Take that time years ago when I went to the Richmond Star Trek convention, with my nerdy Trekker friends. We all piled into my Chrysler Station Wagon Mom Car like a college fraternity trying to break the Guinness world record and drove there from southwest Virginia.

Upon arriving and registering for the convention, my friends outed me as a first timer, aka a Newbie. I learned that it was a standing tradition for Newbies to buy the drinks (aka adult beverages). The news of my humble status spread like proverbial wildfire, and I made a lot of new friends rather quickly. Thankfully, I had packed my credit card.

At the convention’s welcome party, my nerdy Trekker friends and I chatted over drinks (that I paid for) with the con’s very special guest Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s awesome Lieutenant Uhura. The woman was gorgeous. She looked every bit as stunning in person as she did on the TV screen.

After the scheduled presentations by convention guest authors and illustrators, we squandered most of our money on Trek memorabilia in the dealer room. We then returned to the ball room to hear Nichelle Nichols speak about what it was like on the set of Star Trek. She also told a brief anecdote about how when she met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he changed her mind about quitting the show. During the first season, she was disappointed in how minor her role was. Much of the time all she got to say was, “Hailing frequencies open.”  Dr. King was surprised to hear that, and Nichelle was taken aback when he told her, “Don’t you know how important you are?” Dr. King explained that her role as Lieutenant Uhura was unique. Nichelle wasn’t playing a black maid, she was playing a bridge officer, a black woman in a position of authority. He appealed to her not to leave the show, and she bowed to his request. Nichelle ended her talk with an a cappella rendition of “Beyond Antares,” a song she sang in the Star Trek episode “Charlie X.” She received a standing ovation.

But I digress. My fond memories of that con distracted me from my original subject: larceny in my blood.

So like many science fiction conventions at that time, the organizers revealed to the attendees that due to circumstances beyond their control the con was in the red. All the guests, with the exception of Nichelle Nichols (who had already departed) had agreed to be auctioned off to the highest bidder for an hour of one-on-one quality time. One of the guests was the late Frank Kelly Freas, the dean of science fiction artists and illustrators. [His portraits of the Star Trek main characters are in the Smithsonian.] He offered to sketch a caricature of his winning bidder.

My nerdy Trekker friends and I couldn’t believe our ears. We were utterly disappointed. We were completely dismayed. We were totally bummed. We were also practically broke, you see, having spent nearly all our money in the dealer room. No auction bidding for us.

We sighed. We sulked. We wallowed in self-pity.

And then the light bulb flashed on over the head of the Mafia Princess.

ME: That’s it! I’ve got it! How much money do you all have left?

THEM: [In unison.] Why?

ME: Never mind why. Everybody count your money. Do it! Hurry!

There were seven of us. Lucky seven, I hoped. Everyone dug into their pockets and their wallets, counted their money, and reported back to me. Some had more than others. Fortunately, I had used my credit card to pay for the aforementioned drinks so I had a bit more cash left. Our total came to $120.00 or thereabouts.

ME: Great! Okay, people. Here’s the deal. We are going to bid on a guest. We’re pooling our cash and forming a syndicate. Now we should be able to outbid anyone else.

ONE OF THEM: Can we do that?

ME: No one said we couldn’t form a syndicate. Together we’ll blow away the competition.

ONE OF THEM: Are you The Godmother or something?

ME: Very funny. What do you say we bid on Kelly Freas? We’ll all get caricatures of ourselves done.

ONE OF THEM: But there are seven of us. What if he won’t sketch us all?

ME: [Without thinking.] We make him an offer he can’t refuse.

ONE OF THEM: Shoot. She is The Godmother or something.

To cut to the chase, we began bidding on Kelly Freas. When the bid went to $80.00, we decided to risk a jump bid to $120.00. That move stunned the competition and cut off the bidding. We got him! When we met him at the door of the ballroom, I informed him he had been bought by a syndicate and explained the details. He laughed and so did SF author Gordon R. Dickson who was standing beside him with his winning bidder.

Gordy suggested we all go to his room and that way all of us bidders would get two guests for the price of one. For more than twice the allotted one hour’s time, Gordy regaled us with several legendary tales of the golden age of science fiction while we drank his whiskey and Kelly sketched our caricatures, all thanks to the touch of larceny in my blood.

Alas, in spite of all my protestations, The Godmother label stuck. My nerdy Trekker friends thought it suited me.

In the passage of time, I forget whatever it was that I put in the safe place that is so safe that it’s safe from me as well because its whereabouts are no longer known to me.

I’ve been told I’m a pack rat because I never throw anything out. I dispute that. I believe pack rats know exactly what they have and where they put it, and they keep their stuff because they like it and want it. I never throw anything out because I don’t remember where I put it and don’t remember having it in the first place. Not a pack rat.

Now that we have that settled, we can move on.

One of my grandsons is deeply into the Star Wars universe. He loves all things Star Wars, even LEGO Star Wars. Guess what? Grandma collected Star Wars memorabilia in the day. My grandson and the rest of his family will be visiting during Christmas break, and I thought I’d surprise him with some of my treasures from that Galaxy Far, Far Away.

So I went hunting for my Star Wars stuff. In the family room cupboards. In the catchall room (treadmill, sports gear, kids toys, arts and crafts, and that old standby miscellaneous). Last, but not least, in my office closet (the location of Earth’s Black Hole—where things go in, never to be seen again).

In the family room cupboard, I found a “Destroy the Death Star” board game. I bought for my sons when they were young. It’s in very good shape, except for being missing two tiny X-Wing Fighter game pieces.

In the catchall room, I found a poster from LucasFilm in its original cardboard mailing tube. Apparently, I forgot about framing it, or forgot about it altogether (more likely).

In the black hole—my office closet—I liberated a few more treasures: an intact die cast Millennium Falcon, a slightly damaged die cast Imperial Destroyer (missing Princess Leia’s starship), a Star Wars report folder, and a book of Star Wars iron-on transfers of all the original Star Wars characters. (Was Harrison Ford ever that young? Wow.)

The Star Wars hunt yielded other forgotten treasures. I rediscovered individual Star Trek episode slides that I bought at a convention, several Hallmark Star Trek Christmas tree ornaments, and three aging Star Trek computer games and compendiums for PCs that cannot work on my MacBook Pro and so are now useless to me. I also uncovered a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie theater poster.

Probably the coolest and most valuable forgotten hidden treasure finds were two signed prints of cover art by the late Frank “Kelly” Freas, the acknowledged dean of science fiction illustrators. (His illustrations of the cast of characters from the original Star Trek series are in The Smithsonian.) The prints I have are of the illustrations for “The Ark of Mars” by Leigh Brackett in Planet Stories, September 1953, and for The Warriors of Dawn by M.A. Foster, DAW Book No. 135.

I was a volunteer at a science fiction convention I attended some years ago. The job I drew was to pick up the guests of honor at the airport and drive them to the con. Since I possessed the only car that was clean and in working order, I had the privilege of chauffeuring Kelly Freas, his wife, and SF author Frederick Pohl for the entire weekend. I heard lots of great stories about Science Fiction’s Golden Age while in that driver’s seat, and we all had a rollicking good time together. I bought the two prints and asked Kelly to sign them for me. He did better than that; he inscribed them. One he inscribed for me “with warmest regards,” and inscribed the other for me “with affection and appreciation.”

Those prints are more than mere collector’s items and you can believe I won’t lose track of them again. I’m going to have them framed and hang them on my office wall so there won’t be any danger of them becoming hidden treasures ever again.

And now, with the exception of the prints and the Star Wars items for my grandson, I have to put the rest of this stuff back where I found it. O joy.