Meskcon

Meskcon was a series of visits/relaxacons by fans to Ed Meskys' house in Center Harbor, NH. Visitors usually included a large contingent from NESFA plus more from the New York area.

Charlie Brown reported [paragraphing and footnotes added!] on one in 1968:

On July 13th, the weekly Meskcon (Ed doesn’t realize this yet) had its true start. (The week before eight of us had invaded Ed’s New Hampshire home. For eight people he had on table, one bag of potato chips.) "Thirty six people" said Ed. "I guess I should get two bags of potato chips?" When we got to Ed’s drive, a long-private hill, we mistook it for a parking lot. But seeing a pup tent on the lawn, we were reassured. By devious driving, we reached the house. The first thing we saw was a sign saying NESFA. After exploring the house and finding it deserted, we discovered a note under the NESFA sign. It said, Go to blinking light, turn right, head for Long Island. Long Island? But we Just drove 307 miles from N.Y.

Well, we followed Ed’s directions and twenty minutes later we found Long Island, New Hampshire, a nice sand bottom lake, and most of NESFA. We also found Ed, rocking to and fro in the water like a giant sea horse. It’s difficult to play chaos when wearing contact lenses said he. Hello said we, and, with these words we were bombarded by people, water and basketball. Well, we survived and returned to Ed’s. Out of the water, we found our crew had not shrunk but seemed rather, to have increased in dimension. It included such tri-di types as Tony and Sue Lewis, Cory Seidman, Frank Prieto, our middle of the road driver, the Galvins, Dave and Leslie, who showed up late, having climbed Mt, Washington in a car. They even had a certificate to prove it. And then again, there was us that, of course means the Browns. (A typewriter is worth a thousand pens, my cutting remark for the page.) 

Speaking of typewriters, for those of you who read things in parentheses (if spelled wrong, blame it on Ed) would you believe that we had three of them going almost constantly? Yes, by dint of our long suffering, coolie labor, Ed was able to say that Tolkien Journal and part of next Niekas were ready to print. The other major occupation, aside from fighting bugs, eating, playing Spite and malice, and other such hard work, was burning things. Ed has a fireplace. The preceding week he had almost burned the house down by closing the damper. Then we discovered that Tony Lewis likes to burn things. So Ed saved his garbage all week, there being no garbage pick up in places like Center Harbor, (apparently, it is a big thrill for the whole family to take the garbage to the town town dump once a week) and Tony spent the weekend burning anything he could get his hands on. If any girls were scorched, we didn’t hear their flaming rejoinders. 

Sunday morning, we all went to sleep, but when Ed got up at six it roused everyone else. Basically this was because he tripped on their bodies on the way out. The first awesome sight of the day was thirty six people waiting on line for one bathroom. Many ate breakfast before they reached their destination. Those who didn’t were probably recovering from the ice cream sundae orgy of the night before. Have you ever had dessert at an ice cream shmorgasbord? (Remember, blame Ed.) It’s messy but delicious. 

Sunday, not sundae, was memorable for its NESFA meeting, which I can’t tell you a thing about since I stayed outside for its duration. Between the meeting, frisby, and a late swimming party, the afternoon vanished, and as evening thudded down, we found ourselves departing, leaving behind one Ed Meskys, a bedraggled lawn, and a week's worth of cleaning. Those of you who read Instant Message will have seen Ed's encyclopedia length Found List. After a stop off in Boston, where we escaped the clutches, gears, wheels, etc. of NESFA. we meandered home, sleepy but convinced that the next Meskcon would be equally successful.

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	1968

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