The "Saga of the Stained Glass Window finally revealed!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  And the saga of the stained glass Hawaiian shirt is finally over.  It all started November 24 when a Jeremy Wayne Lucas (JWL) sent me an email stating: "Do you still make or have available your stained glass Hawaiian shirts?  If so, please provide a price.  A friend nearly always wears Hawaiian shirts and it would be a good holiday gift for him."  I did not read the address of the sender and assumed it was my friend Wayne Lucas (WL) who runs Strawberry and Company in downtown Lancaster and who sells my Polaroid prints and a few of my old stained glass window panels.  I replied to the sender, thinking it was my friend in Lancaster, with a note that I could make one and showed him a photo of one I already have and could sell him.  Shortly he replied:  I will take it, but I would prefer a floral pattern if you make them to order.  If so, what would be the price?  No problem I replied and gave him a discounted price that I gave to sellers of my work.  I then began to gather the glass and supplies.  A day or two later I called WL about a photo and told him I was preparing to make the shirt he had requested in his email   Silence on the other end was finally broken with ….. "I didn't email you!"  OK, I pulled up the original email and sure enough, there was the address at the bottom for JWL of Jacksonville, FL.  I emailed him with the news that I could still make the window, but the price would be double what I had told him and explained what had happened.  Asked if he was still interested.  His email reply: Thanks!  My life has been a continuous episode of mistaken identities.  My legal name is Jerry Wayne Lucas.  As a kid, I was constantly being asked if I was related to the Ohio State and professional basketball player, Jerry Lucas.  At the point when I joined the Actors Equity Assoc. in the 1970s when working in professional theater in Manhattan, I was told that I could not use the name, "Jerry Lucas," because the basketball star went on to become a memory expert, wrote a book about it, and went on the Johnny Carson show to promote his book, and thereafter joined the professional actors unions.  So, on the spot, I became Jeremy Lucas and worked under that name.  I went "off casting" in the 1980s.  In a recent Google search for, " Jeremy Lucas," I found that the professional unions, since it had been decades since I had an active membership, had allowed a young actor to work under that name.  Since I am also a writer and there are several authors around the world that are named, "Jeremy Lucas," I started using my full professional name of Jeremy Wayne Lucas.  But, it seems, I still haven't carved out a niche of my own.  A recent recalculation of my Social Security earnings record, which I had nothing to do with initiating, led to a substantial one-time check for backpay, and a significant increase in my monthly disability benefits.  Since I am also an artist (oil painter), recognizing that artistic talents are usually underappreciated, I will gladly pay you the full $150 for a floral motif stained glass Hawaiian shirt.  I like Hibiscus (also an avid gardener), but you are free to use your own creative urges in the design.  Thanks, greatly.  The True, Original, but not the One and Only, Jeremy Wayne Lucas.  OK, are you lost yet? I began work on the window, gathering quite a few cuts on my softened hands that had not seen glass work for a few years, but enjoying the art of stained glass once again.  On December 4th I received an email from JWL asking if I would prefer partial payment at that point to help defray the cost of the window.  I responded that wouldn't be necessary.  Heck, the cost wasn't that much after all.  I had just about finished the project when my wife discovered a small crack in the window which put a damper on the entire project.

The shirt that I made for JWL.

