My life has been crazy busy the last few years, dealing with both Laura's health and my career finally taking off in a very good way. This poor blog has been neglected, being little more than a repository for the latest Oz cartoons.
That changes now—at least temporarily. This has been in the works for well over a year, and the time has finally come. It all started with an invitation by Dina Schiff Massachi to pitch some panels for CharlOz, a big interdisciplinary conference about The Wizard of Oz. I figured nothing ventured nothing gained, and sent in about a half dozen proposals. I knew Dina was aiming at a more general crowd than the usual Oz convention, and especially wanted material that would appeal to teachers, so I sent in a few ideas, and two were accepted.
Oh, shoot! Now I have to go! And since it's in September, that means going during the school year! But my bosses not only told me to go for it, they gave me their blessing and even got the company publicity department involved. (More on that later, I suspect.) I also crunched the numbers, and found that my new job gave me enough room in the budget to do something wild like this. So I was going to North Carolina! My first trip to the east coast! (Sadly, too far away to actually see the Atlantic Ocean.) And hey, I thought to myself, I can probably even go to the old Land of Oz Park in North Carolina for one of their Autumn in Oz weekends.
But a problem arose: The Land of Oz wasn't going to be open that weekend. CharlOz was a week later than their last weekend! But this was too good of a chance to pass up. Why would I go that close, in both time and location, and not go to the park? So I did some more number crunching and figuring things out. Yes, I could make it that last weekend, spend a few days in North Carolina (I work remotely, so I can do my job anywhere), and even miss one day less of work. I went for it, and got a ticket for the final Sunday of Autumn in Oz, which is now in only two days. The Oz trip of my lifetime (so far) was on!
There are a few other surprises coming up this week, and I will do my best to tell you about them as the come up. But tonight I'm heading to Seattle to get my flight to Charlotte, via Dallas-Fort Worth (incidenally, my first ever trip to Texas). But a few weeks ago, I realized that this was an especially appropriate year for me to go on this trip. It was in 1974 when my third grade teacher, Mrs. Hanford, read The Wizard of Oz to us in class, and I got interested in the collection of Oz books in her room. I picked up the Rand McNally paperback for myself, and got a bunch of the rest of the books at Christmas. So 1974 was the year I became an official full-fledged Oz fan, which means I have now been an Oz fan for fifty years.
You get to celebrate with me! I am going to be busy this coming week, but I will do my best to share what I'm doing. I am really excited, and I don't have to wait much longer!
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