I am a journalist, writer and broadcaster ... lately I've been concentrating on music, I spent many years as a music critic and a travel writer ... I gave up my last editorship a while ago and started concentrating on my blog. I was also asked to join AirTV International as a co host of a new show called Postcard ...
Procol Harum lead singer Gary Brooker has died, aged 76.
Gary, who co-wrote A Whiter Shade of Pale, had cancer.
A statement on the band’s website confirmed that Gary had been receiving treatment but died peacefully at home.
It read: ‘With the deepest regret we must announce the death on 19 February 2022 of Gary Brooker MBE, singer, pianist and composer of Procol Harum, and a brightly-shining, irreplaceable light in the music industry.”
#proculharem #garybrooker #whitershadeofpale #60s
It’s not the worst, Alan Bennett’s view of new C4 docu on Brady and Hindley
A Channel 4 documentary on the Moors Murders has brought hack the horror of the worst crimes in the 1960s.
Moors Murders: The Witness has given viewers an in-depth view at the serial murders by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. They lured, tortured and killed five children before they were eventually caught and jailed for life.
Alan Bennett, the brother of victim Keith, whose body has never been found gives his own view of the programme.
About the latest documentary, I have seen worse to be totally honest.
The main saving grace was David Smith’s honest and open account of events and the fact that Hindley eventually admitted she had lied about his involvement in the murder of Edward Evans.
Brady, not surprisingly, continued with his lies.
I was very saddened to see the photos of Edward’s body again, there was really no need or excuse for those to be shown.
I picked up on a few things that were not factual but were spoken as if they were indeed facts, that always gets to me.
I have spoken to or communicated with just about every leading person connected with the case and search for Keith and Pauline since 1985, including Brady and Hindley.
I have double checked all I have been told as much as I possibly could and taken matters further if at all possible.
I have also come across some of the weirdest people I have ever met and hoped to never have contact with them again.
I have also had the misfortune to be contacted by some of the most bitter, twisted and evil minded individuals with their theories and lies. Worst of all with their twisted ideas of what they believed actually happened to the victims, which I found to be absolutely vile and sickening and could only have been the work of a very sick minded and wicked person/persons, as if what really happened was not bad enough for them.
We can only deal in facts as they are known and can be confirmed, apart from that we have to also deal with what we believe to be possible or probable, without adding or making up things that do not have the remotest connection to what we know to be true.
I think I’m starting to ramble on here and going off track about the documentary.
So, thank you for caring about Keith and all the other victims and thank you for all your best wishes for me personally.
Coronaviruses have circulated in humans for centuries and were first chronicled in the hedonistic 1960s.
Most of them were mild – except for HKU1 which stuck the boot into your gut too.
Then, two years ago, CV became a little monster, so small it could fit inside a Pacman a million times over.
But despite its size, it flapped around us like a giant avenging angel. It left bodies, heartbreak and fear along the roads of our fiscal thunder – broken businesses, bust bosses and old people trapped inside new prisons of their minds, hospitals and care homes.
No one can make Covid disappear.
But repairing the damage done to our livelihoods and our societiesis the only way we can move forward.
Yep, after two years of hell, the pandemic is officially over according to ebullient, bullsh*t-sharing Boris.
Covid has been down-graded to just one of the many chesty illnesses we have to cope with.
At a time when Boris is beginning to look more like a big blond weeble trying to peck the PR latch on party-gate, decorating-gate, lying-gate, fuel-gate, Brexit-gate, Ukraine-gate, Covid just doesn’t seem to be a major problem any more.
But it is still with us.
And so is the collateral damage. More than 6 million on hospital waiting lists, a mental health epidemic, primary care services collapsing and education basically off the curriculum.
Oh, and don’t forget about the economy – towns and city centres deserted, leisure and entertainment industries decimated. Office blocks empty… and a new rural cottage industry as so many now work from home.
The question has to be, has Boris Itsgoodenoughnow actually declared us a free-from-lockdown nation to save his own careless career?
Or are we all, overnight, as safe as we have always been from, for instance, flu?
Or as safe as we have been for centuries from the rigours of Covid?
Sir Keir Starmer who was left a bloated, festering mess by that nice Mr Corbyn stamped his little donkey foot and said Boris is moving too quickly and should continue to pour £2billion a MONTH into “free” Covid tests.
