My Bob Dylan article was published in the Duluth News Tribune today

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/columns/4451208-local-view-memories-love-dylan-just-cant-be-shared




I wrote an article about my experience as a lifelong Dylan fan and how to me it is individual and sacred.

Everything is resolved

All the stress from yesterday evaporated.
My Minnesota tax return is in the 3rd stage of processing and I should have it by Friday or Monday this weekend.
The insurance adjuster appraiser came out today and looked at my car following a phone call from our company insurance agent in Philadelphia.
My article about Bob Dylan for Dylan fest in Duluth will be in the local paper this Friday.

I rule!!!

Once again, Janessa conquers with the help and grace of God who gave me an insightful mind.

The spiraling effects of the down hill slide of life 15 minutes a day, yeah right

Wednesday I was busy.  Thurs. I had 2 commitments which I can't explain on social media, Friday I had a bad sinus headache but I worked 12 hours, 5.5 hours driving and 5 hrs in a group home.  Sat-Sunday I worked 18 hours straight.  So when do i have time to blog?  uh ...once in a while.  I am supposed to be finishing my research on the Milwaukee 14.  I have too many irons in the fire, really.  My passion is my radio show because it has gotten to be a lot more fun!!!  Don and Jon are excellent co hosts and bring so much to the table!!!  Lately we have covered hot topics like Jade Helm 15, a military operation that will be initiated from Lubbock, Texas on July 15, 2015 as a form of marital law/exercise to experimentally subdue segments of the American population....unclear purpose since it is the U.S. private citizens that subsidizes the U.S. military.  Looking for Isis defectors is like looking for a wood tick in a pile of dead wood.  Anyhoo, we have done a lot more shows lately featuring Bob Dylan, Oprah Winfrey's life, Britney Spears, Billboard music awards, transgendering & more.  There's a lot to tell but I am short on energy.  I recently found more information on my geneology.  I also plan to visit my mom's best friend in Chisholm, MN.  I am going Friday.  all 4 now.   the truth is I can't blog 15 minutes a day, maybe 15 min a week.   Janessa aka Scarlett Risen

Similar Bob Dylan childhood story.....

I wrote an article in the Duluth Reader Weekly 3 weeks ago and had to pull it because someone complained about the personal-ness of the Bob Dylan-Larry Kegan relationship.  This blogger has the same information basically except Larry and Gene LaFond met in college, not high school.  

http://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2014/04/32-years-ago-today-remembering-larry.html

Bob Dylan Story: Rare Footage in Indiana in 1981 (article)

I felt like I was pulled into a Dylanesque hallucinogenic state when I descended the stairs of the Red Mug Coffeehouse in Superior, Wisconsin on Saturday, May 2nd.   “The truth was obscure, too profound to be pure, to live it, you had to explode.”  There was a group of 30 or so early stage Boomers there (born in 1946-55). I was probably the younger of the spectrum of the era.   It was as close as you can get to a pre-Dylan Fest get together without overblown music and infinite dedications.  A man named Marc Percansky was about to debut his film to the Northland about his Doberman named Ruby.  The name of his film was called Ruby the dogumentary which explored topics about the fear of death and the love between humankind and their fellow dog companions.   He decided to be magically forward thinking by slipping in rare footage of Bob Dylan along with storytelling.
What grappled me was not the rare footage that Marc possessed of Bob Dylan that he was about to show, but the living story that Gene LaFond recalled about Bob Dylan before the live footage was shown.   Gene had been college friends with Larry Keegan, a lifelong friend of Bob Dylan’s, whom Dylan met at summer camp in Wisconsin at a place called Herzel when they were teens.   Gene and Larry had the privilege of seeing an average of three concerts a year over 15 years at Dylan’s gratuity.  Bob Dylan remembered his childhood friend.  Larry Kegan broke his neck in a swimming accident when he was 16 and Bob Dylan stood by his lifelong friend during the ordeal and their friendship never dissolved.  Gene LaFond briefly shared a story of how one time Larry wanted to go canoeing near Bob Dylan’s farm in the Twin Cities.  They forgot the wheelchair when it was time to pick him up at the other end of the river and Dylan and Gene had to maneuver getting Larry into the van while still in the canoe.   Dylan also slipped in the mud and was a sight to behold.  He was afraid neighbors would recognize him as he cut through private yards near the river to safely retrieve his friend.  Dylan later made shish-kabobs for the whole group near his home.  What I love about this story is that it broke the sacredness within me that I felt directly linked only to my reserved part of my soul that is Bob Dylan.  His words and lyrics flow through me.  I’ve had over 50 songs memorized since age 18 (1978).  I have never participated in a public reception honoring him.
I did see Dylan with the Grateful Dead in 1988 in Orange County, California.  My intimacy with the words of Bob Dylan go down to the roots of my transformative religious faith in the chemistry of my makeup.  Being in a setting with people of like minded devotion and appreciation of the human side of Bob Dylan could allow me to perceive a man who looked after his friends, whose history was not just a jaded cross cut pattern through the wilderness from New York, of the coattails of Arlo Guthrie to his Southern redemption in the albums of Slow Train Coming and Saved.  After Gene LaFond’s touching story, Marc Percansky showed live footage of Bob Dylan and Larry Kegan in Blues Brothers candor of repertoire beats performing “Do you think I am Saxy?” in Merrillville, Indiana in October of 1981.   Larry Kegan was borderline rapping and Dylan was passionate within his saxophone performance.  There were other musicians behind them.  The video captured the strength of the childhood friendship and their comradery.  While the band members played on, Dylan completed his sax solo and pushed Larry offstage in his wheelchair.  Dylan was a messenger of comfort.
I was grateful to learn about a part of Bob Dylan’s life I did not know.  I never held him to the standards that other Duluthians did by insisting he claim his roots.  I grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota and it was the album “Street Legal” that measured my wandering heart, especially the song “Where are you tonight?”  My cousin Toivo Rysman of Canyon, MN rode tricycles with Bob Dylan when they were 3 and 4 years old in Duluth.   I am not going to claim any more pieces of Bob Dylan than a fan can pretense to have.  In my eyes, he is a Judeo prophet that surfaces and educated the streets of America, breaking through the bondage of government servitude and enlightening the Age of Aquarius.  His obscurity is part of that possession.  In a basement somewhere in Superior, Wisconsin, people of my generation embrace that genius.  The light in his blue eyes, the way he holds himself, his form of expression that only he can give.  Knowing he had compassion to childhood friends completes my vision of him.  Thanks Gene LaFond for sharing your story.  Gene will be performing onstage at Sacred Heart on May 23rd for Dylan Fest.  He will also perform with Dylan’s former violinist of the Rolling Thunder/Desire era, Scarlett Rivera, on May 24, 2015 at the Claire Nelson Community Center in Finland, Minnesota as part of Dylan Fests.

by
Jane Hoffman
Radio show: www.blogtalkradio.com/goldenrod1960