Talon’s
Edge
February 2010
USS Aquila NCC 42297
In This Issue:
Aquila Officers
Unclassifieds
Event Calendar
Briefing Room and Club News (RL)
Aquila History (RL)
Fantastic Voyages: Vamps Aren't Tramps (djb)
Mission Page
Diane Joy Baker
2021 Emerson Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45239
diane1@zoomtown.com
Subscriptions: 1 - 44¢ stamp = 1 issue
Editor/Submission: Diane Joy Baker Distribution: Rob Langenderfer
Disclaimer
TALON’S EDGE is the chapter newsletter of the (USS) Aquila NCC
42297, a non-profit fan organization based in Florence , Kentucky . All
rights and privileges to the terms STAR TREK and all images / references to same
are exclusively owned by Paramount Pictures Corp. Likewise, all rights &
privileges to the terms and all images & references to STAR WARS (Lucas
Film), Dr.Who (BBC), or other programs not specifically named, are exclusively
owned by those companies. This newsletter is not intended to infringe on
any copyrights or legal holdings of the writers, producers, Production Company,
or others with claims to the programs / images, nor to make profit from them.
Talon’s Edge reprints articles & items only if submitters give proper
credit. (Or the Borg will pay you a visit!) Thanks for your
cooperation. This publication brought to you by the Propaganda Department.
We serve all your brainwashing needs . . . Resistance is futile! ---djb
Submissions
No more than 2 pages double-spaced. Please send submissions to the editor
at the above address no later than the listed deadline. If you take
submissions from another publication, please list source and all appropriate
information. Talon’s Edge accepts submissions in text form via e-mail: uss.aquila@juno.com
U.S.S Aquila Officers
COMMANDING OFFICER/CAPTAIN/ NEWSLETTER EXCHANGE LIAISON/ SHIP’S HISTORIAN
Rob Langenderfer
859-371-9798
rlangenderfer@yahoo.com
uss.aquila1@juno.com
EXECUTIVE OFFICER / MEDICAL
CHIEF/
Linda Widener 859-283-9799
SECOND OFFICER/RECRUITING OFFICER/RECORDS OFFICER
Stephanie Rechtin 859-261-4380
wreckedin@gmail.com
SCIENCE OFFICER / TREASURER/
Brett Strittmatter 513-646-7177 brett_strittmatter@yahoo.com
LIAISON TO STARBASE KARMA/SECURITY CHIEF
Gary Pierce 513-497-5069
MEDIA LIAISON
Aimee Weber 859-356-5731
mermaid44715@yahoo.com
NEWSLETTER EDITOR/ OPERATIONS CHIEF/
Diane Joy Baker 513-521-6039
diane1@zoomtown.com
TRANSPORTER CHIEF
Nelson Charette
859-630-6889 (cell) snelsonc@isoc.net
WEB WIZARDS
ROB LANGENDERFER AND GLENNA JUILFS rlangenderfer@yahoo.com
karadione@hotmail.com
U.S.S. AQUILA WEB SITE: http://ussaquila.angelfire.com
E-MAIL: uss.aquila@juno.com
UNCLASSIFIEDS
MAKE DUKE ENERGY SUPPORT YOUR STAR TREK/STAR WARS HOBBY?
CALL GARY “SEVEN” AT 513-497-5069.
STARWARD BOUND INC., P.O. BOX 20064 , Dayton , OH 45420 . Join the science fiction and fantasy association of the Miami Valley ...and beyond. One year membership (from the date the check is received) Individual: $10; Group $12 (2 members + $2 for each additional member living at the same address); corporate $25.
Steve Murtaugh – Klingon
paraphernalia - SIS Hegh tai murDa
5654 Sandra Drive , Pittsburg , PA 15236 . E-mail: murtausm@msha.gov
Bumper Stickers & Window Signs - Various sayings or have your own saying put
on. Contact Greg Turner gturner359@aol.com
for more details.
