The Protagonist in The Fog Horn is McDunn. which is my last name. The story goes that it was a name concocted at Ellis Island. I had an uncle who was a prominent music teacher at DePaul University named Mark McDunn. Since Mr. Bradbury lived in Waukegan and my uncle lived in River Forest and taught in Chicago, what are the odds that they knew each other and the character is, in some way based on him? One more thing, my uncle was a Trombone player (Fog Horn). I wonder if there is anyway to look into that?

Hi James, and welcome. Congratulations on sharing a surname with a Bradbury character!

McDunn may have been a made-up name at Ellis Island for your ancestors, but it is a "real" name going back many centuries in the UK and Ireland. (Some basic genealogical data here: http://www.ancestry.co.uk/name-origin?surname=mcdunn )

What are the odds that Bradbury knew your uncle? Small, I would say. Don't forget that Bradbury left Waukegan as a child, and had been living in California for maybe 15 years before he wrote "The Fog Horn".

Then again, when I visited graveyards in Waukegan a couple of years ago, I was surprised to see a large WILDER gravestone right next to the Spaulding family plot. (The Spauldings were one side oa Ray's family; Wilder was the name of the space captain in his famous story "And the Moon be Still as Bright".)