On September 3, 1976—the day Viking 2 touched down successfully on the surface of Mars—I bellied up to a registration table in a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, to receive my name tag and program book for MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention. I was seventeen years old. Other than Jennifer Vozoff, with whom I had held hands on the school bus three days running when I was in third grade, I had not yet had a girlfriend.
I was a devoted reader of science fiction, but I had never been to a science fiction convention. Standing outside the Imperial Ballroom, waiting to get into the Opening Ceremonies, I looked around at the attendees, mostly male, and thought, What a bunch of unattractive geeks and social outcasts. (I would discover later that many male science fiction fans think this when first encountering other male science fiction fans.) The fellow I mainly recall had the signature unwashed, scraggly hair and was playing parodic tunes of his own invention on a portable keyboard powered by his breath. Whenever he removed the flexible hose from his mouth, a quarter cup of saliva would dribble over the mouthpiece. He called himself Filthy Pierre.