AREA MEETINGS
- USS Aquila (Independent):
Second Saturday at 2 PM
Kenton County Public Library in Covington
Contact: rlangenderfer@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.snelsonc.com/Aquila.Welcome.html
- ILV Midnight Warrior (KAG Xenoleague): fourth Tuesday at 7:30pm (except
December) meetings held at members homes and changes monthly.
Contact: me@twisty.org
Website:
http://groups.google.com/group/midnightwarrior/web/welcome-to-the-xlv-midnight-warrior
- USS Melbourne (SFC):
Meets every other month; the off month is a social function
Second Sunday at 3:00pm; Place subject to change Contact: Miriam Lauer miriam7759@hotmail.com.
- USS Camelot (Independent):
Third Friday at 7pm (except December)
Dayton Museum of Natural History
2600 DeWeese Parkway, near Triangle Park Dayton, OH (exit 57B from I-75 N
or S) Website: http://starshipcamelot.org
- Friends of the Time Lord:
Third Sunday 2:30PM WCET
Contact: Rhonda Scarborough rhonda.scarborough@gmail.com.
KAG = Klingon Assault Group
SFC = Starfleet Command
Feb. 20, 2010: Book Discussion: 1 PM. This month's book is Christopher Bennett, ST: TNG: The Buried Age. Mr. Bennet will join us for the discussion if possible.
USS Aquila Meeting 2 PM follows immediately. We hold meetings at the Mary Ann Monaghan Library, Covington KY Basement board room (Ask librarian for escort below).
U.S.S. Aquila Briefing Room January 2010
Thanks to Linda, Stephanie, Diane, Brett, Gary and Steve Proffitt who were able to attend the January book discussion and U.S.S. Aquila meeting last Saturday. The current command staff of myself, Linda and Stephanie was given a vote of confidence to hold their current positions for another year until January of 2011. The procedures for a vote of confidence were revised to require them on an annual basis with elections taking place when one of the command staff decides to step down. (People who have also taken and passed OCC and wish to do so can be added on to the command staff as 3rd or 4th Officers if they so desire and are elected to that position by a vote of the membership.)
The command staff will meet on Sat. Feb. 6th at Stephanie's apartment if anyone
has any business that they care to pass to me (or any of us) for us to discuss
then.
We did not get to discussing
activities or the future direction of the club for 2010 this month because of
time, so we will discuss them next month along with a great deal more about
Millennicon. We will also begin discussing the possibility of members
attending the Dover Peace Conference and Marcon. Please continue to look
over Kenny Parker's list of events so you can pick out your favorites for us to
do.
Christopher Bennett, author of
ST:TNG: The Buried Age plans to come to our meeting on Sat. Feb. 20th to discuss
his book if issues connected to the job that he hopes to obtain at the
Cincinnati Public Library do not interfere. If he can't make it on the
20th, he sounds open to coming some other time, so if he doesn't make it then,
please hold your questions for him.
Check out the new web page that our new club Co-Web Master Glenna Juilfs has set
up at https://ussaquila.angelfire.com/.
Submitted by Rob Langenderfer
USS Aquila: The First Ten
Years
Twenty-five people members and seven visitors attended the meeting at Cindy
Paugh’s house. Among them was Pam Paynter, Glenna Juilfs’s daughter,
making her first appearance at a club meeting. Joy took Tina Widener and
Erin Pence out for pizza for having “graduated” from the Cadet Corps, and
several other people joined them. Carson Widener was able to help Camelot
CO Russ Grubb when he had car problems.
Sept. 1992 - There was a
report on Space Station Cincy in the Sept. 1992 Operation’s Obelisk
newsletter that had John DeLancie and Majel Barrett as guests. The review
is unattributed, but it sounds like Glenna Juilfs’s voice writing! Cindy
Paugh, Glenna Juilfs and Erin Pence answered phones at the MDA Telethon. I
was at the club meeting that month at a steak house (although I’m not listed
in the minutes), and it was the fact that I was treated with some warmth and
friendliness by Tammy Widener, Pam Paynter, and really everyone there that I
decided that I would definitely permanently join the ship at some future point.
