Epiphany

You know by now that I am 85 and live a lot in the past. My latest time travel ticket was punched by Sen. Bernie Sanders telling thousands of young people at the Coachella Concert in the California desert on April 12, “the future of what happens to America depends on your generation.” That news clip immediately transported me back to the personal epiphany I experienced in front of Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963.

I entered adolescence to the catchy but mindless accompaniment of Patti Page’s monumental question, “How much is that doggy in the window,” you know, “the one with the waggily tail.” Later, Elvis was a musical advance of sorts, but, hormonally enjoyable as they were, the likes of “Blue Suede Shoes,” Jailhouse Rock,” and Heartbreak Hotel” continued mentally soporific and more of an escape from than connection with the adult world.

Yet here I was in front of Dylan — backed by Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, the Freedom Singers — being asked, “How many times must the cannonball fly, before they’re forever banned.” And “How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see.” Mind-blowing, challenging, life-changing, unanswerable but unavoidable questions.

1963 was the year of the assassinations of Medgar Evers and John Kennedy, the year of the March on Washington and “I have a dream.” Until Newport, I wasn’t paying attention. It feels like 2025 has the making of that kind of year. A year in which we need to pay attention.

Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary, became the anthem of a social movement that had dynamic positive impact on American life. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I became “a man” at that moment at that concert in 1963. My mission as a certain kind of teacher of American literature was born.

I’m on the way out. I hope that many young people in Sanders’ audience were so touched. I hope that my own grandchildren are or will become so touched. I think we’re gonna need ’em.

Ed Gallagher