They’re not FREE Keir – they cost £2bn a month! Even a donkey at your sanctuary can work that out!
The thing is Keir, Boris is out there fighting a potential war in Europe, coping with bumbling Biden, making ‘mad’ Macron look like a mackerel, fighting a million home fires … and trying to hide his protruding peccadilloes.
Keir, you and so many others are fighting a war that is hopefully already over … the battle now is to give the UK a feeling of dignity, determination, well-being and a rickety sense of freedom.
60s star tells of decades of letters from the killers as Alan Bennett still fights to find his lost-boy brother Keith
Why are people ‘celebrity-stashing’ potential clues to the murderous rampage around Manchester carried out by sick monsters Myra Hindley and Ian Brady?
What makes another human being bask in the bloody glory of the awful murders of children?
Now many of these people are finding their own vicarious macabre ‘celebrity’ by revealing these secrets kept quite about for decades.
A former 1960s pop star with a chequered background is finally showing the world what are said to be letters and notes she curated from the sick pair.
It took Janie Jones – now aged 81 – until recently to come forward, after Brady’s death in 2017, with what are said to be hundreds of letters.
And now, in never-before-seen footage from 2003, David Smith – who was married to Myra’s sister – claims he was in bed when Hindley came to him in the middle of the night.
Smith – who had married Maureen at 16 – heard screaming, and Myra begging for his help.
He found Brady beating Edward Evans, a teen loner he’d lured to the house where Hindley’s grandmother was sleeping.
It was Smith who was ultimately the downfall of the murderous pair when he went to the police.
Because of him Brady was in custody. But it would be five more days before Hindley was arrested. It is generally thought that this gave her time to destroy “souvenirs” they had taken from their victims and were found next door to Millward’s Merchandise, the local wholesalers where they both worked.
Then two suitcases recovered from a left luggage locker in Manchester, containing a gun, a cosh, paperwork and a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
And then there was the sick tape of a little girl screaming for her mum as she was tortured. As a reporter working for a major news organisation investigating I listened to the tape and it has left an indellable mark on my heart.
Despite all these new revelations and ‘unseen’ background information Alan Bennett, brother of victim Keith, is still fighting to have two suitcases opened that could well contain details of where the killers hid the body of his brother on the windswept and stormy moors above Manchester.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is supporting police with new measures which could finally see Ian Brady’s ‘secret’ files exposed to the public.
The new powers could help police track down human remains and bring closure to families whose loved ones vanished.
The need for these powers was brought to light by the horrifyingly tragic story of Keith Bennett.
They hid his body away on the moors near Saddleworth and they both took Keith’s final resting place to their own graves.
Brady’s secret files are locked in suitcases in a storage unit .
Police have applied for a warrant to open the cases, but this has so far been refused by the courts on the grounds that any evidence in the suitcases cannot be used in criminal proceedings, as Brady is dead so cannot be prosecuted. The executors of Brady’s estate have declined to hand them over to the Bennett family.
And Janie Jones – jailed in 1974 for throwing sex parties – who became friendly with Hindley in Holloway has held on to her letters for almost as long.
After her release in 1977, Janie continued to write to Hindley, and visit her in prison. She even campaigned for her to be released.
Meantime, passages from Hindley’s unpublished diaries and biographies give glimpses into the all-consuming romance between Hindley and Brady.
“He’s a crude, uncouth pig. He’s cruel and selfish and I love him,” she wrote in her diary. “I hope Ian and I love each other all our lives and get married and are happy ever after.”
She also wrote: “At the age of 18 I met a man who convinced me there was no God at all.
Brady apparantly told Janie: “Myra and I once loved each other. We were a unified force.”
And so the revelations keep coming – for instance it was a little-known fact the family of Pauline Reade who was 16 when she disappeared on her way to a disco have been through an unimaginable agony.
Think of it, she disappeared on July 12, 1963, and let’s be honest, the true horror of having parts of your daughter’s body found in a dusty storage room at a university more than half a century after her murder is unimaginable.
So, The Society will keep asking the question… why do people hang on to the secrets of killers and do they intend to profit from them?
The Queen has tested positive for coronavirus, Buckingham Palace confirmed.
Her Majesty is 95 and is said to be experiencing mild cold like symptoms and wants to continue light duties at Windsor.
