An Honor Well Earned

What a day, what a day, what a day!


I hope I forever keep the memory of waking up this morning to the words, "Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature."

I wasn't sure I was really awake. Did I dream it?

Larry was mostly asleep, but I knew he would want to know immediately, if it were really true, so I asked, "Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"Bobby won the Nobel."

Then we both grabbed our tablets to confirm the news. The Guardian in the UK had only one line, posted eight minutes earlier, but it was enough. A minute or two later, the BBC had a line of its own. It took a bit longer for the U.S. news sites to get something online, and a few hours for the lengthy stories to come out, but since then Dylan's been burning up the internet all day.

Best of all, Barack Obama had his White House staff post this wonderful tribute (from 2012, when he awarded Bob the Presidential Medal of Freedom), along with my favorite picture of the two of them together:

Here's what I love about Dylan: He was exactly as you'd expect he would be… He came in and played ‘The Times They Are A-Changin'.’ A beautiful rendition. The guy is so steeped in this stuff that he can just come up with some new arrangement, and the song sounds completely different. Finishes the song, steps off the stage—I'm sitting right in the front row—comes up, shakes my hand, sort of tips his head, gives me just a little grin, and then leaves. And that was it—then he left. That was our only interaction with him. And I thought: That's how you want Bob Dylan, right? You don't want him to be all cheesin' and grinnin' with you. You want him to be a little skeptical about the whole enterprise. So that was a real treat.” — President Obama celebrating Bob Dylan, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature today.

Larry and I celebrated all day.