Talks and signing events are always fun, but sometimes they’re off-the-charts beyond that. Case in point, this past weekend’s Northeast Writer’s Showcase where a member of the Siegel and Schuster Society presented me with a brick from Jerry Siegel’s Kimberly Avenue home. If that’s not the coolest thing in the world, I’d like to know what is and why. It’s one of the chimney bricks that was removed when the home was renovated by the Glenville Development Corporation and the S&SS in 2008. I had visited the Home some time prior to that and, while I was there, I made sure to walk into every bedroom so that I was sure to have stood in the bedroom where, on a hot summer night, a young Jerry Siegel began to imagine cracks appearing on a planet far far away (yeah, I know I copped that gem of a line from Brad Ricca’s masterful book Super Boys – you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy and read it for yourself – then the next time you see Brad you can tell him, like I always do, what a stroke of genius that line is).
Anyway, as you can see from the photo, the brick now holds pride of place on the table next to my drawing board so I will never be very far away from it.
