a question, M back answers, other one raises gun, is told not to fire and referred to as Joe. M grabs his gun and the man who had been talking ( ie not Joe) fires at it and shoots it out of his hand. HE is Blackie….got it now…finally.
markjmills: But the basis of any covenant is the willingness to choose to adopt it, or reject it, no? So H allowed the rejecters the freedom to withdraw from a situation not of their choosing.
Doc4Kidz: anyone else think it extremely unlikely that a Heinlein hero (OOPS! has Gifford copywrited that?) would submit to “reeducation”???
ddavitt: fader seems to think you can fake it…
Major oz: Faulty dillema — direct violation of logic and, in practice, of liberty.
dwrighsr: All the Heinlein Heroes were either in Coventry or off into space 🙂
ddavitt: is it likely that M can reeducate himself in so short a time? How much of a change is required? Can’t be actual brain washing or they’d all be zombies
Major oz: And makes a religion of begging the question.
Major oz: or, in this case, a government……….
dwrighsr: And recall that MacKinnon ‘adjusted himself’ in the end. Didn’t require any ‘diddling’
Major oz: Only in the opinion of the secret service — special folks
ddavitt: so it can’t have been all that searching or deep a change….
AGplusone: I think it’s the hard effort to reconcile the two versions of “If This Goes On …” that “Coventry” was originally written with the plot in which the mind reeducation by the “bright young men” was accepted and the plot derives thereon … was written, and then the changes made in ’53. But there could be another theme here,
dwrighsr: It was simply a realization that he wasn’t the center of the universe. There were things more important than himself alone.
AGplusone: the degeneration of any society, like in TCWWTW and MIAHM.
Major oz: non sequitor
ddavitt: Also he threw off his father’s pernicious influence
Major oz: don’t need to be the center to enjoy the fruits of liberty
ddavitt: clogs to clogs in three generations….
Major oz: right
Major oz: from theobabble to psychobabble
AGplusone: Mark: we use acronyms a lot … TCWWTW = The Cat Who Walks Through Walls; MIAHM = Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
markjmills: So his “re-education” lay in making what were judged to be the correct moral distinctions? And the governors of the state weighed the correctness of his decisions in the balance? Who judged them?
ddavitt: Humanity doesn’t really WANT a better world….prefers to muddle along…
markjmills: Amen!
Major oz: precisely……who judged them?
AGplusone: Presumably the pshrinks in charge of the judiciary?
AGplusone: With their perfect measurements … haha.
ddavitt: The revolution improves things eenought o let them muddle but they won’t take it any further than they have to; as mannie found out
Major oz: Humanity wants liberty….if that gives a better world, good deal; if is doesn’t …..well it may not be worth it.
Dehede011 has left the room.
markjmills: Humanity wants liberty? Hmmm…not from what I see.
AGplusone: And the parents of a kid named Andy Jackson wouldn’t sign such an agreement … ?
Major oz: ….and that is the problem
markjmills: Present company excluded, of course! 🙂
dwrighsr: I tend to agree with Mark.
AGplusone: Of course 🙂
AGplusone: And the system, of course, breaks down entirely when the ‘peepul’ find out somebody other than them is ‘living forever’ in the next story.
markjmills: H said, and I paraphrase: Most people can’t think, and many of those who can don’t want to. Liberty requires much thought, unless one merely benefits from the labors of others.
ddavitt: Am I alone in thinking Persephone is a total drip and a not very realistic character? she is a pivotal influence on Mackinnon but I think she is dead wrong about some things.
Major oz: “humanity”, as represented by the peepull, don’t care, as long as someone takes care of them. Jefferson and the boys represented about 20% of the population.
Major oz: sometimes you have to kick them in the butt.
dwrighsr: That’s what I was agreeing with Mark on.
dwrighsr: Give me security or give me …?
AGplusone: Such as, Jane … ?
AGplusone: And why wrong?
ddavitt: massive inertia to overcome in changing the way people think; practically impossible; like elastic band can stretch it out but let go for a minute and it springs back into original form
Major oz: It is why the Chineese gradual acceptance of markets and, thus, democracy will be from the top down, not from the bottom up — unusual transformation in the modern era.
ddavitt: She’s fey; bare foot, playing with kitten, mythological name
dwrighsr: Well. She had a very strange upbringing. We would expect that her behavior would not fit what we would call ‘normal’ or ‘realistic’.
AGplusone: Unless you keep ’em whipped up about the cause of the day that you’ve indoctrinated them to believe to be important …
ddavitt: She thinks names don’t hurt ( ha! never been on a playgound obviuosly!)
dwrighsr: ‘…should expect…’
Major oz: the completion of that quote is: “…or give me freedom, but I realize I can’t have both simultaneously”.
