I spoke too soon when I wrote that Denvention ended for me on Sunday night, because when I headed out Monday morning to grab some breakfast to bring back to the room, I ran into Joe from Chicago, whose last name I didn’t catch. I’d never met him before, and because we were now both without badges, I couldn’t tell at first whether he was, as they say in organized crime, “a friend of ours,” and so didn’t immediately say hello in passing as I would to a fellow fan. But once we sorted that all out, we had a nice talk about this con and Worldcons past, his first being ’82, if I’m remembering correctly, versus my ’74. And he was a subscriber to Science Fiction Age, so I’m forever in his debt.

An hour later, when I left the hotel to head over to Zaidy’s, a deli which served pastrami highly recommended by Bob Silverberg, so that we wouldn’t have to suffer airport food for lunch, there were friends Sandy and Risa Stewart, waiting for the shuttle to take them to the airport. Even though I’d bumped into them several times each day of the con, I hadn’t known we were in the same hotel.

I couldn’t chat long, because I needed time to get over to Zaidy’s and back with the pastrami for Irene and a bissel brisket for me in time to make our own way to the airport. As I walked, I saw a cornerstone labeled Writer Square, which I soon discovered was a sign for a shopping complex.

But there’s a mystery, as no one, not the meter man handing out parking citations who snapped my picture above, nor any of the workers in the shops inside, knew why the place was named that way. And Google has failed to provide any answer. So, group mind, who is the writer behind Writer Square? Or is there no writer, and this is just a meaningless name the developers plucked out of the air?

The con continued at the airport, for inside, there was agent extraordinaire Joshua Bilmes making many circuits around the B Terminal for exercise now that his flight had been delayed many times. (He later dropped by and talked with us once Irene and I were settled at the gate.)

And there, at B24, were Sandy and Risa once more. Not only had we not known that we were in the same hotel, but we were also unaware that we were on the same flight!

And there also were Gary and Cheryl Erlich. He had a very familiar face, but we’d never met, even though, as it turned out, we’d been at Balticons, Capclaves, and Philcons together. He was reading a copy of Infoquake by that no-good bum David Louis Edelman, but at least he had a good excuse—they’d gone to school together.

All of these discoveries just go to show that our small world must be larger than we think it is. (And it also means that we’re now up to 121 photos from the con.)

But now I’m finally home, so that’s that. And this time, I mean it!