Getting Late

 "It's getting late, but it's not dark yet."

My heroes are aging.  Strike that, they are getting old.  Very old, very fast.  So it seems.  The baseball player in his 90s can only recollect.  The boxer can barely stand.  The writers are blind and the fisherman can no longer tie a knot.  

And then there is Dylan.  He announces a new tour.  It's what he does.  Still writes songs of substance and takes his show on the road.

For me, it was always about Dylan.  The force that hit home at the precise moment I needed.  He is a giant redwood with roots that go deep to Woody Guthrie and beyond to Baudelaire.  Thick, gnarly, massive roots that go to the magma.  He really does contain multitudes.

My intro was on Thursday nights.  At 6:55pm I would go to the backyard and ready the two trash barrels to be taken to the curb in front of our house.  I was set with earphones in place and my transistor radio in my pocket.  By 6:57, the first trash barrel was in place.  By 6:59 the second one was in place.  Turning to walk back up the driveway, I'd tune to KFWB because at precisely 7: o'clock they would play the number one song in England.  For weeks that song was "The Times are Changin.'  It would take another year before that album became available and I would sit on the top of the stack in my bedroom.  

In the following years, Dylan would invent and reinvent himself many times.  I cared little about his image.  Just keep those lyrics coming and that original harmonica style.  By the time "Like a Rolling Stone" etched its way into Rock and Roll legend, I had 3 Dylan albums.  

Shortly after I graduated high school I went to a party with many of my classmates.  This was different because some were in college and some went into the military.  Some got married and started families and some went into the workforce

My best friend and I unapologetically announced when someone played Dylan's hit record, (Like a Rolling Stone) that he was the greatest poet of the 20th century.  We had no way of knowing that, we just wanted to let our peers know that they needed to pay attention, listen to what he was saying and think about his messages.  We were arrogant and a little ignorant about great poetry but years later when Dylan won a Nobel Prize, I wore a satisfied smile.

For me, it was always about Dylan.