AGplusone: She’s justifying the society’s punishment of MacKinnon, isn’t she? Was that just, btw, IYO?
ddavitt: But she is shown as being like an oracle; that’s what bugs me.
ddavitt: No; even the judge says he finds satisfaction in what m did; to me, that means he shares the guilt, if guilt there is
Doc4Kidz: Good point
ddavitt: It’s expecting too much of humanity to have a society where someone that obnoxious has to go unpunished
AGplusone: I guess the society doesn’t approve of physical or economic retaliation … do you suppose MacKinnon would have been justified to exact a psychological revenge?
dwrighsr: It wasn’t a matter of ‘guilt’. It was a matter of protecting society against those who would do harm to others, no matter how justified they might think themselves to be.
ddavitt: lashing out may not be the best response but good grief, i think we can all empathise with it.
AGplusone: I’ve often wanted to shoot someone … empathise with me if I did so.
ddavitt: Similar to oscar and nebbie ? at the end of GR; except rufo says Oscar could’ve killed him and no one would mind ( I think)
AGplusone: Or would you like a punch in the nose?
markjmills: Empathize, yes — but society intervenes to control those impulses, by negative and positive reinforcement.
ddavitt: Difference between a punch and a bullet…
dwrighsr: Is there?
AGplusone: obviously, if you punch a small man he goes and gets a gun
ddavitt: being a little weak female ,g., physical methods of reaction aren’t common with me…but i can understand the appeal
Major oz: someone throw dehede011 a rope, please; I can’t figure how to do it.
AGplusone: or, as Sean Connerly said, “brings a knife to the fight if he’s Italian”
Dehede011 has entered the room.
Major oz: got it
ddavitt has left the room.
Dehede011: Sorry guys, I got kicked off.
Dehede011: 🙁
AGplusone: Think (hope) Jane did too …
dwrighsr: The whole point of MacKinnon’s ‘re-adjustment’ was that he apparently gained the ‘self-discipline’ necessary to function in a society without ‘lashing out’.
ddavitt has entered the room.
dwrighsr: WB Jane.
markjmills: But did he? Where’s the evidence?
ddavitt: Sorry; crashed me when i tried to invite Ron in 🙁
Dehede011: WB, Kotter.
AGplusone: And the self-discipline to view the society as something necessary when he considered it to preserve against threat …
Major oz: Do we distinguish between civilized and domesticated?
dwrighsr: No direct evidence. I’m going strictly by what was said in the story.
Dehede011: Thank you, Jane. I will accept the thought for the deed. 🙂
markjmills: I know — to me, there’s a gap.
AGplusone: No direct evidence of what, David?
dwrighsr: No direct evidence of having gained ‘self-discipline’, except of course, by his attempting to warn the outside.
AGplusone: I might agree …
ddavitt: evidence of what Mark?
markjmills: What’s to say he won’t engage in a barroom brawl the first time he goes out?
Major oz: Mayhap a duty-honor-country proving to society?
AGplusone: maybe he’s just redeemed himself by the attempt to ‘save’ the society
markjmills: I see no evidence of any major change.
AGplusone: simply putting it above his selffish self
Dehede011: It seems to me his growing up is marked mostly by his ability to see the bigger picture.
ddavitt: I think I’m still having trouble
ddavitt: I will reboot
ddavitt has left the room.
markjmills: Unless the pshrinks (I like that!) had an prior evaluative record against which they were comparing the reformed M.
dwrighsr: Wasn’t there a mention of his having been quietly analyzed after his return without his knowledge?
AGplusone: Could be, but all we have to go on is what he does and what Fader says.
markjmills: Well, he was evaluated before the hearing, right?
Dehede011: Where does that name Fader come from?
Doc4Kidz: craps?
markjmills: Wasn’t Fader a radio character from the forties?
dwrighsr: Because he could ‘fade’ into the woodwork or something like that IIRC.
Dehede011: Thats an idea, Doc4
Major oz: I am surprised that this socialized (in the social studies sense) society could be portrayed as “good” given the tenor of virtually ALL of His other works.
AGplusone: I always pronounced “Fader” much like Father in my mind.
Dehede011: short A??
Major oz: “Fader” was also a Damon Runyon character.
AGplusone: Like “Hello, Fader, Hello Mudder …”
dwrighsr: Hello Mudder, Hello Fader . Here I am at Camp Granada.
Doc4Kidz: Allen Sherman!
Dehede011: Rest his soul
Major oz: ….which characters were very popular at the time…..
markjmills: I wonder what songs he’d be writing in heaven?
dwrighsr: I think that our view of the society is too prejudiced by MacKinnon’s own viewpoint.
Major oz: What else do we have?
AGplusone: Seems actually an ideal place to live … between the lines.
