Of a Feather with Dave Kyle

By John Hertz: In case you, like me, couldn’t be with Dave Kyle in person for his 96th birthday (gosh) last weekend, here’s the verse thing I could think of to send him.

Happy birthday to you!
Hooray for First Fandom too.
We’re behind you in the relay race
Joining the old and the new.

First Fandom is the few, the happy few, active at least as early as the first World Science Fiction Convention, 1939.

I keep saying grab that torch.

While in Japan as a delegate to the Yokohama Worldcon, I kept meeting the proverb on ko chi shin “study the old to appreciate the new”.

First Fandom is fond of calling itself dinosaurs, possibly because dinosaurs were mighty and children seem to love them.  Since dinosaurs are apparently the ancestors of birds I ought to have gotten in something about flocking together.  I did with my Lloyd Penney song.

One thought on “Of a Feather with Dave Kyle

  1. Kornbluth wrote about this:

    Hokku in Farewell:
    This ash, this burned match,
    Queen of spades left with tight frown,
    Be happy for us.

    We do not come again.
    We do not come. Ever again.

    The Ivory Tower Goetterdammerung, September 19, 1940
    (Quoted by Damon Knight, THE FUTURIANS)

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