Erin also participated in the MDA Ice Skate-a-thon. On Sept. 13, 1992,
Linda, Tina and Tammy Widener, Glenna Juilfs, Erin Pence, Stephen Pence, Tonya
Rutledge, Pam Paynter, Jessica Pence, and Polarisites Ron Plogman and Bev Hater
showed Star Trek VI to patients at the VA Medical Center.
Oct. 1992 - The biggest event
this month was the club Halloween Party (held on the day of the club’s October
meeting), which had a large enough number of entries in their Masquerade Contest
to give several honorable mentions as well as a large number of awards.
Joy Menges, Cindy Paugh, Tammy Borchardt, Terrie Holahan, Glenna Juilfs, Ken
Paugh, Greg Turner, Linda Widener, Heather Borchardt, Shawn Borchardt, Gary
Donner, June Gunter, Freda Kurtzman, Tom Kummer, Katie McManus, Linda Nebel,
Jason Paugh, Angel Paynter, Crystal Paynter, Pam Paynter, Erin Pence, Jessica
Pence, Leonard Robinson, Tonya Rutledge, Dennis Schwendemann, David Slaughter,
Vanessa Turner, Shelley Wagner, Adam Widener, Brian Widener, Tammy Widener, Tina
Widener, Brooke Johnson, Dustyn Pence, Dustyn Pence, Jr., Janet Burgoon, Stephen
Pence, and visitor David Alexander attended. Thirty-eight people at a
single Aquila meeting and party – it may well be a club record for all
time, and it certainly was a high point of the group’s time as a shuttle.
Brooke Johnson, Pam Paynter, Nikkie Paynter, Crystal Paynter, and Freda Kurtzman
all joined the ship this month – five new members, quite possibly a club
record for all time. Alan Wright attended Lagrangecon ’92 this month in
Cleveland and saw Jonathan Frakes, Robert O’Reilly and Ann Crispin.
Nov. 1992 – This meeting was another one with a very large attendance. The same people were there as the previous month although Charlie Kersker, was also there and Heather Borchardt, Janet Burgoon, Dustyn Pence, Dustyn Pence, Jr., and Stephen Pence were absent. Barb Bruser, Melanie Kummer, Shirley Robinson and myself were there as visitors and Polaris CO Joan Riley was there although she arrived late and was not counted as being present, but I remember because I was there and remember her complaining about never driving this far for a meeting again, and I also had her write her name and phone number on a newsletter of mine. I can’t remember for sure if Carolyn Cook was with her or not, but I think she was. This little incident reveals that sometimes things can happen that even the attendance record doesn’t reflect and that on some things people’s memories can be very clear and on other things they can be foggy. At the meeting it was announced that the Aquila had achieved starship status. Cindy Paugh was promoted to Commander, Greg Turner was promoted to Commander and Glenna Juilfs was promoted to Lt. Cmdr., and Joy would be officially recognized as Captain a week later (among promotions for the command staff). Glenna Juilfs was voted Officer of the Year for 1991 and Tammy Borchardt was voted Officer of the Year for 1992. Nimbus II was now available. Glenna Juilfs (and probably some other ship members with her) attended Starbase Indy in Indianapolis over Thanksgiving weekend where Leonard Nimoy was a guest. There was a listing of Aquila club officers with their names and addresses that was dated Nov. 25, 1992, six days after the ship finally received a letter confirming its starship status. Since that is a nice snapshot of who was heavily involved in the club at the time, I will provide it.