Major oz: So does Sweden
AGplusone: Unless you’re the son of someone who won’t sign the Covenant, like Libby.
markjmills: A “good” society — but I think that H, between the lines, was saying it wasn’t a free one.
dwrighsr: I disagree. It was as free as it could possibly be. But freedom ends at the end of my fist and the beginning of your nose. (heard that somewhere:)
Major oz: AHA
Major oz: Not when you provoke me
markjmills: Not in anything actually written in the story — but he made the culture feel oppressive to me as a reader.
Doc4Kidz: from “Lib Bill”??
dwrighsr: I still maintain that that is due to MacKinnon’s viewpoint. Fader didn’t seem to have any problem with it.
markjmills: Another H-ism: provocation is no excuse to riot.
Major oz: ….that we know of……..
AGplusone: I dunno, Oz, when we were twenty and I called you an “Air Scout” in a bar, would be have fallen afoul of the Covenant and would the US government have been justified in sending both of us to Coventry?
Major oz: Where did that H-ism come from
Major oz: ?
AGplusone: be=we
Doc4Kidz: only if Oz slugged you Dave
markjmills: Citizen of the Galaxy, after Thorby throws the mashed potatos.
Major oz: Naw, we would have punched each other around and the winner would have bought the beer.
AGplusone: Oh, Oz would have been compelled to slug me … and we would have punched each other around and the winner would have bought the beer, unless someone called the MPs.
Major oz: And we both would have kicked anyone’s ass that tried to interfere in our “recreation”
markjmills: Like a John Wayne movie.
Doc4Kidz: antisocial atavisms both of youse!
AGplusone: Actually, exactly like a John Wayne movie.
Major oz: Not at all. Just what people do.
Major oz: without outside interference — now you know why Andy’s parents didn’t sign
AGplusone: Filly’s point exactly
Major oz: and which I am on record as supporting/
AGplusone: Andy Jackson did shoot that man who called his wife a whore
Major oz: Actually Rachel was–but you can’t say so in public
AGplusone: she just worked in a place like Mother Johnston ran …
Major oz: looks like a duck, walks like a duck……….
markjmills: I prefer women to ducks.
markjmills: Hate the feathers.
AGplusone: ROFLMAO …
Major oz: You don’t get around much <g>
markjmills: 🙂
Major oz: In Micronesia, in my language class, the instructor told how many amimals he _____. He then asked for our input.
ddavitt has entered the room.
ddavitt: Third attempt to rejoin you all…am I here?
Major oz: It was a quiet afternoon.
Major oz: Yo, Jane
AGplusone: WELL, time for another issue to discuss … ah-hem … clearing throat … glad you finally got here, Jane, and we won’t burden you with what you missed.
Doc4Kidz: excellent timing
AGplusone: Yes.
ddavitt: It keeps on crashing these last few weeks; wonder if it’s because i upgraded?
dwrighsr: Shall I cut it out of the log :-*
AGplusone: No.
Doc4Kidz: no censorship!
ddavitt: my lip is quivering….
AGplusone: We’ll let Jane find out for herself.
dwrighsr: I wouldn’t anyway.
Major oz: I have to go change the propane bottles — back in a minute.
markjmills: If your lip is quivering then you’re definitely a PeeWee!
AGplusone: Okay .. five minute break. Jane has the conn.
dwrighsr: Propane ? My I use kerosene
AGplusone: back at 55 past the hour.
ddavitt: It’s quivering at the thought that the instant I go you all say nasty things that need to be cut out of the log!
ddavitt: :-):-)
AGplusone: … and we’ll think of something else to discuss while we’re gone …
Doc4Kidz: not ALL of us
ddavitt: I’ve lost track of what AIM version i’m using; they all seem pretty much the same as the previuos one
markjmills: Only “R” rated….
ddavitt: Boys will be boys….
AGplusone: We were discussing Andrew Jackson’s wife Rachel.
ddavitt: The one who left him after 11 weks or so?
Dehede011: And men will be worse than boys.
ddavitt: Or the scandalous duel one?
Major oz has left the room.
dwrighsr: Lots of revolving doors tonight.
AGplusone: scandalous duel one … and her previous ’employment’
ddavitt: Did that file download OK David btw?
ddavitt: Ah..oldest profession huh?
AGplusone: Yes, it did. Haven’t had a chance to go over it entirely. Nope, second oldest. Shaman is first oldest.
ddavitt: No one seems to know why the first wife headed back home so fast….
AGplusone: Next comes lawyer …
ddavitt: Must have caused a lot of talk back then
Doc4Kidz: NOpe Oldest. as in “the oldest profession” healer (which may include shaman) is second oldest.
ddavitt: You think men would have put religion before sex then? hmm….
ddavitt: As star said, why call it a profession?
Doc4Kidz: actually DID include shaman
AGplusone: No, simply that since shaman was first it got to proscribe the ones that came next as immoral.
AGplusone: (and taking away business … )
Major oz has entered the room.
AGplusone: WB, Oz
Major oz: whew, those bottles are heavy in this heat.
