Winkie Convention Countdown: 26 Days to Go

The year was 1984, and we had nothing to worry about from Big Brother after all. I had just graduated from high school, the convention had moved to a new site on the central California coast, and for the first time, I was going to fly! Air fares were cheap, and I somehow managed to get a cheap fair on the right dates from Seattle all the way through to Monterey. I'd flown once before as a very small child, but this was my first time that I could remember. It was fine, of course. Asilomar proved to be a great location — so good that we haven't moved since, and this may be the longest any Oz convention has been held at a single location — and being down by the Pacific Ocean rather than up in the Sierra Nevada mountains made it a lot easier for more people to go, so we had a bigger crowd. This was the convention where I first met John Fricke, and he surprised me by introducing himself to me, and knew who I was! I guess I was starting to make a name for myself in Oz circles — plus, John's just that kind of guy. I also remember some of the entertainment, notably a production of the 1913 play The Tik-Tok Man of Oz with my friend Rob as the Shaggy Man and my new friend John Fricke wearing my costume (well, Karyl made it, I just wore it for the costume parade) as Private Files. The other bit was from a publicist from Disney, who presented some behind-the-scenes footage from a new movie, scheduled to come out the next year, that was then called Oz. And I think I will leave it at that, as it leads in nicely to tomorrow's post.