On the Road to Gencon, Interstate 57, Dave Trampier and 25 Years

We left Little Rock in the late morning in a truck loaded with books, racks, luggage, a cooler of Dr. Pepper, and all the other sundries one takes on the road. We crossed the Upper Delta of Arkansas, those flat lands of rice fields and soy beans, first on 40 and then hanging a left onto 55 and on up to the show me state. Crossing into Missouri somewhere after noon we headed on to Sikeston. The weather was amazing. Blue skies as far as one can see, dotted by clouds here and there, only interrupted by Dakota’s rambling observations about this, that, and the other.

Dodging out of Sikeston, we hit 57 north and in short order crossed the Mississippi River. I only took a glance at the muddy waters, as my mind was lost in the trip I took on that same highway quite a few years ago, when I was looking for Dave Trampier.

For those who don’t know Dave, you should look him up. He is a bit of a legend in the old world. The writer and artist of Wormy, a smart talking, pool playing dragon, that appeared in the old Dragon magazines. Really good stuff. Dave had a falling out with the industry back in the woebegone days of the early 80s and vanished. No one knew where he was.

It was the early oughts, ‘03 or ‘04 I can’t remember now, and TLG was still very young and looking for what, we still didn’t know. Mac Golden, one time partner in TLG and longtime friend of me and the Trolls, was a huge fan – we all were/are – and he suggested, since we were working with Gary Gygax that I try to find Dave. That’s an idea I thought! I set about to see what I could turn up. We were working with quite a few of the old TSR people in those days so I thought surely someone would know something. After some polite questions, I got wind that he had gone down to Cairo, Illinois where he was driving a taxi for the Yellow Cab company.

I don’t rightly remember which convention I was going to, I was alone, so it probably wasn’t Gencon, it was probably the Alliance Open House or more likely a convention up in Fort Wayne Indiana called Pentacon or some such. Be that as it may, it took me up 57, right past Cairo. Right over the river, I detoured and cut down the ramp into Cairo hoping I could run into Dave.

I quickly found the shell of the Yellow Cab Company, it was either out of business or closed (out of business I think) so I took it on myself to poke around and see if I could find some rumor of him. I ate lunch at a small diner and asked about him. No one had heard of him of course. I drove around a bit to see if something might turn up. Cairo has seen better days for sure. I drove down an empty main street, old brick buildings standing stark under a lonely, calm, too-quiet sky. They must have been beautiful in their day, something to behold. I stopped for a long while and just looked at these old brick facades. The failed attempts to bring them back to life. The hoped for renaissance that all small towns enjoy, where hope forever flourishes.

I’m rather fond of buildings.

After musing for a bit, I fired up old blue (my truck) and set to leave town. As I rolled up the street I noticed an old dusty shop with huge store front windows. In it, looking out at me, was a large cut-out of a weird looking troll. I stopped and stared at it. There was no one else it could have been but Dave. His work that is. Pulling over, I jumped out to get a closer look. Pressing my face against the dirty window I could see no one had been in the building in a forever of Sundays. There was junk here and there. Maybe an old flea market, that last dying gasp of hope of many a small-town building.

There was no sign of anyone. No sign of occupancy on that day or for a host of days preceding it. It was Dave, of that I had no doubt, he had been there. Once. For certain.

I drove around a bit, asked a few people who owned the shop, I could turn up nothing on the brief search. Time was pressing and I had a show to get to, so reluctantly headed back to 57. I knew he had been there. Once. I took off, hitting 57 north.

On the same road Dakota and I were on. As I left my reverie the Big Muddy was long behind us and we were well on the road to our return to Gencon.

We drove on through the afternoon, stopping for gas and some eats a few times. The skies opened as we crossed into Indiana in the early evening, dumping water in sheets. At last, a few miles south of town, we pulled into a La Quinta Inn for some rest and lodging.

Another journey in the long list of 25 years of such journeys. Also looking for something or someone I suppose. This one our return to Gencon.

I should note that I eventually found Dave Trampier. He was living in Carbondale Illinois, driving a cab. I talked to him briefly, sent him several letters, trying to engage him in bringing back Wormy or something similar. He politely asked me, in a beautifully written letter, to stop contacting him. I did of course. He’s crossed over now, passed some years ago, like many an old brick building in every town you’ve ever been in.