Major oz: back into Misfit, now?
AGplusone: About heat, Ginny tells me that her latest cat, named Snowy, spends its time in the small porcelain fixture in the bathroom these days …
ddavitt: If you’re doing it right, it’s not a job, it’s a mutual pleasure….one person shouldn’t have to pay…if you’re not doing it right, shouldn’t get paid..
dwrighsr: David. Can you send me the AFH postings so that I can tack them onto this log?
AGplusone: sitting there, not drinking from it (that’s the next largest fixture, anyway).
AGplusone: Yes, I will.
Major oz: Jane, WHAT are you talking about?
ddavitt: prostitution
dwrighsr: My cat sits with her head over her water bowl, even though it’s not hot in the house, but she is 23-24 years old and is a bit eccentric.
Major oz: hokay
ddavitt: Agree with star from GR that it’s not a profession
ddavitt: talisker lies in the sink after it’s had water in to cool off
Major oz: “It’s more than a job — it’s an adventure”
dwrighsr: Just a trade then? 🙂
markjmills: Men paying for the LACK of emotional commitment.
AGplusone: Wonder what Star and Hamayrid (?) had to say to each other after they crossed the Bifrost Bridge at the party in Number …
ddavitt: Not an anything; based on the misconception that it’s for a man’s pleasure and women endure so they deserve recompense for putting up with it…incredible way of looking at it….
ddavitt: Or star and tammy…
Major oz: Did I start this?
ddavitt: i don’t know, i wasn’t here 🙂
Major oz: I’m too old for this.
markjmills: The innocence defense.
AGplusone: Or the character in Job who works for Jerry … who I think is Sister Magdalene in disguise.
Major oz: one of my favs
markjmills: Now THERE was a good society.
ddavitt: lots of prostitutes in heinlein…he seems to have sympathy and respect for them
AGplusone: Ah, well, somebody propose another topic out of “Misfit” and “Coventry” please …
Dehede011: That’s his old Navy training. <G>
ddavitt: No comment <g>
Major oz: Think we have beat them all to death.
ddavitt: Have we hannered dave’s nasty dad?
Major oz: test
ddavitt: Hammered
AGplusone: Let’s go back and beat on that little question I asked, where’s Coventry?
ddavitt: How is he running around unaltered?
AGplusone: We could …
ddavitt: How can we know david? not enough textual clues
Major oz: Sounds like it is in my favorite part of the country.
Dehede011: Night guys.
ddavitt: “Some of the best land”, rugged hills, fertile valley….could be lots of olaces
Major oz: In the rockies/high plains
Dehede011: Sounded like Missouri ozarks.
ddavitt: Night Ron
AGplusone: He’s a lot like the dad of the English prof in TEFL … the banker, who cut off his son.
Dehede011 has left the room.
AGplusone: Night Ron
Doc4Kidz: I always thought of it as in the southwest, but I caouldn’t say why I felt that way.
Major oz: did I miss that: “…best land”?
dwrighsr: Like so much of Heinlein. He really left it up to your own imagination.
markjmills: H seemed to have an affinity for the underworld (and carny folk); I wonder if he was just using stock characters, or did he actually write from some experience?
dwrighsr: And you could fill in the blanks however you want.
AGplusone: I agree Oz, and it couldn’t be the rockies, because MacKinnon thinks he could have tried the rockies before he was exiled … that leaves the Sierras, the Ozarks and the Appalachans
ddavitt: ‘you are being given plenty of living room in some of the best land on this continent”
Major oz: H left those questions unanswered just like the good radio programs of the time left them out — so each of us could see it our own way.
AGplusone: And some of the land in the Ozark plateau is very rich …
Major oz: Then I would go for eastern OK, KS, and northern MO. Somehow, I got the feeling that there wasn’t much forest.
ddavitt: Did we ever decide if this was a world wide set up or just in the US? by Misfit, there is talk of the Federation…
Doc4Kidz: Goodnight all. Thanks for an interesting evening (as always).
ddavitt: In MC is the US part of a world set up?
ddavitt: Night Doc
Major oz: nite, doc
Doc4Kidz has left the room.
AGplusone: It says specifically that Coventry is in the US … but implies a world government …
Major oz: how so, David?
ddavitt: So is the Covenant world wide? I doubt it if M’s grandfather fought in the Revolution; too fast
AGplusone: I’d have to read it closely and cite passages but the implication is there …
ddavitt: US was isolated for so long, would take a while to reintegrate
AGplusone: Recall, by the time of MC, it is a world government with an Administrator, Slayton Ford
ddavitt: two generations not long enough IMO
markjmills: But the Covenant arose out of the Prophet’s tyranny — and that was limited to NA.
AGplusone: Maybe the Covenant was a selling point to world federation
ddavitt: Yes; US closed itself off entirely when the Prophet was in power
Major oz: I don’t see the government of Coventry as being part of a WW gov.
