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My name Orion is actually taken from a child I never had. When my first wife and I were trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant
for 3 years, she would ask me what I wanted to name the child if it was a boy. I would answer, "Orion." She didn't like the
name but, as I read more about Orion, the name came to mean more and more to me. Not only was it an easily visible constellation
in the northern sky, but the mythological Orion was a mystical figure who regained his sight by gazing at the rising sun.
I was studying ancient religious beliefs related to sun staring at the time and I fell in love with this Greek hero. Wikipedia has a wonderful article about the original Orion. We never had that child and the effort to conceive broke up our marriage,
but the name became first my nickname and then my legal name. So that unborn child has become my inner child, and it's name
my own.
I was born and raised in the South Bronx. When I was 8 years old my parents bought a bar in Highland Falls, NY, which my brother now owns, called The Park Restaurant. The link is to a picture of my mom and dad celebrating the fifth anniversary of the bar.
I left that small town to go to college at Fordham University in the Bronx where I double majored in Math and Philosophy. The link is to my freshman dorm. My room was on the second floor
behind the statue of Mary.
After college I went to get my Masters in Library Science (MLS) at the State University of New York at Geneseo while I lived in Rochester. A short stint as a reference librarian at the 1903 downtown Carnegie-funded branch of the Yonkers
Public Library was followed by a split job at the libraries of the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo. Then a few frigid winters working at SUNY Albany's library convinced me that my career would be nicer in a warmer climate.
So I took a job at the NCSU Libraries in Raleigh, NC where I still work today, thanks to the generous citizens of the state.
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