That old guy in front of Neil's Winnipeg house? It was Bob Dylan

By: Morley Walker

Updated: November 12 at 02:50 AM CST

It's not every day that you drive home from grocery shopping to find Bob Dylan rubbernecking in front of your house.

But that's what happened to city employees John Kiernan and Patti Regan, whose Grosvenor Avenue home was the early-1960s domicile of music icon Neil Young.

"It was very neat," says Kiernan, 53, a landscape architect who claims to have spent about 25 minutes chatting with the famous singer-songwriter.

"It's a wonderful memory."

Two Sundays ago, the day of Dylan's MTS Centre concert, Kiernan and Regan arrived home between 4 and 4:30 p.m. to see two scruffy men who had arrived by taxi standing on the sidewalk outside their house.

"Oh, oh, Neil Young fan alert," said Regan, who has become accustomed to such incidents in the six years they've lived in the amalgamated duplex at 1123 Grosvenor.

She went to talk to them while Kiernan lugged in the groceries. After he was finished, he walked out to chat, too.

"They were older than your typical Young fans," Kiernan recalls thinking.

Nothing clicked until he noticed that one of the men had his black leather pants tucked into expensive-looking cowboy boots. He glanced up and studied the lined, unshaven face topped by a grey tuque and realized he was looking at Dylan.

Kiernan kept his cool, while Regan, a project manager in the city's permits department, remained oblivious. Dylan, 67, was curious about the house and neighbourhood as they related to Young.

He also made small talk about the weather. Kiernan replied that it was unseasonably mild.

"You're from Minnesota, so you know what's usually like," Kiernan said. "Subtract 10 degrees."

Dylan laughed.

Kiernan asked if they wanted to see inside the house, and Dylan was eager.

"How long do you have for the tour?" Kiernan asked, meaning the tour of the house.

Dylan replied: "We're touring for another two weeks."

They showed him Young's old bedroom, now painted bright pink and occupied by Kiernan's 16-year-old daughter.

"So this is where Neil would have listened to his music," Dylan mused.

They took him into the old second-floor kitchen, now a laundry room. "I remember thinking I should have done the laundry before I went out," Kiernan says.

Kiernan explained the whereabouts of the Earl Grey and Crescentwood community centres, where a teenaged Young and bandmates played their first concerts.

"He was introspective and thoughtful," Kiernan said. "He had an interest in music beyond himself."

The encounter lasted more than 20 minutes before the two visitors left. Kiernan believes the cab driver did not know who his passengers were.

While Kiernan called him "Bob," Dylan did not formally acknowledge his identity. He didn't have to. "This was a guy who doesn't shake hands or introduce himself."

As the cab drove off, Kiernan said to Regan: "You were pretty cool talking to a huge celebrity."

"What celebrity?" Regan asked.

"Bob Dylan."

"That's why he looked so familiar!" she exclaimed.

She started screaming to neighbours who were raking their leaves: "Bob Dylan's in the cab! Bob Dylan's in the cab!"

Kiernan admits they have no documentary proof of Dylan's visit, nor did they even get an autograph.

"It seemed cheesy to ask," he said. "I was embarrassed that we hadn't bought tickets to the concert."

The conflict in the Middle East has been long, painful, complex and very hard to understand. I just finished reading a book that helped me, for the first time, begin to understand the conflict.

The very readable, Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan, explains the conflict since its beginnings in the late 19th century. I say it is very readable, as I wasn't sure how much drudging I'd have to so through political explanations and obscure histories. On the contrary, the history was compelling, though sometimes difficult to read as I realized that this was NOT a novel. This has all happened - and the conflict continues.

What I admired was the balanced view put forward by Tolan - someone explained it to me as full of "yes-buts". As you consider the pain and suffering of one side, this is juxtaposed by the "yes, but... the other side also experienced deep pain and suffering."

I come away shaken. I am moved by the tragedies that people face and endure - and I am shaken that such terror and suffering exists. It is not like I thought it didn't, it's just that when a human face is put to a conflict thousands of miles away, the earth seems like a small place. There is the smallest sliver of hope in the book. People can come from vastly different viewpoints (though, viewpoints seems like an understatement), and truly try to understand and listen to each other. Peace lies at the heart of how we listen to each other. And as one of the main figures in the book says, "In order to have peace, each side must be content to do with less."

I have to check the quote on that, I think I am paraphrasing - but in essence it is about what we give up in order to achieve peace.

I'd highly recommend this book.