The Queen fell ill after it was confirmed she had been in direct contact with Prince Charles during the time he had the bug
The Monarch reached her 70 year Platinum Jubilee on February 6.
The Queen is thought to be triple vaccinated.
She is believed to have spent time with Charles on February 8, when he hosted an investiture at her Windsor Castle home, and a few days later he tested positive for Covid but made a quick recovery.
The Duchess of Cornwall has also tested positive for Covid, with Clarence House confirming on February 14 that the duchess was self isolating.
Retired teacher Dorrie Bridge tells how he taught her new lessons
So much is written about Dylan, aka His Royal Bob-ness; written by people who have followed, researched and worshipped him.
What could I add? I’m just a gran – four grandchildren.
I know nothing except gut responses to his work throughout my adult life.
I guess I acquired my respect for Dylan by some form of osmosis.
The point was that as the years went by my son never faltered in his taste for anything Dylan. A ‘taste for Dylan’ has many facets because he, himself, is an endless source of eclectic melody and lyrics. The older he gets the more he proves there are no boundaries to his versatility.
My own osmosis was developing like a form of brain washing. I had gone through all the stages of reaction, ‘I can’t tell what he is saying!’ ‘His voice is raucous!’ – ‘No, his voice is different!’ So many cliches but basically – he was, and is, an artist of great depth.
At last I found music that was appealing to me. At the time, Lay, Lady Lay, Blowing in the Wind, Masters of War – and accepted that I was a fan in my own right.
In my career I taught English to early teens and I chose a theme for one module: War. Dylan was at the heart of those lessons – for his lyrics.
How much telling evidence and simple truth would ever be revealed if it wasn’t for the freedom of the British Press to publish and be damned?
And yet people like me – yep, real McCoy journalists – are being hobbled again by the great British Ass of the Law which has decided once more that the rich, the powerful and the downright disgusting can suppress evidence and gag witnesses.
Yet this right to a private life is only really invoked nowadays by those who have something to hide while the rest of us demand personal privacy yet give our family secrets away to the phish and chip shops waiting on any cyber corner.
Yep, in the past few days. the supreme court has ruled against Bloomberg News in a privacy case that will make it harder for the British media to publish information about individuals subject to criminal investigations.
In 2016 Bloomberg named an American boss at a large public company who was facing a criminal inquiry by a British regulator.
The article was based on a confidential letter Bloomberg had received which revealed that the businessman was being investigated in relation to claims his company had been involved in corruption and bribery in a foreign country.
The businessman – known in the legal proceedings as ZXC – decided to sue Bloomberg over the article, claiming that it had misused his private information as he had not been arrested or charged with any offence in relation to the corruption inquiry.
The case hinged on how to balance the businessman’s right to privacy with Bloomberg’s right to freedom of expression.
It took six years for the court to side with the businessman and trash the media arguments.
In the judgment written by Lord Hamblen and Lord Stephens, they said: “For some time, judges have voiced concerns as to the negative effect on an innocent person’s reputation of the publication that he or she is being investigated by the police or an organ of the state.
“The degree of that harm depends on the factual circumstances, but experience shows that it can be profound and irremediable.”
This supreme court ruling is the latest in a series of judgments which have toughened privacy laws in the UK. The ruling makes it even harder for journalists to publish stories based on confidential documents, even if the leaked material alleges serious wrongdoing.
Hanna Basha, of the law firm Payne Hicks Beach, said the British media would now be severely restricted in “how they are able to report on the early stages of the majority of criminal investigations”.
The businessman in the recent ruling argued that, under the European convention on human rights, he had an expectation that details of the British regulator’s criminal investigation into him would not be made public unless he was charged with an offence.
Bloomberg said the general public understands that reporting the existence of a criminal investigation into an individual does not mean they are necessarily guilty of a criminal offence.
However, the supreme court ruled that even revealing the existence of a criminal inquiry would affect an individual’s “right to establish and develop relationships with other people”.
Bloomberg also argued that the businessman’s work for a major company listed on the stock exchange should not be considered part of his private life and therefore should not be subject to the same legal protections.
The court however said that an article revealing the existence of a criminal inquiry would cause “greater damage to a businessman actively involved in the affairs of a large public company” than to an ordinary member of the public.