AGplusone: No, except for the governments of Coventry, which I think would be treated as a territory of the US …
AGplusone: and the US’s responsibility.
Major oz: Kinda like a Yukon territory?
Major oz: or Guam
AGplusone: Uh-huh.
Major oz: ?
markjmills: I don’t ahve the timeline here — how long between the “Coventry” period and MC?
ddavitt: maybe by misfit..but when was MC set? Laz was about 213..so that was 2100?
Major oz: Somewhat longer than that between ITGO and Cov.
AGplusone: Then the question, of course, would be whether every other government had its own coventry … or did we make money renting ours out to other smaller ones
markjmills: H mentions all the groups in Coventry, with no reference to furriners.
Major oz: mac says two generations from ITGO and cov, but I get the impression of a MUCH longer time to MC, just based on the technology
AGplusone: True
ddavitt: But can’t be that long….when was the revolution? 2075?
ddavitt: MC says 2075 was when Covenant set up
Major oz: Would be an interesting idea: to take other country’s cast-off’s; but, if so, it surely would have been mentione.
Major oz: “d”
ddavitt: laz was born 1912, is 213 at start of MC ( roughly)
AGplusone: 2125 roughly
AGplusone: 50 years, two generations
markjmills: Hmmm…fifty years, then.
Major oz: hokay…..It just felt longer to me.
ddavitt: I get the impression MC is not that long after Misfit; libby still seems young somehow
markjmills: Doesn’t seem long enough — but then, we don’t know exactly what the newly-freed cobbled together after the revolution.
AGplusone: Imagine: 1900, no cars, no planes, … then compare 1950
dwrighsr: It seems to me that Coventry was pretty close to the beginning of the Covenant period rather than closer to MC
ddavitt: Also H may have not thought thru the dates; there are some discrepancies
Major oz: agree, Jane
AGplusone: and compare today … this old beat up ‘puter I’m using could do everything all the puters in the world in 1950 could do
markjmills: Right — the timeline was a convenience, not a shackle.
Major oz: there seem to be inconsistencies
Major oz: good way to put it, Mark
markjmills: Unless it was in an alternate universe….
AGplusone: hydraulic beds … water beds, that’s not all that far
ddavitt: Yes; we nitpick, H was writing stories, not histories
dwrighsr: My Palm Pilot is far more powerful than the first computer I had dealings with in the late 60’s and it cost 80,000 was as big as two refrigerators
AGplusone: The advance was really in the field of pshrinks …
Major oz: Anyone know what a SAGE Center was?
markjmills: No, what?
dwrighsr: Air Defense?
Major oz: Semi Automatic Ground Environment
markjmills: ??
AGplusone: what was that?
Major oz: A computer about 200 feet on an edge, shaped like a; cube\
ddavitt: Laz tells Libby he met his granddad at the meeting of 2012..stiff necked old coot
Major oz: the offices were inside, heated by the vacuum tubes.
Major oz: My first calculator, HP55 could do everything it did.
AGplusone: Ah …
Major oz: so, mayhap WC did happen that early…….
Major oz: I just like Mary’s car
ddavitt: have to sit down and work it all out one day…but i bet it won’t all tie in.
ddavitt: Very james Bondy
dwrighsr: And Asimov would shout Emerson!
Major oz: indeed
markjmills: Thanks — now I’ll have the JB theme in my head all night….
AGplusone: So when would “Misfit” fit in?
Major oz: All H’s men had gadgets, but Mary’s car is the only one owned by a female that I recall…..anyone?
dwrighsr: I think Misfit was very close to the same time as Coventry
ddavitt: OK, past my bedtime….enjoyed the chat, night all. I’ll try and make Sat but David is in Norway and Eleanor will still be up and about so i may be occupied 🙂
AGplusone: If the old coot was stiff necked then … how old would Libby’s father be …
Major oz: Nite, Jane
AGplusone: See you, Jane, hope you make it.
markjmills: Goodnight.
ddavitt has left the room.
dwrighsr: Night Jane
AGplusone: Of course, he was long-lived …
AGplusone: so he could have kept having kids long past a time we’d ordinarily expect
Major oz: Libby’s weren’t Howard’s, were they?
AGplusone: and his kid coulda had kids a long time after too. Yes.
AGplusone: They dropped out …
dwrighsr: Yes. But he wasn’t aware of it as I recall.
Major oz: Then why did Andy have so little education?
Major oz: non-consistent with Howard ethic.
Major oz: hokay, you said it: he(dad or granpa) dropped out.
AGplusone: Parents refused to sign the covenant … maybe the stiff necked old coot decided to head for the hills once the Prophet took over.
Major oz: consistent with the stated personality…….
Major oz: ….but, but……then how did Andy come to be in the Marines?
Lucylou98 has entered the room.