The Saucer's Unique Spin

 As I wander ever deeper into the world of UFO sightings I keep finding ever more interesting parcels of information. For instance, a Japanese astronomer noted, in 1949, a giant explosion on Mars (December 9 I think). He theorized that it had to be an atomic explosion because of the size of the dust cloud. Were the saucers coming from Mars?

There are hosts of these small things that roll across the pages.

That aside, I found fascinating the question  "why the flying saucer?" Why the unique shape for this particular craft that was spotted so many hundreds of times. Buried in the text of "Flying Saucers from Outer Space" was a short essay in the guise of a Q/A with the author and a Canadian scientist. 

Set aside the possibilities of visual anomalies, and wander back to the 1950s, fresh from World War 2 when jet engines were barely 5 years old and the Atomic Age only just beginning. Bi-planes, single engine, jet planes, all have a distinctive reasoned shape. But the saucers that suddenly appeared. Why the saucers? Its that shape that gives them their speed.

The saucers all moved at tremendous speeds. They changed colors, blue, red, what have you and even though the footage from those days we have these saucers doesn't show it (see below), they seem to spin.

The saucers are able to achieve such considerable speed because they use a magnetic sink to propel themselves forward. This "sink" creates a flux in the earth's magnetic sphere into which the craft is propelled. The sink also provides the ship with electrical power. A ring built around the ship, giving it the distinctive saucer shape, channels the energy through and behind it, again propelling it forward. The craft must spin in order to avoid building up too large a charge. The changing colors are a reflection of the speed that craft is achieving.

It reads a little better than that and like really cool science fiction, something you might find in the upcoming Star Siege, but what is really fascinating is the amount of energy put into trying to decipher what was being seen.

I love this concept, though I'm not sure how grounded in science a magnetic sink is or what it would mean for travel through the atmosphere. It sure would explain a lot though!

Regardless of why, there certainly were alot of saucer sightings in the 1950s.

Look! Look! They are Here!

I'm still looking for a good history of the UFO phenomena in the United States and beyond. Preferably one that begins in the post war period, the "Atomic Age" (what a great name for an age too, we are stuck in the Information Age, or have we left that and entered some other dystopian Age as yet uncatagorized) and carries it through to at least the 1980s. These years seem to be the golden years of UFO sightings and reportings. 

Sans that history I have begun gathering books written on the topic, but starting at the beginning, or as close to it as I can. I'm currently reading Flying Saucers from Outer Space. Written in 1953 by Donald Keyhoe, it is an interesting catalog of conversations that supposedly happened between the writer, a retired Air Force Colonel, and a host of Air Force officials throughout 1952-1953. He is trying to get the air force to admit what everyone "in the know" already realizes, that the flying saucers are real and they come from out space. Turns out this is not the first book written on the phenomena by Keyhoe, as he had previously published a book The Flying Saucers are Real* that only appeared in limited number in paper back. That book is in route to me now.

There is a sense of urgency about this book, Flying Saucers. Every page wants to leap out at you, to grab you by the collar, jerk your head to the heavens and say "look! look! they are coming!" There is an almost frantic need to get the truth out there, to let everyone know about the coming contact. There's not the hint of fear, only an unsettled certainty of what is coming and bracing for it. barely a half decade from a devastating world war and in the midst of the Korean War there is no trepidation, only hurry up, tell us the truth.

I've yet to finish it, but the half I've read carries the same tone, the same feeling to it. I can't imagine it will change pace. Keyhoe wrote science fiction as well, or maybe this is, and his pacing is very good, his hand on the doorknob is spot on.

I wonder what it was like to pull this book off the shelf in 1954 and start reading it. Atomic testing was on the way. The Soviets were building an arsenal, the US was detonating missiles, a whole new style of living was unfolding in the US. In a world of total uncertainty and constant change, where all you had for information was the steady hand of a writer (who, if nothing else, had to take the time to write something several hundred pages longer than a wiki article) to tell you what was up. 

I wonder what it was like to look up at the heavens in 1953.

The truth is out there. But who has it? Its hard to say.

* Turns out what is really needed is a historiography of the literature on the phenomena, a project that might be a good toe in door project for Chenault & Gray Publishing, our parent company.