@JohnPhilpin How terrific for Peggy Noonan to write about Bob. Wow! She is only five years younger than I am, though she is a boomer, whereas Bob and I are members of the Lucky Few generation. She wrote great speeches for Reagan, who became governor of CA just before I started grad school at UC Berkeley.

I listened to the first half of Bob' s new album this morning, before starting an unexpectedly stressful day. But I made it through it and will listen to the other half tomorrow.

I have known Bob is great since 1966. Several of my best friends at Oberlin knew it years before I did! Bob took plenty of ridicule through some of his rough times, but he was never deterred from his mission and we never stopped to question his greatness. The biggest surprise might be that he could outlive us all.

It has been so nice in recent years to see him get his due more universally. I recently bought the definitive 961 page book of his lyrics, compiled by Sir Christopher Ricks, who I was lucky to get to know when we had him give the keynote speech at the 1998 conference on Bob Dylan at Stanford. It was the beginning of a lot more acclaim for Bob from academics and that was mostly because of Ricks. And now the definitive lyrics book that he worked so hard to produce is no longer conplete!

Any one who has chosen to study Bob has eventually learned that one should not try to be a completist with Bob's works. If you wanna be a completist, better study Richard Brautigan or J. D. Salinger.

Bob is one of the greatest Americans of all time. He has always remained true to himself, a great example for any young person growing up in these turbulent times! He will always be a good part of American history.
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