AGplusone: CCCs, not Marines … maybe you could apply, like the old C’s
Major oz: yo, loose
markjmills: Was he in the Marines? I thought he was “salvaged” by a CCC-like government project?
Lucylou98: Evening everyone
AGplusone: even if you’re parents wouldn’t sign the covenant
Lucylou98: hi Oz:)
AGplusone: your
AGplusone: No attainter of the blood
AGplusone: Under the Constitution … you were free once you had majority to make up your own mind.
dwrighsr: Implication was that he had some ‘minor’ problems and was probably steered into it by judge or somebody. or so it seemed to me
Major oz: …..sorry, only the NCO was a marine…….so how did he get in the CCC — seems to violate the family ethic.
AGplusone: Or he may have been a refugee … through the gates …
AGplusone: Hi, Luc … we’re talking about Libby and whether “Misfit,” “Coventry” and the rest really reconcile themselves into a single time line
Major oz: …and I would speculate that “family” was the Libbys’ largest loyalty.
TAWN3: But he is in MC.
TAWN3: Acts as astrogator.
AGplusone: just for fun … “file, smash to fit, and cover with a thick coat of battleship gray” …
markjmills: And H was an engineer — perfect!
AGplusone: Nothin’s said about a father being still alive. Just a mother. Dad may have been the one adamant about the Covenant and not signing it.
Lucylou98 has left the room.
AGplusone: We’re trying to figure how Libby gets out of Coventry, if that’s where his family would have been consigned for refusing to sign the C, and gets into the CCCs …
AGplusone: but Lucy has left the room.
markjmills: Is there anything inconsistent with Misfit and Coventry being at the same time?
Major oz: Why did he have to be in Coventry?
Major oz: I didn’t see it that way
AGplusone: Parents refused to sign the Covenant. Where else could they be?
dwrighsr: I never got the impression that he lived in Coventry. Did they send people there for simply not signing? DOesn’t seem to fit.
AGplusone: I think it has to …
Major oz: They could be down in the holler behind my place
AGplusone: hiding
AGplusone: and shooting revenoors … when they come up …
AGplusone: <g>
Major oz: you betchum, red rider……
dwrighsr: Actually, there is no mention of ‘signing the covenant’ in Coventry at all. Simply living by its precepts.
AGplusone: I’ll concede that …
AGplusone: But there is in “Misfit” and why would you have some refuse if it wasn’t a requirement.
Major oz: <I think, David, that is a quote that only the two of us may recognize>
dwrighsr: I knew who Red Rider and Little Beaver were. You bet I did.
Major oz: hokay
Major oz: GMTA
AGplusone: Maybe you had to sign it to get your kids into school, like a vacination certificate?
Major oz: Signing made you a “full” citizen.
AGplusone: I assumed you include both Davids
Major oz: You were probably still subject to law, just lacking some rights.
dwrighsr: It seems to me that ‘having to sign it’ would be inconsistent with the society shown in Coventry.
Major oz: …..but of course…..
AGplusone: second-class citizens … ? Strange you’d have such a thing under such a ‘perfect’ government … more like, uh-Mrs. Libby, we don’t have a certificate on file for you and Mr. Libby and so we can’t accept Andrew into school until we get one ….
Major oz: …kinda like ST — there were citizens and civilians
AGplusone: and … they refuse to sign … so what do we do with ’em? They ain’t bothering anyone, so we won’t say anything and they can stay in Libby’s Holler unless they cause trouble.”
Major oz: sure — you signed and your kids got schooling, and medical, and this and that. You didn’t, you were on your own.
dwrighsr: Maybe, In any case, Libby certainly grew up in Arkansas, so either Arkansas was inside coventry or he didn’t come from coventry.
Major oz: ….but not “held down”
AGplusone: Yep. Two possibilities …
Major oz: ….AND, when the kids hit 18 or 21, they had a chance to sign on their own.
Major oz: Perhaps that is what Andy did.
AGplusone: Anyway, anyone want to discuss anything else. We do Methuselah’s Children next two weeks. Right, Oz.
Major oz: One of my favorites
markjmills: Someone mentioned Saturday — what’s that about?
dwrighsr: But to me, all of that ‘second class’ stuff seems to totally negate what the Covenant was all about. I think that it is simply one of those irreconcilible incosistencies.
AGplusone: And maybe have a little report about ChiConn along with that …
Major oz: Why did you ask me —- are you under the misconception that I volunteered for something?
AGplusone: Same subject, Mark. Different members attend, some who work or for whom it’s too late, and some from Europe, Australia, etc. whom time zones are better.
dwrighsr: On Saturday, there will be another discussion like tonight, starting at 5:00 EDT.
Major oz: 1700 for the enlightened
markjmills: Oh, Ok. Is there usually a, what did Lazarus call it, an “instigator” in the proceedings?