Commanding Officer: Captain Joy
Menges
Executive Officer: Commander Cindy Paugh
Second Officer: Commander Greg Turner
Third Officer, Chief of Operations: Lt. Cmdr. Glenna Juilfs
Cadet Corps Commander, Project Genesis Coordinator: Lt. Tammy Borchardt
Chief of Communications, Ship’s Newsletter Talon’s Edge Editor: Lt.jg Terrie
Holahan
Chief of Medical: Ensign Linda Widener
Chief of Engineering: Ensign Ken Paugh
Quartermaster: Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Kersker
Chief of Science: Ensign Dave Slaughter
Treasurer: Lt. Dennis Schwendemann
Records Officer: MCPO Gary Donner
Outreach Officer: MCPO Alan Wright
Stampede Coordintor: PO2 Tammy Widener
It had been a long haul for the ship, and there was still some confusion as initially the ship was assigned an NCC # that had already been given to another ship, but its correct NCC # arrived in time to make it onto the cover of the Nov. 1992 Talon’s Edge. The shuttle had finally made it to starship status.
Part of the reason I was so comprehensive in my listing of events for these years as a shuttle is that they are now almost 17 years in the distant past and many people do not know about them at all and people who were there don’t remember them clearly. I filled out my little yellow card at the December meeting of the (now) U.S.S. Aquila to officially make known in writing my intention to join the U.S.S. Aquila and was a regular member from there on out. There have been so many things that have happened in the last 16+ years that I feel a simple listing of them would be pointless (and far too much work for me!). Instead, I am going to speak much more in my own voice of my recollections of what it was like to be a member of the club throughout its history and try to cover the major events of the club’s history in great detail to convey the flavor of how the club has evolved.
In November I sent in my check to join Starfleet, the Aquila’s parent organization with the intention of then officially joining the Aquila as an official member, having been present at five meetings as a visitor. Since my membership would not be processed until after my 18th birthday late in November, I would join the ship as a Petty Officer and not at a cadet rank. There were many people in the club around my age at that time, so it was a group with whom it was especially easy to interact, and the adults in the group were very welcoming to me.
The Aquila was at its peak around this time as a club built around families. Linda Widener was a member along with her husband Carson and daughters Tammy and Tina and sons Adam and Brian. Tina had turned 18 at the beginning of the year and Tammy would turn 16 in 1993. Tammy, Tina and Brian were regular members along with Linda. Glenna was a member along with her son Erin (who, like Tina and myself for that matter, had also turned 18 in 1992). Glenna’s daughter Pam Paynter was also a very active member along with Pam’s daughters Jessie Pence (who stayed quite active in the club for a number of years), Nikkie and Crissie (who weren’t as active). Glenna’s sons Dusty, and Stephen were also somewhat active in the clubs although their live-in wives Janet Burgoon and Latonya Rutledge (more commonly called Billie Jo – yes, I know sometimes the names are confusing) were more so and Dusty and Janet’s children Dusty, Jr. and John John (who was born a few months later and who I can still remember crawling around at one of our events as a one-year old with a big smile on his face – he was always a ham!). Glenna’s daughter Lynda and Lynda’s daughters Becky and Cyndi would also eventually come to events. Glenna’s son Ben and his girlfriend Renee would also come to events. First Officer Cindy Paugh and her husband Chief Engineer Ken Paugh would bring their four year old son Jason to events. Cadet Corps Commander Tammy Borchardt regularly attended meetings as did her son Shawn (who was in high school) and her daughter Heather (who was soon to be in high school) and Heather’s friend Brooke Johnson (who was in high school with Shawn) and Tammy’s niece Katie McManus. Second Officer Greg and his daughter Vanessa (who was in high school) also came to meetings regularly together.
As you can imagine, Aquila meetings
at the church where they met then were pretty raucous affairs with kids running
around, a lot of noise, but a lot of fun had by all, although meetings were much
more business-like and long and seemingly much more focused on the ship and its
divisions and committees than on much directly related to Star Trek than
meetings would be in the future! Members watched videos after the meetings
(although sometimes it could be hard to focus on them due to all of the other
noise), and potluck dinners were frequent. As for the Star Trek franchise
itself, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine began airing in January 1993. Dave
Woodard, who was on the U.S.S. Camelot at the time, hosted a premiere party.
