Sometimes you CAN go home again, no matter what Tom Wolfe said.   At least for a visit.

For me, home was Bayonne, New Jersey,  just south of Jersey City, on a peninsula sandwiched between New York and Newark.   We had I was born in Bayonne in 1948, and spent my childhood there, most of it in the federal housing projects on First Street, with the lights of Staten Island across the waters of the Kill Von Kull.   Bayonne was my world until 1966, when I went off to college at Northwestern, the first time I ever went beyond the borders of Jersey and NYC (except in books and comics, of course, where I could often be found on Trantor, Barsoom or Mars, or wandering the mean streets of Gotham City).

After college, I remained in Chicago to do two years alternative service with VISTA, and a couple of additional years directing chess tournaments.   My years in Iowa came after that, and finally Santa Fe in 1979.   I spent time in Hollywood as well.  I still had family in Jersey, though, so I returned as often as I could.  Once or twice a year, most years.   It was always nice to come back, see my sisters and their kids and grandkids… and remember.   Bayonne has changed some over the years…the city has lost all its movie houses, and Uncle Milty’s Amusement Park where I had my first job… but the projects are still there, and Brady’s Dock, and Mary Jane Donohoe School on 5th Street… the candy store on Kelly Parkway where I bought my comic books and Ace Doubles is still there, and so is the Fifth Street Deli-Ette… oh, and Hendrickson’s Corner, and Judicke’s sprinkle Donuts…

And the public library remains… changed some, yes… but better than ever.

I remember the library.  I always will.

And it would seem that the library remembers me.    They have just completed some renovations, and did me the honor of naming one of the new rooms after me: the George R.R. Martin Room for Popular Fiction.  To mark the occasion, they declared October 15 to be George R.R. Martin.

That is… so cool, so… so…  well, words fail me.   I have won a lot of awards over the course my career: Emmys and Golden Globes, Hugo Awards and Nebulas, Dragons and Bram Stokers, World Fantasy Awards, (I have lost a lot more, to be sure, but then that’s only fitting for a guy who helped found the Hugo Losers Club)… but I have never had a day before.   Few have.   After all, there are only 365 of them.

James (Jimmy) Davis, Bayonne’s mayor, presided over the ribbon-cutting ceremony.   Old friends and new attended.

 

 

Of course, we had a great turnout from the library staff.

The library also added a wonderful mosaic dragon to its decor.

I was asked to say a few words, and was thrilled to do so.   Given the circumstance I could probably have talked for hours.   So many memories, so much to say.  But I resisted the impulse.   We shook a few hands, and then went down to Hendrickson’s Corner.

 

This was a very special day for me.  One I will longer remember.

Current Mood: loved