AGplusone: We usually spring board the discussion of this log … and sometimes post other discussion in between the two days.
Major oz: <remember the last time I screwed that up?>
Major oz: Normally, Mark, it is AG
dwrighsr: ‘vigilante’, ‘invigilator’ ? ‘instigator’? yeah we have several of those
AGplusone: There’s supposed to be … lately I’ve been instigator, with some help from others, but in our next series of topics there will be again.
markjmills: With a BIG list’o’questions? 🙂
Major oz: But, if someone is especially fond of a work, he is invited to moderate.
AGplusone: What we do is have a “co-host” … yep.
markjmills: Okay — I’ll learn as we go.
AGplusone: After MC we’ll probably have a vote on topics nominated …
Major oz: ….and be sure to volunteer
AGplusone: Yes, you’ll love it!
markjmills: …before one is, ummm, volunteered?
Major oz: youse got it
AGplusone: Zim loves volunteers … and sometimes helps them voluteer …
AGplusone: volunteer
dwrighsr: Mark. I’ll notifiy you by e-mail when the log is available. David, (or someone), please send me the AFH postings so that I can add them to tonight’s discussion.
markjmills: LOL! I ust need a voice recognition system — this typing is for the pits.
Major oz: yeah, what he said
AGplusone: Okay, Dave … wilco
markjmills: Then I’ll say goodnight, all — and thanks. This was enjoyable — a nice set of brains congregate here.
AGplusone: This time next year … software will probably support it …
Major oz: so 14&16SEP is MC?
dwrighsr: I’m on Deja now and I haven’t figured a good way of extracting the posts. RemarQ went commercial on me and want me to Pay!
AGplusone: Thanks for coming, Mark.
Major oz: c ya, Mark
markjmills: Thank you.
markjmills: That should have been inflected, thank YOU! 🙂
dwrighsr: Night Mark
markjmills has left the room.
Thundertek has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Jimmy, how’s married life?
Thundertek: Hello All
Thundertek: It’s wonderful hehe
AGplusone: Keep it that way 🙂
Major oz: introductions….?
AGplusone: We got about fifteen minutes left …
Thundertek: Sorry I’m so late
Thundertek: I did read Coventry recently though
AGplusone: Oz, David, Tawn … “Thundertek” is what is your handle on AFH, darn … I forget
AGplusone: Drumbo!
Thundertek: I’m Jimmy Fox aka Drumbo
dwrighsr: Thunder. Do I have your e-mail address, so I can notify you when the log will be available?
AGplusone: Has been getting married lately …
dwrighsr: Thanks. It should be available sometime in the morning.
TAWN3: ?
Thundertek: I’m looking forward to all I missed
AGplusone: What did you think was fascinating or odd about Coventry, Jimmy?
dwrighsr: Congratulations
AGplusone: We’re looking forward to having you back … tell your new wife we’re semi-harmless.
Thundertek: Coventry was an awesome tale – I love the idea of exile –
Thundertek: Ties in Nicely with My Stephen King group discussing Dark Tower series
dwrighsr: Is she a Heinlein fan or are you going to have the fun of introducing her to him?
AGplusone: I think the “Free State” MacKinnon finds himself in is more like our present state and the 1940s state than we think … a law against everything it seemed.
Thundertek: She’s read the biggies (if ya know what I mean) but the jouvies and others are past her interest – she’s a horror fan
AGplusone: Has she read “Hearts in Atlantis”?
Thundertek: The culture was over the top for sure
AGplusone: recently in paperback?
Thundertek: Actually I just picked up Atlantis and she turned her nose up lol
AGplusone: There’s one part, the last tale, that appeals to me. One character in there reminds me of me.
Thundertek: I’ll have to read it first
Thundertek: Most RAH stories remind me of me lol
AGplusone: Diffenbacker
Major oz: I only wish they did
AGplusone: second to last tale
Thundertek: Laz Long and I are Kindred Spirits
Major oz: I’m more nearly Jubal
TAWN3: good night all
AGplusone: Night Tawn
dwrighsr: Night Tawn
Thundertek: No writter touches me like Heinlein – I love him the best
Major oz: nite, Tawn
TAWN3: Nice to meet you thundertek
Thundertek: Nice to meet you all – again sorry I’m so late
TAWN3 has left the room.
dwrighsr: He has been my favorite for almost 50 years. No other in the world like him.
AGplusone: Not a problem. Saturday is coming. 5 to 8 PM EDT
AGplusone: When do we fall back, btw, October?
Major oz: Same here, t-tek; I have added you to my copy of the RAH mailing list.
Major oz: Haloween weekend.
AGplusone: And we’ll be doing Methuselah’s Children after next Saturday …
Major oz: 29OCT
Thundertek: Maj – don’t you thin Laz and Jubal are real close to RAH himself?
