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maturity.
    So I say that Anne McCaffrey saved my life.
    It’s a debt I can’t pay back. But it is a debt I will pay forward.
    Thank you, Anne. I love you, I miss you. I’ll hoist a jar in your honor tonight. (And a couple of glasses of water too.)

    DAVID GERROLD is the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Martian Child. His other books include When HARLIE Was One, The Man Who Folded Himself, Jumping Off the Planet, and the War Against the Chtorr series. He also wrote that episode of that TV series and a bunch of other stuff.

I t’s the twinkling eyes and the hint of a devilish grin that let you know that there’s a lot more to Bob Neilson than one might first guess. He loves a good argument as much as the next Irishman, will drink whenever there’s something in front of him, and, like far too many of us, was once a smoker.
    He’s immensely practical but still willing to take a dare—which is exactly what he did many years ago when his wife, Stacey, suggested they should open a bead store. They did, and Yellow Brick Road is still thriving nearly three decades later.
    In many respects, Bob is my mirror image—if I’d be born in Ireland instead of merely a late arrival. He loves science fiction, has been active in fandom, and was one of the founders of Albedo One, an award-winning science fiction magazine.
    He was best man at my wedding, just as his wife was matron of honor at my sister’s wedding.
    I asked Bob to write for this tribute because he knew Anne McCaffrey both as a fan and as an Irishman, a rare combination. Of course, if I haven’t made it clear already, Bob is a rare man!

Bookends
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ROBERT NEILSON
    IN 1972 MY future wife, Stacey, entered Newpark Comprehensive School in South County Dublin where she met, and became friends with, Todd “McCaffrey” Johnson. Thus began a thirty-nine-year friendship that happily involved Anne McCaffrey and my family and me. Like everyone who knew Annie even slightly, Stacey’s memories mostly revolve around the strength of character, friendliness, and generosity of a woman who had an immense impact on everyone she met.
    The McCaffrey house, no matter which of the four over their years in Ireland, was always a safe haven, and Annie was always more than willing to take on the many waifs and strays—both animal and human—that found their way to her doorstep. Although Stacey couldn’t be considered a stray, she found herself hanging out at Todd’s house, where Annie provided endless coffee and toast for hungry teenagers. At the time, finances were tight in the McCaffrey household, but the hospitality was a tap that was never turned off.
    There was a peculiar soundtrack to life in the McCaffrey household back then, as Stacey remembers it—the clatter of typewriter keys. She recollects one day when an excited Annie took delivery of a new typewriter—an IBM Selectric, the famous “golfball” model. Annie was always capable of taking enjoyment out of the simplest of things.
    In 1981, I gate-crashed Stacey’s twenty-first birthday party. Todd wasn’t in Ireland at the time—he was in Germany serving with the US army—but it wasn’t long until I was invited down to Dragonhold to meet her good friend Todd, who was back on leave. As a science fiction fan, I knew who Todd’s mother (the Hugo and Nebula award-winning author) was and consequently was a little awed at visiting her house. The person I met was not Anne McCaffrey, famous writer, but Todd’s mum, who offered coffee and other refreshments and turned a blind eye while we smoked grass, played endless games of yahtzee or liar’s dice, and laughed like drains.
    Over the following years, I spent quite a lot of time at the two Dragonholds. I still clearly remember driving along the hedge-lined lane to the first one; that was house number three—the first outside the immediate Dublin suburbs, the first one