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puppetmakerOn May 26th of this year it will be our 10th Wedding Anniversary so in celebration of this I am doing a series of entries about Peter and me. There might be double entries on a couple of days or I might put the weekly stuff on hiatus. I am still deciding. But this next week I am writing about my husband and me.
Today’s topic is how we met
Peter and I first met at the 1992 Atlanta Fantasy Fair, which was being held out at the airport Hilton. I was stage managing something or other at that point so I wasn’t around in the evenings but there during the day. I entered the art show for the first time and got my artist ribbon which made me feel very good. I hadn’t gotten one of those before.
AFF for me was the go to convention from high school all the way through college. We, being my siblings and friends, would save and plan for it most of the year. It was the one of three times of the year I would see a number of people that I called friend. The others were ChattaCon and LibertyCon with an occasional KublaKhan thrown in for good measure. But unlike the other conventions, AFF was media and comic heaven. I got my Buckaroo Banzai headband there. I had met Chris Clairmont and Stan Lee there. We gamed and we ruled the costume call which was one of the biggest in the Southeast with its own rules and rituals (Tastes Great/Less Filling). It was our con. I was in grad school up at Yale when the whole DragonCon/AFF thing went down so I only know what happened from hearsay. I got back from Yale and started going to both convention.
This was my first time showing my puppets to the public. I had done a set of Klingon puppets (or the Klingon quartette as I liked to call them) for sale. I had painstakingly recreated everything I could find in magazines and photos. (before the Internet kids when research costumes could be very time and money consuming) I had the Klingons, Barnabus and Quentin Collins, and one or two other puppets. Somewhere I have a picture of the display but it is lost at this point. Two things happened that weekend that I will always remember. The first is that the Klingons won a ribbon for best 3-D and the second is that I met Peter.
Now the puppets in the Art Show were for sale. I had stated, time permitting, that each came with a half hour lesson in how to operate it. I can teach just about anyone how to operate a simple hand and rod puppet in half an hour and proved it more than once over the year. I came back to the convention Sunday Morning to pack up the Art Show. I had a show that evening so I was kinda on the clock. I was greeted by the con committee who, very excitedly informed me that Peter David had bought one of my puppets. I thought, “Yea! A Sale!” but the reason that they had come to find me was that Peter wanted the lesson since he was going to use that puppet in a sketch he was doing at another convention called Shoreleave. We worked out the schedule and I agreed to meet Peter at his table in the dealers room.
Peter was seated behind a table with his daughter Shana. We shook hands and I pulled out a couple of simple puppets for all of us and proceeded to teach him and Shana how to operate the puppets. I spent more time teaching Shana because Peter had to keep pulling out his hand to autograph various things for fans. I wasn’t paying much attention to that because I was busy in teaching mode. We had a good time playing around with the puppets. I had to go because of the show so we again shook hands and parted ways.
On the way to the show I was puzzling through why the con committee had sought me out to make sure that Peter got his lesson. I knew from his badge that Peter was one of the guests of honor at the convention. But I couldn’t place the name.
I did the show and went home to collapse after a very long week but before I went to sleep I looked up at my bookshelf which was in my room. On the top shelf were my Star Trek Books that I had bought over the years. On the top of the stacks were my favorites of the series. I glanced over a title “Q-in-Law by Peter David”. The bolt of realization hit and I said out loud to no one, “Oh THAT Peter David.” Peter David the clever writer who had written some of my favorite Star Trek Books and the Hulk among other things. It did amaze me how much over the next couple of months his name kept popping out at me in various places.
We would run into each other at conventions and catch up on news. We became what I call convention buddies. We would make time at a convention to at least have a conversation if not a meal with other friends. He introduced me to some of his friends and I introduced him to some of mine. He bought a couple of custom puppets from me over the years for friends. And that’s how it was for the next 5 years.
Tomorrow Our First Real Date
I am grateful that I went to that Atlanta Fantasy Fair.
Today’s topic is how we met
Peter and I first met at the 1992 Atlanta Fantasy Fair, which was being held out at the airport Hilton. I was stage managing something or other at that point so I wasn’t around in the evenings but there during the day. I entered the art show for the first time and got my artist ribbon which made me feel very good. I hadn’t gotten one of those before.
AFF for me was the go to convention from high school all the way through college. We, being my siblings and friends, would save and plan for it most of the year. It was the one of three times of the year I would see a number of people that I called friend. The others were ChattaCon and LibertyCon with an occasional KublaKhan thrown in for good measure. But unlike the other conventions, AFF was media and comic heaven. I got my Buckaroo Banzai headband there. I had met Chris Clairmont and Stan Lee there. We gamed and we ruled the costume call which was one of the biggest in the Southeast with its own rules and rituals (Tastes Great/Less Filling). It was our con. I was in grad school up at Yale when the whole DragonCon/AFF thing went down so I only know what happened from hearsay. I got back from Yale and started going to both convention.
This was my first time showing my puppets to the public. I had done a set of Klingon puppets (or the Klingon quartette as I liked to call them) for sale. I had painstakingly recreated everything I could find in magazines and photos. (before the Internet kids when research costumes could be very time and money consuming) I had the Klingons, Barnabus and Quentin Collins, and one or two other puppets. Somewhere I have a picture of the display but it is lost at this point. Two things happened that weekend that I will always remember. The first is that the Klingons won a ribbon for best 3-D and the second is that I met Peter.
Now the puppets in the Art Show were for sale. I had stated, time permitting, that each came with a half hour lesson in how to operate it. I can teach just about anyone how to operate a simple hand and rod puppet in half an hour and proved it more than once over the year. I came back to the convention Sunday Morning to pack up the Art Show. I had a show that evening so I was kinda on the clock. I was greeted by the con committee who, very excitedly informed me that Peter David had bought one of my puppets. I thought, “Yea! A Sale!” but the reason that they had come to find me was that Peter wanted the lesson since he was going to use that puppet in a sketch he was doing at another convention called Shoreleave. We worked out the schedule and I agreed to meet Peter at his table in the dealers room.
Peter was seated behind a table with his daughter Shana. We shook hands and I pulled out a couple of simple puppets for all of us and proceeded to teach him and Shana how to operate the puppets. I spent more time teaching Shana because Peter had to keep pulling out his hand to autograph various things for fans. I wasn’t paying much attention to that because I was busy in teaching mode. We had a good time playing around with the puppets. I had to go because of the show so we again shook hands and parted ways.
On the way to the show I was puzzling through why the con committee had sought me out to make sure that Peter got his lesson. I knew from his badge that Peter was one of the guests of honor at the convention. But I couldn’t place the name.
I did the show and went home to collapse after a very long week but before I went to sleep I looked up at my bookshelf which was in my room. On the top shelf were my Star Trek Books that I had bought over the years. On the top of the stacks were my favorites of the series. I glanced over a title “Q-in-Law by Peter David”. The bolt of realization hit and I said out loud to no one, “Oh THAT Peter David.” Peter David the clever writer who had written some of my favorite Star Trek Books and the Hulk among other things. It did amaze me how much over the next couple of months his name kept popping out at me in various places.
We would run into each other at conventions and catch up on news. We became what I call convention buddies. We would make time at a convention to at least have a conversation if not a meal with other friends. He introduced me to some of his friends and I introduced him to some of mine. He bought a couple of custom puppets from me over the years for friends. And that’s how it was for the next 5 years.
Tomorrow Our First Real Date
I am grateful that I went to that Atlanta Fantasy Fair.
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