And there we have it… a criminal inquiry would cause “greater damage to a businessman actively involved in the affairs of a large public company” than to an ordinary member of the public.
Yet, on the face of it, what could be better than a suspect remaining anonymous until police have found the proof needed to put them in the dock?
Very reasonable — until you look at exactly how much crucial evidence would never be revealed except for the freedom of the Press to publish.
Or how this now allows the rich, powerful and the guilty to use their monetary muscle to suppress evidence, cover their tracks and gag witnesses.
This isn’t a right to privacy, it’s a right to secrecy by keeping the Press at bay.
Until this ruling suspects were investigated by newspapers – under the provisions of media freedom – while police inquiries were going on.
Now we can’t.
Judges have put the right of criminals to privacy above the free Press which lies at the heart of our democracy.
Without one you cannot have the other.
And today we face the fact that privacy is an illusion all over the world except in the ermined minds of those donkeys who stick it in the big asses of our law.
People in Hibbing have their say about Dylan, their town and THAT article…
I’ve upset the good people of Hibbing, I’m afraid.
And we are publishing comments and thoughts from this little Minnesota town of less than 20,000 people.
The iron fist hits back, so to speak.
Hibbing is famous for – amongst many other things – pizza roll and Bob Dylan.
And what these messages – they would have been called Letters to the Editor not so long ago – reveal is a series of snapshots of Hibbing where Bob’s dad worked hard in his furniture and appliance store despite suffering from polio.
The people of Hibbing tell their own stories about their town and how it has changed over the decades since Bob took to the road more than sixty years ago. They talk plenty about Bob too. Fascinating insights into one of the world’s greatest performers and story-tellers.
They talk about the half-truths he told about Hibbing as he built his ethereal rock’n’roll bard persona.
They talk about his musical abilities and ask was his brother David actually better at it than him?
They talk about Bob’s friends, his humour, his strangeness, why he wasn’t liked by some …
The writers also discuss racism – remember what ‘postcards of the hanging’ alludes to. And what the attitude of the town now towards people from other lands.
And they talk about Bob and his time and antics at Hibbing High.
It’s fascinating.
I thank you all for taking the time to write.
The comments are un-edited and in the vernacular and style the writers chose ot express themselves.
On the whole, we don’t dislike Bob
Dawn Allison
It sounded like you genuinely wanted feedback from people in Hibbing. So here’s mine!
I don’t agree with your representation of the community as a whole disliking Bob Dylan.
That’s unfortunate, in my opinion.
The younger generations, and MOST of the generations the same age as Bob, do think he’s pretty awesome. I’m 38, and my mother always spoke so highly of him. She watched him perform in that talent show on the Hibbing High School auditorium stage. I think she said he was two grades ahead of her.
My mother always felt bad for how he was treated around here, and she always enjoyed his music.
My favorite teacher in high school just might be his #1 fan, even if it’s self proclaimed! Therefore, many, many students were repeatedly submitted to the magic that is Bob Dylan on school trips…since he was a swimming coach, key club advisor, and I believe also the Mathlete coach, he alone may be mostly responsible for the younger generations appreciating and experiencing Bob.
Yes, he still works at the high school. Too bad you didn’t speak to him.
So, truthfully, many born and raised as well as many relocated Hibbingites keep the magic of Bob Dylan alive in this small town. Creative license. Your process. Your story. Can I ask how long you spent in Hibbing?
I saw the camera on a tri-pod, so figured someone was doing an article! How many people did you speak to?
Did you already have an idea of what spin you wanted to take on this? Curiosity mostly. It reads pretty one sided.
I think we have a pretty co
Dawn ol community here, and we are always trying to improve. There are several new council members stepping up to make change for the good, and I am bummed to see you had to slap a political statement in there, that in my opinion is completely unrelated to the article.
It also puts a lot of negative weight on the community. Man, I think I want to move away now. We sound like a bunch of jerks!
Not jerks. Iron Rangers. Just tougher than most. It’s all the extra iron in the water supply I think!
The over generalization of a town, and the negative connotation implied simply by calling it Trumpian Racism instantly changed the direction of the article, and made the whole article drop in tone significantly.
I have not read any of your work previously, so I have nothing to compare it to. Maybe this is the style you always go.
