From Cowtown to Elfland

[jamesq]

Stream-of-Consciousness amongst the Elves.

Grey Mountain Holt had a huge impact on my life. The Holt (as I will call Grey Mountain Holt for the rest of this piece) continues to have an impact now, over ten years after it was official disbanded.

Prior to the Holt, I had few friends and all the socialization skills one comes to expect from a science geek whose weekly highlight was playing Star Fleet Battles in a friend's basement. Now or course I'm a social juggernaut – the friend of diplomats and statesmen and courted by princesses.

The first I had heard of ElfQuest was from my Sister's boyfriend, who loaned me a copy of ElfQuest book 2 (the original Starblaze edition), the Forbidden Grove collection as it would later be known. I devoured the book, but, being in junior high I had no way to afford it (it was $20 - a colossal amount by the standards of a boy whose disposable income came from delivering flyers). For the week I had the collection, I read and re-read it. To a kid who thought Chris Claremont was the epitome of comic book writing (I'm older and wiser now), it was like a revelation.

The nameless boyfriend and my sister broke up and I lost contact with what had been one of the coolest adults I had met. Imagine, a grown up who actually read comic books! This was around 1980, a time when my father hated the fact that I wasted money on that trash, so nameless' impact was pretty big. Nowadays I spend a king's ransom on comics, Role Playing Games and collectibles in a year – and my Dad thanks his lucky stars that I choose geekdom in those formative years, rather than drugs.

My next encounter with ElfQuest came when Marvel comics began reprinting the series (this would be around 1984, my sophomore year of high school). I began collecting it - I liked it of course, and it had a familiar ring to it that it would take me years to put my finger on (namely, that I had read some of it years earlier and subsequently forgot about it).

Not realizing that the Marvel comics were reprints, I mentioned to the guy who ran my comic shop (The late, lamented Comic Legends) that I was having a tough time waiting for the issues to come out.

"Why don't you buy the collections then?" he asked.
"Huh?" I intelligently answered.

So he took me to the expensive part of the store (which had the mysterious independent comics) and showed me the four Starblaze ElfQuest collections. Clouds parted and a ray of light fell on the books. In the distance, a choir of angels sang Hallelujah.

Still, I couldn't afford them. The books totaled about $100. Daryl (the shop owner) was kind enough to put the books in my box and let me buy them over the next few months in dribs and drabs – I would buy my regular comics, and any change left over was taken off the total. I also won $50 in a radio station contest, which knocked about two months of the time it took to buy the collections.

I devoured those books repeatedly. My friend Wayne thought I was nuts (he too had won $50 in the contest and spent his money on funk LP's, so he was hardly qualified to judge). This was too bad because I really wanted someone to talk to about ElfQuest. Someone who liked it as much as I did.

I joined the official ElfQuest fan club - this got me a so-called lifetime subscription to The Lodestone and a listing of every local fan club in the world. There was a "Grey Shadow" Holt listed for Calgary (a typo as it turned out, it was "Grey Mountain Holt" and the contact person was Ed aka "Grey Shadow". Ed had moved, so the address and phone number were incorrect. There was a local fan club, and I had no way of finding it - Arrgh!

A story of Grey Shadow and I:

Ed was over at my folk's place and my brother had moved back to Calgary after an eight year absence in Vancouver. Now to understand this story, you have to have a mental picture of Ed at the time: He had long straight black hair he kept in a simple pony tail that reached to the middle of his back. He was wearing grey (natch) clothing of the sort that well-appointed outdoors-men wear – i.e. he was buying his clothes at Mountain Equipment Coop before it became fashionable. Also, he has a rather weather-beaten complexion. In short, he looked native even though he's not.

My brother walks into the room. So I introduce them.

"Ed, meet my brother Bill. Bill, this is my friend Ed".

My brother looks at Ed and brightens up a bit. "What tribe are you from" He asks.

Ed, being a bit of a shit disturber, says "What tribe do you think I'm from" with a friendly lets-make-this-a-guessing-game tone.
Bill appraises him. For good measure he holds his chin and squints a bit. Finally, he says, "Are you Blackfoot" - like he had a clue what the differences between the local tribes are.
"Nope - guess again" says Ed, who was finding this all very amusing.
"He's Chinese", I blurt out, unable to watch this farce any longer. "Ed is Chinese forchrisake".

