I last communicated with Duane in the spring of 2004. My father was dying and my younger brother in particular was not dealing with it well. Not that I was, but at the time I thought of an image Duane had made about his relationship with his father. On an image of his parents with his brother, Duane wrote about how he longed to have a special relationship with his father, that he wished to know all about him and that his father would one day share a letter with him that spoke of all those things and tell him how much he loved him. But his father died and he never got the letter. And he never knew where his father hid his love for him. I wanted to buy a copy of the print to give to my brother. I didn’t know what gallery carried his work at the time and I didn’t have an email for him, so I wrote him a letter to ask about the print. Months went past and I didn’t hear from him, so I thought maybe he was just too busy or something. One day the phone rang and I had caller ID, remember that on land lines? It said Duane Michals. I answered and he immediately apologized for the late response. He had been in Europe for the past few months and had just returned. The first thing he asked me was how was my father? He was such a caring man. We chatted for a while and when we got around to the print, he said don’t buy it from the gallery, it was too expensive. Just copy it from one of his books. I thought that was funny. We chatted some more and said goodbye. I walked into the next room, where my then assistant was working told him who just called. He said no way, recognizing Duane as a major figure in the fine art world of photography. I took him into my office and showed him my caller ID. He just said wow, how cool. Yes, it was.
