What's in a Name? (Part 1 of 2)

I have lived off Old Bridge Road for twenty years, very near Smoketown Road.  When we moved here, our official address was “Woodbridge," although our phone bills reported a call origin of “Dale City".  Back then, phone bills listed every single call and out of state relatives frequently commented on the discrepancy, especially this time of year, (for Christmas cards). I soon learned my next door neighbors used “Lake Ridge” as their city of origin. When asked why, their reasons varied but all seemed to stem from a desire to separate our neighborhood from the older developments. 

Lately, I have learned, some of my neighbors are using, “Prince William”, especially when ordering online.  All are the same to me, but somewhere along the way I began interchanging them, just for fun, to trace the origins of junk mail. Sometimes, a worried party would take the trouble to call and verify which to use. I never gave it a moment’s serious thought until my NYC publisher, Vantage Point Books, forced me to choose. 

Whichever I chose, it would be on the back of thousands of books just beneath my picture, for generations to come, (hopefully!)  Using “Lake Ridge” suddenly
felt pretentious, especially for a novel about being true to one’s self.   So, out
of loyalty to “The Bridge”, (as my kids started calling it in high school), and
not to confuse my out of town relatives, I chose “Woodbridge”. The final product emerged unexpectedly when Amazon jumped the delivery date. Not even
my publisher had seen the finished product when my lovely neighbor, (a British
transplant), trotted over with her copy.  There, on my front porch, together we studied the front cover, then the back, and I truly felt a rush of pride to see “Woodbridge, VA” beneath my name.  My neighbor, sweet as can be, said, “Hmmm, I really wish you had used Lake Ridge.”