200 Sign up for Book Signing by Former First Lady Tuesday in McLean

By Bobbi Bowman, The McLean Ear

MCLEAN, VA – About 200 people picked up wristbands Sunday at the McLean Books-a-Million store, their ticket to a book signing noon Tuesday by Former First Lady Laura Bush of her new memoir, Spoken From the Heart.

More wristbands are available Monday at the downtown bookstore, said Kenneth Polk, assistant general manager.

He explained the logistics of the book signing, from noon – 3 p.m. Every customer with a wristband must also buy either a voucher for book or the book itself which becomes available Tuesday to get into the book signing line. Those with vouchers will receive their books Tuesday. You must have a book to get into the book signing line.

Each wristband has a number, but that number does not guarantee you that space in line, he said.

Prohibited: No photographs.  No large bags, backpacks or strollers. If a customer must leave the line to put a prohibited item in their car, they will not be guaranteed a return to their place in line, he said.

Wheelchairs are allowed.

This is Mrs. Bush’s second visit to the McLean Books-A-Million.  She came April 24, 2008, when she was still in the White House, to sign “Read All About It” a book she wrote with her daughter Jenna, to encourage children to read.

Her appearance in McLean is one of three in the Washington area, according to the schedule posted by her publisher Simon and Shuster.

Books-A-Million will not open for regular business until 3 p.m. Tuesday. Before then only customers with wristbands will be allowed in the store.

Remembering McLean’s African-American History

Dr. Elizabeth Crowell of the Fairfax County Park Authority, Dranesville Supervisor John Foust, Dranesville Park Authority representative Kevin Fay and Park Authority Board Chair William Bouie, unveil plaque marking site of the Alfred Odrick homesite.

By Bobbi Bowman, The McLean Ear

MCLEAN, VA – Old and new Fairfax County met briefly at a small hollow square with flat stacked stones on two sides shaded by the tall trees just west of the intersection of Lewinsville and Spring Hill Roads near the entrance to the Bellmead subdivision.

These stones are a great archeological find for the history detectives of the Fairfax County Park Authority.  These are the  remains of the home of Alfred Odrick the founding father of a thriving community of freed slaves and their descendants. With the exception of Gum Springs in southern Fairfax County, no post-Civil War black archeological sites had been located in Fairfax until the discovery of the Odrick site.

Dranesville Supervisor John Foust, Dranesville representative to the Fairfax County Park Authority Board Kevin Fay and about 30 neighbors and others gathered for the unveiling of an historic marker at the site Saturday afternoon.