One day, while perusing The Sentry Box (back then it was about the size of a postage stamp, so browsing was easy - you stood in the middle of the store and turned around once) for Star Fleet Battles stuff, I saw a poster on the bulletin board that said something like:

Ayoah! Calling All Elves.

And there was contact information. I can't remember what happened exactly, but the poster didn't actually help. Either the phone numbers were incorrect, or messages didn't get forwarded to the right people, or I just plain chickened out. In any case, I wasn't going to see any Elves for a few months. That would be at Conversion 3, Calgary's SF convention.

Conversion 3 (held at the Carriage House Inn way back in 1986) was my first Science Fiction convention – it was also the first time I had ever met fellow ElfQuest fans. Namely the aforementioned Ed and Kim aka "Clearstone". I mentioned that I wanted to join their merry band and they took my name and phone number. And never got back to me. Turns out it wasn't a slight – it was just Ed's filing system. He put the phone number on his desk, where it was promptly subsumed into the sedimentary layers that make up any level surface in a Grey Shadow residence.

A story of Clearstone and I

We held a Holt meeting in Speakers Corner once (a portion of the student union building at the University of Calgary). Kim and I were sitting there chatting when Michael walked up to us with the cans of Coke we had asked him to fetch for us. He was carrying the two cans in a tower – holding the bottom can and keeping it level so the top can wouldn't fall. Unfortunately, he stumbled and the top can fell.

Now sometimes, when something falls, it lands gently, defying the odds. This was not one of those times. The Coke can fell hitting the side of the table like that guy at the climax of Titanic who jumps off the stern of the ship and hits the propeller on the way down, causing him to spin into the ocean. It (the can, not the guy) then hit a lower beam of the table and started spinning the other way. Finally it hit the floor at exactly the wrong angle, so that it made a great noise and spun quickly across the floor.

Simultaneously, Kim and I looked at Michael, and then looked at the rapidly departing can of Coke on the floor, then at each other.

We squinted at each other as we shared a telepathic moment – if it were a cartoon we would have shared a single thought balloon:

"Must get the other Coke first".

Lightning fast we both scrambled for the Coke that Michael was still holding in his hand.

I lost.

And the other Coke – the one that ended up being mine? I waited ten minutes for it to be "safe". It spewed when I opened it.

I tried again at NonCon 9, an Edmonton SF convention that was held a few months later. This time attending a panel on ElfQuest fandom given by the members of Grey Mountain Holt. I asked a few questions as a way of testing the waters. The bad news was that I was sitting directly underneath the microphone of a camcorder Tony aka "Quicksilver" was operating to record it all. It was set at a level sufficient to pick up the panel hosts (at the front of the room) and I have a voice that can be heard over an artillery barrage. What do you get when you cross "The Voice of GOD" with "dorky questions"? "The Voice of DORK" of course - as I discovered the first time I heard the tape.

I gave my number to Kim this time and she promised to let me know the next time there was a meeting. True to her word she called. After giving the timing and placement of the meeting she gave me this little warning:

"I'm not sure you'll like it – there's been an awful lot of arguing going on at the meetings recently"

"Don't worry – I like that sort of thing. It reminds me of family reunions", I said.

Little did I know that this, the first of many, many flip comments that were meant as a joke, was in fact taken seriously.

The appointed hour came, and I knocked on the door. There I was greeted by a vision of loveliness: A girl who didn't just look like a person in an elf costume – she actually looked elfin. Carrie aka "Breeze" was her name (and at the time "Breeze" was a very apt elfname – later she would change it to the equally appropriate "Thorn") and she was dressed as a Sun Folk elf. During the meeting, I must have gawked a bit because someone took me aside and mentioned that she was only 15 years old. "D'oh!" I thought.

A story of Thorn and I

Carrie walks into Gareth's apartment (where a group of us were hanging out) and asks "What time is it?"

Gareth says (looking at his watch) "It's 4:16".

She then looks at Troy. "No. It's 4:17" he says, looking at his watch.

She then looks at Gerry. "No, it's 4:16" he says, looking at his digital watch.