It probably comes as no surprise that I am a bit of a political junkie (I don't know, I just seem that way to me!). Rushing home from teaching a class, I flipped between the major networks to see who would call it first. I always do this for elections, listening for the spin, the bias, the over the top metaphors that each network uses to describe the event.

One of the strangest was listening to the BBC pundits going at it, with a somewhat bewildered Ted Koppel amongst them - he didn't say anything for the few moments I watched. He just sat there as the token Yank, maybe wondering whatever happened to his career.

The speeches were the highlight for me - I expected Obama to be eloquent. And thank you CNN for shutting up for the entire walk around Obama and his family did when the speech was finished. I thought, good for you, just let it happen, the pictures and sound are enough (I quick flipped to the other networks, where they blathered on like sports channel colour commentators - it cheapened the whole thing.)

McCain was the surprise. It was probably the best concession speech I have heard. True humility, grace and a ton of class. Who the hell was this guy and what did you do with the other guy? You know, the tongue wagging, sarcastic, grimacing son-of a bitch? Why didn't they let the humble classy guy run?

Yeah, I am all starry-eyed and hopeful even with the realization that the U.S. economy is in the toilet (and we are following the whirlpool down), even with two wars that make no sense, and seemingly have little hope of ending, even with knowing that to stay in power Obama will have to move toward the center, and he may be more conservative than some might think - even with all that, it was a helluva night, and its going to be a helluva next four years.

God bless 'em.

Whew. Almost a month since my last post - no excuses except for a touch of burn out. I am once again considering stopping woofreakinhoo, for a while anyway. No need to send in your notes of condolences, huzzahs, "please stays", or "its about time you tossed in the towels" (there's more than one towel?)

Nope, just feeling a bit of a loss of focus these days. Perhaps one too many irons in the fire.

But in the meanwhile...

I do finally get to see Bob Dylan! The legendary Bobster (duke of Bob? His royal Bobness?) comes to town tonight. I saw another legend only a couple of weeks ago: Neil Young. I'll report as to which of them lived up to their legend status. Of course, just to hear Bob mumble will be a treat, because, well... because he's Bob.

Later.

ON deadline these last couple of weeks (and for a couple more).

woofreakinghoo will return when things slow down a little freakin bit.

Find yourself something good to read this weekend.

I recommend the Globe and Mail Saturday Books section. And if you read the review of the Kenneth Oppel's new book, StarClimber, you'll note the illustration was done by a certain wooreakinhoo blogger.

(Not the illustration shown to the left, that would be the cover - and a good one at that.)

Last night we picked our books for the year ahead - and like the men we are, the competition and voting was fierce. 

This year, having a fiction blog, I've decided to post my thoughts on this year's booklist as I read them. First up is a book that I have been wanting to read for a while, "Divisadero" by Michael Ondaatje.

I'll report on this in a few weeks, depending on how much time I find to read this and the dozen other books I have on the go. But I always finish in time for the next meeting - that's my deadline nature. So by Oct. 3, I'll be sure to say something.

I am not starting a new thing here, and this is not quite a mojo length story, but I hope you'll enjoy this little vignette. I doubt that it will see any other form of exposure, so I present it here.

(Oh, and I do like kids, so much so that I have three of them.)

Junior

I knew the little shit hid his true intentions. The Osh-Gosh pants with the cartoon daisies smokescreened his rapacious nature. He was more powerful than he let on and when controls were lifted a sinister single-mindedness would burble to the surface.

My neighbour fluttered her eyes. "You don't mind do you? I'd get a sitter, but under these circumstances." Her botoxed lips quivered."I'll be back in less than an hour."

Those emerald irises did me in.

The little creature pushed a dump truck across the floor, interspersing his happy gurgles with vroom noises. She coo-cooed at him, retaining her illusory composure, swung the apartment door open and lit out.

Two minutes later, the phone rang and I jumped to get it. Junior launched that Tonka like he was throwing discus for the Eastern Bloc before the wall came down.

Tufts of red hair joined to form twin peaks on his head just before the dervish ran full force into my crotch. The next forty-nine minutes proved to be a battle of wits, agility, sheer determination and drool.

When she flung the door open at the sixty-two minute mark I had my foe fast asleep in my lap.

"Oh, I hope he wasn't too much trouble," Ms. Gorgeous Eyes whispered. "I know you don't have any kids."

"Hey, I resent that." I smiled and winked.

I left hoping I got the smell of bourbon out of the bottle.