Out of the wilderness, I have had some recent conversations with old friends who still, to this day, call me...Lenny. It's sort of like they have legacy rights to do so. I don't correct them. Indeed, when some of them do, I don't even blink.
For instance, I just had my traditional summer reunion with my good pals from grade school, Diane and Cheryl. To them, I am Lenny. They don't really know me any other way. Heck, that's what my name was back in the second grade when I met them. Unless, of course, if I was dealing with my teacher. In that case, it was Leonard.
Are you confused yet?
On the same New York trip in July, I had my traditional summer reunion with my seat neighbors from many years at Shea Stadium. Now I met them when I was a full-fledged, card-carrying adult. Yet, they call me Lenny. And I don't know why. And I let them. This was actually the topic of our conversation for two innings. We were there with, as usual, my high school best friend Dan. He used to call me Lenny. Now he calls me Len. Ironically, I still call him Danny as that's how I remember him from the ninth grade.
Still not confused?
As you can see from the name of this blog, it's Len Speaks. And the evolution from cute little Lenny to the adult snarky Len is a story I will share. Indeed, the transition was not all that easy.
I was named after my father's older brother, who was killed in France during the very last weeks of World War II. On his Social Security card as it is on mine, it's Leonard. But, from the stories my grandparents used to tell about the old days, their son was always called Lenny. And, since it had been passed down to me intact, I became Lenny, too.
Truth be told, I was never really crazy about it. The "y" at the end of it always, to me, made it sound like a pet's name. Tuffy. Frisky. Lucky. Lenny. I always felt my dinner was going to be served in a bowl on the kitchen linoleum.
Meanwhile, in my universe of friends "up the block" and in school, nobody had names ending in "y" that could be confused with a hamster or a parakeet. I was almost a little envious of them for having what were, in my mind, more adult names. The anxiety of it all moved me to ask the question of my mother.
Can I change my name?
You would think that I had come into the house with dynamite strapped to my body.
"How dare you?"
Well...
"You would be insulting your father. And your grandparents."
I later would learn that Mom was also put off because, as the family rumors go, she actually went on a date with my uncle before my father.
So, the suggestion didn't go far. And I tabled it all. Uncomfortably. Right through high school where the "y" sound was even more horrible to my ears.
I eventually landed at Fordham University and the college radio station WFUV-FM 90.7. That freshman year, I got to do one of my first on-air performances on the nightly news. I was going to provide the weather. Oddly enough, one of my high school pals, also now at Fordham, was anchoring the newscast that night and he introduced me.
"And now, with the weather report...Lenny."
INAUDIBLE SCREAM.
It sounded even worse now being broadcast over 50,000 watts across the entire New York metropolitan area. I don't know what made me do this but I made the correction right then on the air.
It's Len.
Of course, given this was my virgin go-round in front of a radio microphone, I had alerted a lot of people to listen in to my forecast of clear and cooler. That would include my family. Indeed, there was a lot of confusion simply trying to explain to my grandmother how to switch her radio to the FM band. She barely left WOR-AM.
I knew that the name change would be noticed and I prepared myself for that revelation when I got home. Naturally, the first one I heard from was my dad.
"So you're Len now."
He didn't seem to be bothered but I felt I needed to give some well-thought-out rationale.
I explained to my father that the idea came to me because of Ron Howard. When he was Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show," he was Ronny. Now that he was a director and being treated more seriously, he calls himself Ron. I simply adopted the same thought process.
"I never watched Andy Griffith."
Oh.
So, my name flip was essentially no big deal. Grandma didn't even know about it. She had never figured out how to change to the FM band on her radio. And I was Len forever more.
Oddly enough, a few years back, I was doing a title page for a script and, inexplicably, had typed an extra "n" to my name. Lenn.
Hmm. I liked the look. It was different.
I thought about the years I had spent, simply fighting to change my name the first time.
Nah. I'll keep it as is.
Of course, if you're a friend who knows me as "Lenny" to this day, you are special. I don't mind it. Because that means you're a connection to my childhood. You probably knew my parents. Or my grandparents. And was part of a much simpler life for all of us.
To those folks, it's Lenny Speaks. And proudly.
Dinner last night: French dip panini.
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