Years of thought and 18 months of planning went into the Series Book Convention in Charlottesville Virginia, and it was worth every bit of my energy. I throughly enjoyed the weekend, met some terrific people, renewed some old friendships, and got to see thousands of series books.
The convention really started for me Thursday night when my wife Estelle and I were the dinner guests of Tom Davis and Christine Gillespie. It was almost an out of body experience for me to sit across the table from Tom and listen to him talk about his years of collecting. The people he has known and the books he has owned. It was quite an evening and one Estelle and I enjoyed very much.
Friday afternoon I discovered that things were not going to unfold as I thought they would. I figured most people would get into Charlottesville around 5 or 6. Wrong. By 3:00, the place was crawling with dealers and I was buzzing around trying to get the sales tables arranged and just so.
Happily I had Mike Temares to lend a hand and we managed to squeeze in everyone.
By 4:00 the place was a hive. People were pouring through the doors with boxes of books and related equipment. Everyone was milling around looking into everyone elses boxes, and deals were being made left and right.
By 7:00 everything was pretty much in place though a couple of folks had not yet made it due to travel problems.
By about 9:30 or so the sandwich plate was in ruins and everybody was winding down from the afternoon and evening high of having so much fun. Since everyone was already set up it was obvious that there was no need to open up shop at 7:00 the next morning as I had planned. This decision was greeted with applause and we closed the doors on Day 1.
Saturday morning saw activity pick up again as there were programs pretty much nonstop from 10:30 through 5:00. Attendence by the public was steady though not in the numbers I would have liked to have seen. The local newspaper sent a reporter and a photographer to check out the show.
Saturday evening over 50 of us had dinner in a private room at a local restaurant. This was a great time for me. Just glancing around the room and seeing so many series book people was exciting. Hearing snippets of conversation from every direction about this hobby of ours was invigorating for me.
After dinner we headed back to the motel and many of us attended a forum hosted by Jenn Fisher in memory of Millie Benson. This was a fairly intense and emotional gathering and lead to some spirited exchanges regarding Millie and her rightful place in the Nancy Drew Pantheon.
After the conversation died down and most people went off to sleep, a Nancy Drew movie was popped in the VCR and a FEW of us watched Nancy catch the bad guys. I think there were only six of us who made it to the end. The only female of the group was Estelle and I think she went to sleep mid-way through. So five guys sat in the wee hours watching the silver flickers from 70 years or so ago. Day 2 ended with bleary eyes.
Sunday morning we gathered for donuts and bagels (Estelle was right: The bagels went first!) and the final day of Charlottesville 2002.
Several more programs were on tap for Sunday and they were well attended. Also the attendence in the sales room saw a boost thanks to the fine article across the front page of the B section in that morning's newspaper.
By 2:00 most of the activity was over as dealers loaded up and prepared to head back to the "real" world.
Estelle and I, along with Jenn Fisher, John Axe, Jim Ogden, Frank Kreiger, Neil Morrison and Megan Fleming, put the final touch on an outstanding weekend by having lunch at ChiChi's and exchanging some fantastic gossip and tale telling.
Now some pictures which I hope will convey the sense of fun and camaraderie that was present this past October in Charlottesville.
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