She then looks at Jason. "It is precisely 4:16:45 MARK" he says, looking at his digital watch that he keeps synchronized with an atomic clock (for astronomy purposes).

Frantic now, she looks at me. "It's quarter after", I say.

"THANK you" she says, with a tone that suggests that she and I are the only two people present who aren't freaks of nature.

And thus began my official membership in the Holt. The arguments I had heard about never actually materialized. The trouble-makers had left and the Holt entered what I think of as its golden age. I would occasionally take credit for this, but of course, it was just a coincidence.

So what did we do? We sure didn't discuss ElfQuest that much. Mostly we did what any group of friends did. Hung out, went to movies, talked. The difference is that the vast majority of people in the Holt were chronically shy – we needed the excuse of an "official" group to meet people we could be comfortable around. Don't knock it – I wasn't the only one who would have collapsed into a black hole of neuroses without the Holt.

My time at Grey Mountain Holt corresponded with my time in University. I grew up, learned a profession, and my social life became a calendar of Conventions, gaming and Holt meetings and Holt Events. And I enjoyed myself immensely. So did everyone else as near as I can remember. The Holt was growing and everything was a novelty.

I have a theory that people who became part of the Holt – as opposed to people who simply attended meetings – did so because they got involved in the secondary aspects of the Holt. I.e. if you were one of those who did stuff above and beyond the call of duty. If it weren't for Michael aka "Tempest" getting into trouble, I might not have had the opportunity to become more than just a member.

A story of Tempest, Whitefall and I

While walking down the street one day, Stephen aka "Whitefall" and I were playing a game of full-contact punch-buggy. This was getting on Michael's nerves as he was standing between us holding a Big Gulp. You see, every time a Beetle came into view; we would use Michael's body as cover while trying to wallop each other. Eventually, he had enough.

"Knock it off you two – no more punch-buggy. I mean it."

"But we're tied" we wailed!

"I don't care, just knock it off."

"Just one more – just to settle who's won"

"NO!"

Stephen and I gave each other a look signifying that the just-one-more rule was agreed upon.

We walked on for another block or so, when this beautiful white Volkswagen Beetle came around the corner, gleaming in the sun.

Forgoing safety for speed we both threw a punch at the other. Unfortunately, Michael's Big Gulp was in the way.

Simultaneously from left and right, two fists collided with the flimsy 1-liter soft drink container, squashing it between us. The liquid contents, having nowhere else to go, went up. Towards Michael's head.

Sploosh!

Stephen and I were frozen in position as we looked at Michael, who was now drenched in the cool, sticky remains of his soda pop.

Michael stood up straight, wiped his face off as best he could, took a deep breath, then annihilated each of us with lightning bolts that flashed out of his eyes, leaving piles of ash.

Michael's troubles occurred when the fourth issue of Grey Mountain Echos (the Holt's fanzine) was published. Assorted members of the Holt objected to some of things that were in GME and it was decided that the next issue should have a different editor. I volunteered, and ended up editing more issues of GME than anyone else – it also triggered my love for writing.

This being a retrospective, I can say now that the Earth-shattering problems of GME #4 have faded to the point where Michael had to actual remind me what they were – and hearing them made me think "is that all?". To borrow a phrase describing University politics – Fandom politics are the most vicious because the stakes are so low. Between this, earlier growing pains of the Holt, and a handful of members' parents thinking we were a cult (It was the eighties – even the crackpot anti-D&D crowd was getting press) the Holt was paranoid about being misunderstood.

To alleviate some of these problems The Holt decided to create a charter. Having demonstrated an ability to both write and volunteer for thankless tasks, I was chosen to write it (with lots of input from the Holt executive). The rules were overly long, overly detailed and overly anal – and this is the opinion of the person who wrote them. Nazrat suggested (shortly after reading the completed rules) that ninety percent of it could have been replaced with a single clause. The other ten percent were just administrative BS. If I were to write the rules now they would look like this:

• Membership fees are X dollars a year – that allows you to attend Holt meetings and receive every issue of GME that is published during the year.
  
• If you engage in behavior unbecoming a member of the Holt, we'll vote to kick you out.

