Still stunned, neighbor contemplates Dylan Nobel Prize

It’s been fifty years since he stalked out of the Midnight Scholar in Dinkytown, sorely disappointed.

Our neighbor, John Gerken, witnessed an early performance of folk-singing Bob Dylan near the University Campus. It was a free show in a well-known coffeehouse, but it wasn’t worth John’s time. He walked out soon after hearing the Iron Range guitarist take his position on the stool, strum a few chords and mumble some indecipherable lyrics in a nasal drone that was anything but musical.

John was outta there, a snap judgment he’s questioned for years, without remorse, more with amusement.

John and Mary Gerken with yet another University icon.

Today the neighbor shook his head and compared his own lifetime achievements to that of the young man with the curly hair, harmonica and acoustic guitar.

“Here I am at the end of a cul-de-sac with a bunch of geezers, and he’s won himself a Nobel Prize.”

Yes, John, as the prize-winning poet once observed:

"It's hard to speculate what tomorrow may bring."

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"You know," neighborhood cynic Tom Story adds, "Forrest Gump was at a lot of historic events too."

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Karl Tegland, who introduced live, electric-powered rock and roll to the Alexandria Junior High in 1958, sends along this amusing note:

Our local paper said it was a consolation prize, after Dylan got nowhere on "The Voice."