Life’s Little Pitfalls
As I mentioned, I once had the opportunity to meet Roger
Zelazny. This was in the early 1990’s
-- there was a convention coming to my hometown, and I lived within walking distance
of the convention hall. This was no ordinary Con, however. Here would Roger
Zelazny first meet Erick Wujcik, who had taken Roger’s Chronicles of Amber,
and built a diceless role-playing game around them. As strange coincidence
would have it, I happened to be a hardcore Amber gamer, although I did not yet
have the appreciation for Roger’s works that I have now. I only knew Roger for
Amber, and my favorite of his short stories, “Divine Madness”, which appeared
in a wonderful volume called A Treasury of Modern Fantasy.
Now, at the time of these momentous events, I had recently become
the victim of corporate downsizing. My full-time job had suddenly become about
twelve hours a week…on a good week. I was barely feeding myself, and thanking
my stars that my ’79 Honda motorcycle and ’74 Plymouth Duster were both paid
for. At any given time, one or the other was usually running well enough to get
me to my miserable work (or to Amber gaming sessions) and back. There was no
way I could blow the ten bucks it would take to get in the door of the
convention. My friends were all impoverished students (bless their hearts), and
I had too much stupid, arrogant pride to ask my parents for ten lousy bucks. I
was yet in the shallow end of twenty-something, and still naïve enough to think
stoically, “Well, that’s okay, there will always be another day, another
opportunity.”
Roger Zelazny left us on June 14th, 1995.
I was going to leave it at that, but I have a small insight which
I have not seen elsewhere. As you may know, Roger served in one incarnation or
another of the United States Army for six years. At the time of this writing, I
have been on active duty for about five. I could not help but notice that
Roger’s flights of angels sung on the Army’s 220th birthday. I will
have to attend another 15 ceremonies on or around that date before I retire.
The Army’s birthday will be the last thing on my mind.