I wrote a humorous addendum to the rules called the Q-Rules. I found a copy a few years ago – let's just say the humour was somewhat dated and leave it at that.

The editing/writing did keep me in the thick of Holt politics. I was named a Holt Elder (i.e. a member of the executive). This was the opportunity I needed to put in a whole dollar whenever I was asked for my two cents worth. It also had Michael and I at each others throats for about a year (We had both run for Chieftain that year – Michael won and I lost). I can't even remember what we argued about – so clearly my objections couldn't have been that urgent. It was another case of the stakes being low and I regret not being more laid back then.

That year also boasted one of the richest in terms of fun. We did a lot of stuff together, and really, that was what it was all about. That year was a blur of conventions, gaming and socializing. We also managed to impress other Holts with the huge (by the standards of ElfQuest fandom) number of memberships we had, as well as the length of time we had been around. We joked that in Calgary; the one Holt kept getting bigger, but in Winnipeg they kept getting more Holts (as we found out at Keycon).

The two big events (other than conventions) each year was Summer Feast - A picnic held at Edworthy Park more often then not - and Postice. Summer Feast didn't always happen as it was during the summer (duh). Many people were on vacation and out of town. Postice was held every year, and even outlived the Holt by ten years (2002 was the first time Postice was not held since the inception of the Holt).

A Tale of Summer Feast

Summer Feast was usually begun with a scavenger hunt/obstacle course/treasure hunt. This was a lot of fun for the organizers (Sue and Rose as well as myself) – I sometimes wonder how much fun it was for the participants, given some of the bratty things we would make them do.

Troy, Michael and Marci had to fetch Slurpee's for the organizers – along with some other oddball items. One thing they needed to bring was "something phallic". Troy brought Gareth's disturbingly shaped cactus.

One group (which included Jason) was made to walk from the river valley to the prairie above, via a very steep incline. Then they had to do it again. As you may well imagine, there was some bitching afterwards.

Bruce and Brian were told to follow Ronna and Kristiina, but not to allow themselves to be seen. Turns out that was fairly simple as Ronna and Kristiina wouldn't have noticed if they were walking through a stampede of purple squid wearing party favours. For example, whenever the girls turned around, Brian and Bruce would hide – in absurdly obvious ways. Brian diving to the ground like he was trying to cover a grenade, Bruce standing in the middle of the path stock-still with his arms in a "Y" while thinking "I'm a tree" really hard.

Originally, we wanted to have a celebration for the winter solstice. Solstice was always too close to Christmas though, so our attempts to hold it on time always failed. The week between Christmas and New Year's Eve was out, because people were busy. Also, finding party space on New Year's Eve was next to impossible. So the celebration usually took place on the first Sunday after New Year's Eve. It was initially named Post-solstice, but was quickly shortened to Postice.

Postice was always a blast (at least for me). Sometimes it was at one lucky person's house, other times we held it at the Queensland Community center (and kudos to Carmen and Graham for managing that).

A Tale of Postice

I remember that the tables were covered with white construction paper and that the room was well-supplied with crayons/markers/pencils. After people ate, I went around collecting all the assorted doodles. They appeared in the next newsletter. That remains the single easiest time I ever had getting people to cough up submissions.

In addition to eating well, Postice also had a charity auction (proceeds generally went to the food bank, but occasionally went to other local charities). The auction was fun because of the interaction between the auctioneers and the audience – sadly, it tended to drag on too long. In the post-Holt era it became a get-rid-of-your-junk trade off.

The year after, I was elected chief to replace Michael. But something had changed, the Holt things just didn't seem important anymore, not to me or to anyone else. Meetings were sparsely attended by the same group of diehards. It was harder and harder to get submissions to the newsletter, which is not to say that people weren't being creative – They had just drifted away from ElfQuest as a focus for their energies.

It was also too hard for new people to join – and we did get a few tryouts every year, right up until the end. The Holt had become a clique, and strangers to the group felt more like outsiders than fellow ElfQuest fans. Consequently, they came, they saw, they went away.

Grey Mountain Holt had grown up, and the people that made it up no longer needed a crutch to maintain their friendships with each other. With moderate fanfare, I dissolved the Holt. Grey Mountain Holt – it was a great organization while it lasted and I will always be grateful that it existed.