Permission Granted!

Saturday, February 13, 2021

I missed the call as I was bringing Juney in from his walk. I had my hood on, my mask on, my gloves. I was fiddling with the dog towel, going through my clumsy ritual of cleaning off his little Schnoody paws by uttering, “paw” each time before lifting up one of his legs. I had considered buying him booties but feel as though the creature deserves more dignity than that.

So I missed Samuel Claiborne’s call. He said that he remembered Len, that he knew about the tugboat book and that he is fine with publishing his brother’s writing. He only asked for a copy of the book once it is published. Absolutely no problem!

It’s amazing that he called, just one day after Jan Stacy’s identity was confirmed by Lenny’s dear friend.

I was so relieved but also surprised in a way. I had started to believe that the whole process was going to be long and expensive, trying to track down Jan Stacy’s next of kin and verify that it was in fact the right person. But a part of me had known that I had the right person. From what I learned of him, it just seemed as though he and Lenny had things in common and were in the same circles. Although the few images of Jan Stacy that I have seen are not very sharp/clear, I sense that he had a kind and warm spirit, that he was someone Lenny must have respected. These are all just feelings, things I can’t “know” but I feel the need to share them anyway.

And so I can proceed. It’s a bit intimidating but I’ll get over it. I want to pick a day to re-read Jan Stacy’s writing about the tugs. I think it might help me to make some decisions about the photos I have not been able to find the slides for. I also need to look into photo scanners to see if maybe I can just scan the images. My fear is that they will come out markedly different than the slides or that they won’t be able to be cleaned enough to be of good quality for the book. I may need professional advice. The easier thing might be to find replacement images. I need to sleep on this a bit.

But my persistence paid off. And I’m just so happy that Lenny’s photos and Jan Stacy’s words will be together, as they were meant to be.

Today’s Soundtrack: “It Was A Good Day” (Instrumental) - Ice Cube