  My friend Lynn Hickman died October
30, 1996, at age 70, just eight short weeks after having been diagnosed with lung
cancer. Sometime during the first week in August, Lynn decided that he wasn't
feeling well. He also decided that he did not have an ordinary cold or even
bronchitis or even pneumonia. It might just be something more serious. So, by his
own standards, he did something very drastic: he stopped smoking -- this, after
being a smoker for his entire adult life. As the reader has already surmised, this
action was much too late.His wife, Carolyn, also aware things
were not well, kept urging him to see his doctor. In early September, he finally
did. Cancerous spots were located on his lungs and it was discovered that he had
second stage emphysema as well as blood clots in his legs. It was determined that
he was not a candidate for surgery, and was put on radiation treatments instead. A
second examination after the radiation course revealed that the cancer had made
considerable growth and the doctor gave him two to six months to live. Lynn cut
that to eight days by eating and drinking almost nothing.But that is quite enough of his death.
Let us now examine in some length his life and times. Lynn Hickman was born June
5th, 1926. He grew up with the pulps and science fiction fandom. He was truly a
man of his times.Lynn's early career in fandom took
the form of writing letters to the pulps and to fans whose letters he enjoyed
reading in their letters columns. He had made a conscious effort not to attend a
science fiction convention, although he did enjoy reading about the antics of fans
who did. All this changed when Cincinnati won the right to hold the 1949 Worldcon,
but even with Cincinnati winning, Lynn was still not sure he wanted to attend a
meeting at which he might encounter over a hundred people, even if all of them would
be fans! Now, I'm sure that many reading this who knew Lynn may well be astounded
by that statement. But the truth is that Lynn never liked being with a lot of fans
at one time. This is the reason why he attended very few Worldcons during his last
fifteen years. What probably made him decide to attend the Cinvention was that his
good correspondent buddy, Don Ford, was to be the chair -- that and the fact that
the convention hotel in downtown Cincinnati had beds that pushed into the wall. In
later years as he told and retold this story, it was not possible to determine which
one of the two reasons had the most weight, but I do believe that it was the bed in
the wall that pushed him over the edge, so to speak.It turned out that Lynn had a great
time at Cinvention. When Portland won the right to hold the 1950 Worldcon, he felt
that it was just too far to go for a weekend and stayed home. But in 1951, he
decided that New Orleans was not too far, and besides, his favorite music, Dixieland,
was played all over town there. And so he went. After attending those two worldcons
and a couple of Midwestcons (including the first one) there was no turning back. In
later years he was proud that he had only missed one Midwestcon!I suppose it's possible that Lynn
will be remembered as a fan legend. His accomplishments in fandom are themselves
certainly legendary. In the summer of 1950, Wilkie Conner came to visit Lynn in
Statesville, North Carolina, where Lynn was living at the time. They decided to
form a club that would give solace and unification to people who were stared at by
mundanes as if they were little monsters when they were seen reading prozines, and
gave it the whimsical name of 'The Little Monsters of America'. The club lasted
for over a decade and sponsored some small conferences. There was even a club
fanzine. And in October of 1958, Lynn was present at a meeting that established an
even more famous fan group: First Fandom.From reading various things after he
died, I learned that Lynn first published a fanzine sometime during 1950. Over the
next forty-five-plus years he published many fanzines and apazines. The two main
titles of his general interest fanzines were J.D. Argassy and Pulp Era.
Pulp Era was his serious zine, devoted to discussions of all of the pulp
magazines. Pulp Era was considered an important fanzine for that reason, so
much so that copies of all of the Pulp Eras are now in the Library of
Congress.
In 1972, Lynn invited four other pulp
collectors to spend a weekend with him at his home in Wauseon, Ohio, to discuss all
aspects of the pulps. At the end of the weekend, two of the others, Gordon Huber
and Rusty Hevelin, decided with Lynn that this one-shot was too much fun to let die,
so they made plans to hold a second one in nearby Toledo. This was the start of the
annual Pulpcon conventions. Lynn was only involved with Pulpcon's operations in its
formative years, but he always remained loyal to it, attending over half of the
meetings. He and Darrell Richardson have been Pulpcon's only two Fan Guests of
Honor. Sometime in the 1980s, Lynn was the receiver of the Lamont Award, which is
given each year to the person who has made major contributions to the world of pulp
magazines. In 1987, he talked 24 other pulp collectors into participating in an apa
devoted to pulp magazines. He was its first editor.In addition to J.D. Argassy
and Pulp Era, Lynn published many fanzines with often interesting names:
Pack Rat, Wauseon Wonder Stories, Huckleberry Finnzine, The
Goody Gumdrop Boys at Jellybean Mountain, and Gooseberries. His reason
for using Gooseberries as a title was he liked gooseberry pie and once made
several bottles of excellent wine from the gooseberries in his backyard.I first met Lynn at the first Nolacon,
where he was the very first fan introduced there. It was friend for life at first
contact. Between 1951 and about 1965 our contact was limited to the conventions
that we attended, but after that, he, I and our wives spent at least fourteen
weekends a year together. In addition to the many hours that we spent at his
kitchen table after our wives had gone to bed, we were privileged to spends many
hours in bars in England, Scotland, New Zealand, and Australia. During these
'discussions', we would argue over the smallest details to the point that anyone in
earshot would throw up their hands and walk away. In fact, sometimes in the middle,
having exhausted our points of view, we would change sides and continue on. It is
safe to say that neither of us made the slightest dent in the other's opinion on
anything!I will miss him more than I have ever
missed another fan or friend. He truly was the brother I never had. For the rest
of my life I will not be able to taste a new beer, or see a movie, or hear a new
joke, or read a book without saying to myself, "Damn, I can't share this with
Lynn!" - - - - - - - - - -
We received many warm comments about Lynn Hickman in response to Roger's article.
Harry Warner, Jr., wrote that "I met Lynn only once, when he visited Hagerstown, but
I sensed the same good nature and likeability that virtually every other fan found
in him no matter whether the acquaintanceship was slight or close." Gene Stewart
wrote us that "Roger Sims' reminiscence of Lynn Hickman is sterling and leaves me
feeling that a good man's life has been honored by a good friend's attention. May
we all be even half so lucky."The other articles in M20
included Ron Bennett's entertaining autobiographical story about his job-related
relocation to Singapore during the 1960s; it was the first of many articles he wrote
for us, all of which deserve reprint. There was also the first part of Jack
Chalker's short history of Baltimore fandom, Walt Willis' article about the
'discovery' of John Berry, another of Sharon Farber's "Tales of Adventure and
Medical Life," Forry Ackerman's story of the start of a whole new kind of fandom,
and Dave Kyle's remembrance of the late 1930s and the first science fiction
conventions. Besides these, we also published an article by a fan friend who had
recently gained his so-called 15 minutes of fame in a most unusual way:All illustrations by Diana Harlan Stein |
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