“Paradise Lost” by Hank Reinhardt

                            Ever find Happiness Living

                            in Birmingham, Alabama?

                            By Hank Reinhardt

                My first encounter with the city of Birmingham, Alabama, was an experience both painful and pleasurable.  Painful: just look at the city.  Pleasurable, it was the first Deep South Con I ever attended.  In fact, the whole experience is worth telling alone, but I’ll shorten it slightly. 

     I had never attended a DSC, but that year Jerry Page had nagged convinced me that I should go.  He had promised that the con committee would have an altar raised for me, that there would be plenty of bheer, and above all, card games.  He had even, he said, imported a special FISH for me, by the name of Lon Atkins.  (Little did I realize that this same Lon Atkins would someday be OE of…