2020 Second QUARTER COMMENTARY

Bob Dylan, eleven years ago this month, in the rain, was picked up by police while wandering around Long Branch, NJ.  He was wearing a hooded raincoat, black sweatpants and rain boots. The officer, she didn't believe he was Bob Dylan.

He didn't carry ID.  He had stepped into the front yard of a house with a "For Sale" sign. The homeowners had called police, reported an "eccentric-looking old man" and followed him down the street.

Dylan explained to police he had been looking at the house for sale. Was he also looking for a nearby house where Bruce Springsteen lived in 1974-75? He did have a history of visiting the former homes of Neil Young and John Lennon.

After driving him to his tour buses parked at a nearby oceanfront resort, police verified Dylan's identity.

This story, black and white.  Dylan got a ride in the back of a police car.

Earlier this year, Ahmaud Arbery, also looking at a house, one under construction, was shot dead while the sun was shining, ambushed by three white men, one a former police officer.  Both Dylan and Arbery were in the wrong place at the wrong time, one subject of a quirky story; the other a tragedy.

Bob Dylan, poetically raw, real and beguiling, in his song “My Back Pages” sung about how hatred in the heart is not a pathway to love.  Though we might feel strife, though we might become angry, hate need not drive the behavior of our souls.
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I’ll stop there.  It’s raining.