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From: carol%mit-cipg@mit-mc@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: none
Message-ID: <12520@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 10:35:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12520
Posted: Mon Oct  1 10:35:54 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Oct-84 04:33:52 EDT
Lines: 14


Hasn't anyone else answered Chris Beach's story request yet?  The story
is called, "Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile..." by Somtow Sucharitkul.
It's in The 1982 Annual World's Best SF, ed. by Donald Wollheim),
and is copyrighted by Davis Publications, 1981, which means
it was in either IASFM or Amazing, I think.  Chris has the plot
slightly wrong:  the aliens are using the Earth's culture as a
kind of Junior High School Social Studies project for its children.
Also, the Earth people can communicate to the aliens by touching
conveniently placed poles, and have the hours every morning between
6 AM and 8 AM free to do as they please (since the protagonist wakes
up at 11AM on the day in question, it takes him awhile to discover this).
Also, the girl that dies in a train wreck isn't an old girlfriend,
she's someone he meets during a 'free time' exploration.