A Creation convention was held in Ft. Mitchell the weekend before the premiere.
James Doohan (Scotty) was the guest; my friend Joe Link and I attended together.
Cindy Paugh and several others from the Aquila were there. We exchanged pleasant
greetings and I became more and more convinced that this was a great time to be
getting involved with local fandom as the Aquila had a family feel about it that
other groups simply could not match.
Fantastic Voyages: Vamps aren't Tramps these days
In the world of YA (young adult) reading, Vampires are more popular than ever. I have some theories on why that's so. While vamps have been popular among adults since Dracula, I think it's easy to latch on to those fanged favorites when you're a teen for several reasons. Vamps are neither fish nor fowl, and such is the case in the teen years, when you feel both rebellious and like an outsider. If you're not in the popular cliques especially, you feel powerless. And there's no more powerful creature of the night than the vampire, who can change shape, become fog, or part of the darkness, and can command attention with a single glance. Dracula had all these qualities, and could also seem quite sexual, attractive to repressed Victorian women who wanted a walk on the wild side. Indeed, these days, the vamp still represents the "bad boy," the rebel in a cape whom you don't want your parents to meet.
Forget Twilight and New Moon. The luscious Edward has been cleaned up, an angel, dressed in vamp clothing. I won't go into the history of the vamp genre: that's for another day. However, I do want to spotlight two very different series, concerning true vampires: Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books (beginning with Dead After Dark), and P. C. and Kristen Cast's collaboration, a place called the House of Night.
This is a vampire finishing school. The series stretches to six books so far, beginning with Marked, and it looks like it's not going to end anytime soon, especially since the character's still a third-former (freshman) at the end of book five (Hunted). The Casts do a very interesting job of twisting the mythos, and give the vamp a religious angle they don't always get: they worship a goddess, Nyx. (Neo-pagan ritual circles play an important role in plot lines, and relationships with humans are open, but chancy.) Students go through a gradual Change---and it can kill them. The teen voice is fresh and very current. I can't help but wonder how it will stand up over time, but it's highly addictive. Sex is a part of these tales, but it's discreetly told.
Harris, as much a mystery writer as a paranormal author, likes to play with werewolves and other supernatural creatures, and it looks as if her series will go on for years to come. Sookie is definitely adult: a waitress in a tiny Louisiana town. She's also telepathic, which causes her problems. Since she can read minds, sex, or a relationship with an ordinary man, is a turn-off. In walks Bill---a vampire. The very idea of a vampire with such an ordinary name is a hoot right off the bat-wing. These tales are like brain candy: pop one in the mouth and you want another. This is because the characters are real, she gets the Southern atmosphere just right, down to the sweet tea and live oaks, and to top it all off, there's a mystery. Deftly-woven mythic details also sound right, and the vamps in this milieu are dangerous---much more so than in Twilight. Enjoy these literary bonbons. No calories! ---Submitted by Diane Joy Baker
Mission Statement
USS Aquila
NCC 42297
Talon’s Edge
”The Wings of Tomorrow”
Editor: Diane Joy Baker
2021 Emerson Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45239
E-Mail: uss. aquila@juno.com
The USS Aquila is an independent science fiction and fantasy fan club based in Florence, KY and modeled on the TV series Star Trek. By coming together in practicing the Infinite Diversities in Infinite Combinations credo as outlined in the Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry, we can rejoice in our differences as well as our commonality, and benefit as human beings as we perpetuate the ideals portrayed in Star Trek. While pursuing these ideals, the club members discuss, debate, and share ideas and memories about all things SF and fantasy. They include books, movies, TV shows, games, and comics.