 Then on the 15th of December I published a story on my blog about the entire issue.  Maybe you read it and  had a chance to see the window.  Well, I sent an email to JWL asking him to read the story and he quickly returned an email stating in part:  LDub, I'm the one now feeling bad about crimping you into a corner for the stained glass work you seem to have moved on from doing. I certainly know the feeling. I haven't done an oil painting in about 5 years, though I do hope to return to it someday.  I did a commission initiated by a friend, a painting to match the color scheme in their living room from a subject matter they provided me.  As usual, I put it off until the last minute for the deadline they had for a wedding reception they were holding.  The net result was the painting was returned to me as "too orange" and needing some additional corrections suggested by my friends.  It was then that I decided that I would never work on commission or use subject matter that I didn't select.  The psychic connection is just not there when someone hands me a postcard and says,"paint this."  Please allow me to pay the full amount plus shipping.  The small crack does not bother me.  I will appreciate it's uniqueness.  The Japanese have a tradition of filling imperfections, cracks or chips in prized pottery with gold.  I've been aching to work with actual 24 K gold leaf, but it is difficult to find in local stores.  I have seen it available online from foreign sellers, but I'm a bit too much of a skeptic to believe that I would get the actual stuff and not the readily available gold tin foil knock off. If I ever do come up with some actual 24 K gold leaf, I will use it to fill the small crack in the glass to raise it to the status of centuries-old Japanese pottery.  Thanks tremendously for your work!  This is only the 2nd stained glass I will own.  I cajoled a local friend/artist that does stained glass to make a small window for me.  She was also at the point where she was ready to give up the practice.  We had a connection in that she was from Milton, WV, the location of the Blenko Glass Factory (a supplier of panels for stained glass work that you might also use).  My family lived about 20 miles from Milton when I was about 5 - 6 years old.  My two oldest brothers married two sisters from Milton; and my oldest brother, Melvin Ray Lucas, was the Chief of Police for Milton in the latter part of his career.  He was shot and killed by a drunken hillbilly on whom he was attempting to serve a warrant. When my Mom died about six years ago, I returned back to our family home in the hills and hollers to attend the funeral and her burial in our family cemetery. Before leaving West Virginia, I made a quick trip through the Blenko factory and bought some glass medallions, perhaps intended as paperweights.  I convinced my stained glass artist friend to use the Blenko medallions so that I might have a personal connection with the stained glass and the Milton history.  She ended up telling me a similar story as yours -- the medallions were much thicker than typical stained glass panels and she experienced an unnatural onerous burden in trying to make them work with the lead strips and solder.  Her work, an abstract that I gave her free reign to design, is one of my most precious artifacts.  So, it seems I am the worst nightmare of more than one stained glass artist.  I am sorry for the cuts, burns and scrapes, and hope you did find some satisfaction in the creative process. I will take honor in being the last person to purchase one of your stained glass T-shirt designs, though I wish the cessation of your fine work on them arose from a more natural choice of retirement, rather than an ending of some agony.  

Sample of JWL's artwork.  Titled Cherokee Rose.
Wonderful realism.

I must admit at this point I was beginning to wonder if JWL was actually a real person. I sent him a note telling him the address to mail a money order and I would await the payment before sending the glass piece.  He replied with a note telling me about his fight with cancer and the treatments he was dealing with for the past few months.  Told me that he was having a hard time getting back to painting once again. Even sent me a few samples of his work.  Five days before Christmas I had reassurances that the money order was in the mail and I should get it soon.  So …… I went to Fed-EX and mailed the package.  I normally wouldn't have done that, but Christmas was fast approaching and if he needed it for Christmas I had to have it in the mail pronto.  I just had a warm feeling that JWL was a good person and I would get my reward.  On December 23rd I got an email from JWL which read:  The stained glass arrived today.  It is beautiful!  Thanks greatly for your devoted work.  If there is a crack anywhere in the orange glass it is invisible to my eyes.  Thanks, also, for the careful packaging.  Now the wait is on for the money order.  Today, December 27th, I received the envelope with the money order in the mail.  

Flower rendering on the side of JWL's envelope he mailed to me.

Seems he really did place it in the mail almost two weeks ago, but the post office delivered it to the wrong address.  That person in turn did nothing about it until they opened MY mail and found a money order in MY name.  So they stuck the MO and envelope in another envelope and mailed it to me.  As I opened the envelope I saw this beautiful flower staring at me from the corner of JWL's original envelope.  Seems everything was meant to be, as they say.  I have gained a new JWL friend in Florida and have begun corresponding with him.  Hope to one day get to meet him so we can get a good laugh about the saga of the stained glass window!  It was another day in the life of an ordinary guy.