AGplusone: Thanks Oz …
Major oz: I think they are each RAH fantasies, but his REAL fantasy was in IWFNE
Thundertek: Johan?
AGplusone: [Dave: I’m going to run a system log of the posts now … so I can attach it to the log … ]
dwrighsr: Thanks.
Major oz: ….even if he wasn’t himself at the time // yes — Johan
Thundertek: I mourn his passing – he was a master even when he was not at the top of his game
Major oz: By then, he was fearing death, and his nervous troubles had him really reaching for a solution.
Major oz: I agree, I have to visit Butler. I just moved to the vicinity a year ago and haven
Major oz: ‘t been there yet (hit wrong key)
Thundertek: I learned so much about him on the newsgroup that I didn’t know – even saw Mrs. Heinlein on there once – was a big thrill
Major oz: She drops in on us here from time to time
dwrighsr: I disagree. I don’t think he ever feared death. He had looked it in the face too many times.
Thundertek: God Bless her
Major oz: that is why we are mostly in bold print — she uses a reader.
Thundertek: Well then – God Bless Her!
Major oz: I agree he didn’t fear violent death, but I think he greatly feared the wither-away kind.
dwrighsr: She thanked me for posting the logs. She can read them better.
dwrighsr: Yeah. Fear isn’t the right word, but I certainly think he didn’t want to end that way.
Major oz: Having had a quad bypass last year, I can more easily understand that feeling.
Thundertek: Like all of us, I suppose he knew that “No one gets outta here alive.”
Major oz: yo
dwrighsr: Correct.
Major oz: As long as I don’t lose my zest.
dwrighsr: How come all the kids, Jimmy excepted, have called it a night and left it to us old codgers?
Thundertek: Are you folks regs on Alt.fan.heinlein?
Major oz: AG, was the last meeting about the Heinlein society?
AGplusone: Okay, sent. Do you need my backup of the log too.
AGplusone: We had a Board meeting last Friday …
Major oz: I get there some, but don’t post much.
dwrighsr: No thanks, I’ve got two copies. one here and one from MaiKoshT
Major oz: …..and…..?
Thundertek: I never post anymore – but I’ve been known to lurk
AGplusone: and are still in process of thrashing some stuff out, but will have full thing going in a couple weeks
AGplusone: It’s still being incorporated …
Major oz: I plan to get to Butler in the next month or so. Is there anything I can get for anyone?
AGplusone: Last AIM meeting, two weeks ago, was all concerned with the Society …
Major oz: I will have to dig out the logs, then.
AGplusone: I’d love a photo of that photo of Pixel that hangs in the library.
AGplusone: Dave has them posted
Major oz: Just got a scanner today.
AGplusone: rather: portrait (painting) of Pixel
AGplusone: scan of the photo of portrait will do nicely
AGplusone: Then I could replace the ‘pixel’ on my homepage with the real thing
Thundertek: Please say Hi to all my friends at AFH for me – Jani, Steve, Pixel et. al.
Major oz: What’s the background on the painting?
AGplusone: Jani asked me to give everyone her regrets. Guests at her home this week.
Major oz: When is the baby due?
AGplusone: Virginia tells me it was commissioned by the Board of Directors of the library before she left California …
AGplusone: and had to leave Pixel behind.
AGplusone: She decided Pixel was too old to uproute across the country and left him with neighbors
AGplusone: uproot
Major oz: ok
Thundertek: Pix is a cat I presume?
Major oz: tick, tick……I’m going to bed (and maybe finish the LAST volume of Turtledove’s Worldwar series)
Thundertek: Cats are territorial
dwrighsr: The Heinlein Society The Heinlein Society These are the links to the last
dwrighsr: discussion
AGplusone: Yes, the Pixel is the cat Robert immortalized in TCTWTW … night Oz. Thanks.
Major oz: se ya all (maybe Sat)
Major oz has left the room.
AGplusone: And the one Marleen wakes up in bed with … in Sail.
dwrighsr: Night
Thundertek: Hey – it was great to see you again after so many months
AGplusone: It has been …
Thundertek: I’ll try to drop by again soon
AGplusone: see you Saturday, everyone.
Thundertek: G’nite
dwrighsr: Good Night
AGplusone: Thursday, August 31, 200, 9:07 PM, PDT
AGplusone: closing log
Thundertek has left the room.
AGplusone: Goodnight, David … goodnight Chet.
dwrighsr: Good Night Mrs. Calabash whereever you are?
AGplusone: ” … and good night from ABC news.”
AGplusone: 😀
AGplusone: see ya Saturday, Dave
AGplusone: Got the posts okay?
dwrighsr: See you then. No sign yet from the posts. Suspect it will come in later.
AGplusone: I’ll check to see that I got it mailed correctly.
dwrighsr: Ok. Again Good Night
dwrighsr has left the room.
AGplusone has left the room.
Final End of Discussion Log
