Baycon Reminiscence (Pohl)

1968 -- Baycon, Oakland by Frederik Pohl From the Noreascon Three PB

At Baycon there were two things that were always in the air, wherever you went. One was music -- well, they called it music; anyway, the old hotel was rattling with the sound of acid rock, all night long -- and the other was a gift from the Berkeley campus, just down the hill. Those were the days of campus riots, and what we got from them was the faint and inescapable aroma of tear gas. What I remember best is the banquet, partly because I got my third editorial Hugo there, even more because of Phil Farmer's GoH speech. He devoted a large part of it to denouncing John W. Campbell, Jr., who happened to be sitting at our table; so I had the chance of watching John's face all through the long address. John was a real gentleman about it all. He listened with full attention, and if he was boiling inside his expression was always polite. But then John W. Campbell, Jr. was a class act from the beginning -- most of the time.

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