Sometimes the post brings the most extraordinary things. As many readers will know, the Milcom Memorial Room and Attention Library has been closed for much of the Pandemic, and that has meant a considerable backlog of correspondence. On a recent visit, the current B.B. Chamberlin Fellow collected a satchel of snailmail and two shoebox-sized packages postmarked Chattanooga, Tennessee. The latter, it has turned out, convey to the archive a remarkable clutch of ESTAR(SER) ephemera, most of which dates to the 1960s and early 1970s. The materials (which are a gift of one “Howard Kirkeyard,” not previously known to any of us) appear to have belonged to the legendary “Sonny” Kirkeyard, who briefly assumed editorial control over the Proceedings in the mid-1960s. The gem of gems, which came to light in the smaller of the two boxes, is a short Super-8 film introducing the work of ESTAR(SER) for lay audiences. None of us had previously seen this, or anything quite like it! (Many thanks to Seth “Kilimanjaro” Pybas for his careful digitization of this treasure…)
