Dylan turned 80 yesterday. This delightful story is courtesy of my old friend Tommy Williams, the rock musician whom I've mentioned before. He posted it on FB and gave permission to share it here:
I was 9 and in the 4th grade [this would be the early 1970s]. Our local paper, Newsday, had a TV Guide magazine in the Sunday edition with a Q&A column ("How do I write to Victoria Principal?" etc) in it. I wrote in asking for an address to write to Bob. They didn't print it, but sent me a postcard with a P.O. Box address in New York City. I proceeded to write a very long letter (on that no-line yellow paper they give you in grade school, with bits of wood still in it) with a lot of flowery verbiage, which would definitely be embarrassing today. I don't remember the whole thing, but I did say something like "what's the gadget that holds the harmonica? I made one from a coat hanger (found out years later that everyone had done that), but is that something you can buy at a store, or does that have to be custom-made by somebody?" I knew nothing. I sent the letter off, and being 9, promptly forgot about it.
A month or so later, a big yellow envelope arrived in the mail. Inside - oh, my God. An Elton Harmonica Holder, which in those days came in a shiny white box. On the front, in ball-point pen: "Wear this in good health - Bob Dylan." Talk about blowing a kid's mind - I still can't find the right words for it.I used it once, then put it back in the box for safekeeping and bought another to actually USE (now that I knew you could buy them; I've burned through a few dozen in the years since). I kept it in storage for decades, and then my wife thoughtfully got an appropriate shadowbox frame and mounted it for me. It's now (as of today, Bob's 80th birthday) on the wall in our living room - amongst some wall-mounted guitars, of course.Not many people are lucky enough to have something like that happen, but I've been massively lucky all my life, and I'm grateful for it all. There's a postscript, by the way...
In the early '90's, under circumstances way too complicated to tell, I got the opportunity to meet Dylan. We sat face-to-face in two armchairs with a couple of acoustic guitars and played to each other for about an hour and a quarter. I had always thought that "instrumental conversation" was more of a florid, romantic idea than a realistic one, but I swear, it was true. We barely exchanged five or ten words the whole time, but I'll never forget it. I never got the call to join the band (he didn't change any players for a few years - probably just toying with the idea), but I'll tell my grandchildren about it for sure. They probably wouldn't understand anyway...
As I got up to leave, I said hesitantly, "Not to embarrass you or anything, but when I was a kid, I wrote you a letter and you sent me a harmonica holder - just wanted to thank you; it meant a lot..." He obviously didn't recall it (it had been a couple of decades), but after blinking in surprise, he ventured: "Uh... still using it?"
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