Overall, not a pleasant read for me at all. I would have enjoyed it a lot more had it covered a broader spectrum and better represented Hibbing as a whole. It kind of sounds like you just hung out at the local watering hole, and listened to all the retired old timers complain as they drank their happy hour brews!
Well written. I expected the tone to not be great due to the title. That’s my honest feedback. Next time you’re in town, look me up! I’ll make sure you don’t miss the magic again!
Renee, Bob and the ‘tired’ horses in the sun
John Pileckie
In the summer of 1974, after my first year of teaching, flush with cash from a car accident insurance settlement, I drove my first new car (a 1974 yellow VW Rabbi) on a cross country trip, and drove north in the Midwest on Highway 61 to visit Robert Zimmerman’s hometown, inspired by Toby Thompson’s “Positively Main Street” (first published in 1968, republished in 2008).
My aim was to walk the streets of what I knew to be a small town and perhaps talk to folks who knew Dylan back in the day.
Led by the instincts of a 24-year-old male, I stopped by the first tavern I could find, one called Shoes Instant Replay (ice hockey was huge in the region, and instant replay technology had been perfected during the prior decade).
There I met a gentleman who knew the Zimmerman family, Bob’s father Abe who owned an appliance store in town ( “Abe was a good man, you told him what you wanted and he gave you credit on the spot”) and drew a small street map on yellow paper that would lead me to 2425 7th Ave., a pleasant walk away. The barkeep told me that I should talk to Bob’s cousin, Renee Stone – described as a friendly, outgoing woman who “is in here all the time” and would be glad to talk to me.
She gave me Renee’s number, and, after a brief intro on the phone in the back of the bar, we had a nice conversation, confirming the bartender’s description. Renee told me that she had recently spent time with her cousin, on his farm, “…somewhere in Minnesota, Bobby would kill me if I told you where he lived.”
She said they rode horses together, and Bob was mostly quiet. I then walked down to Dylan’s homestead, took some pics, and talked to a person living in the neighboring house, who had been a classmate of Bob at Hibbing High.
I knew that Dylan had performed at a talent show in high school, and I asked his former classmate how the performance was received: “We pretty much laughed.”
He also said, the previous summer he saw a person “dressed the way you’d expect (Bob) to dress” climbing a tree in the backyard of his childhood home. I ended my walk tour with a return into town and stopped by another tavern. There, I found supporting evidence for the bibical quote (John: 4-44), “No prophet is accepted in his home town.”
I told the bartender in that joint my purpose for visiting Hibbing, he waved his finger in the air and exclaimed in disgust, “Bob Dillan, Bob Dielan, whatever his name, his brother David was twice the musician he was, that stuff about sniffing drainpipes …”
Another tavern patron told me that Roger Maris, the NY Yankee who broke (with an asterisk) Babe Ruth’s home run record of 60 in 1961, and who was born and spent his earliest years in Hibbing, was better known in town as a famous native of Hibbing than was Bob.
All of this was at a time when Dylan, while surely well known among rock fans and those familiar with pop culture, was not the universally known and widely revered personage that he would become in future decades.
Few, I guess, would have predicted that their hometown Bobby Zimmerman would one day be honored by the consecration of a wall in front of their community’s high school, two blocks down from his youthful home on 7th Street.
I had Charlie Miller for a teacher too. I have always admired him, and I think he taught us a lot. I never saw any racism either. In fact in HJC as it was called when I went there, our freshmen class voted a person of color to be our class president.
My home from home on the range
Jim Burho
Thanks for asking Leigh. I don’t live in Hibbing any more, but do live seasonally south of there in Cotton, MN. I do get back to Hibbing every summer to visit friends and have so many mixed emotions.
My old neighborhood and home is a run down mess and I hear crime and drugs are a real problem not only in Hibbing but across the range. Howard street lacks any identity of its past, the boarded-up store fronts, and closed businesses abound.
That hurts to see since the Hibbing I grew up in is still in my heart and wonderful, innocent memories flood my mind on those return visits. Some towns’ grow and their character gets better with time and some don’t.
I think Hibbing falls into the latter category as it somehow lost that unique character of it’s immigrant population of high moral standards that protected our innocence.
Leo (sic!) is a lazy journalist!
Erin McCabe Ningen
One of the laziest examples of journalism I’ve ever seen.
Leo (oops! Lazy! – Editor) G Banks clearly did not do his research.
A blogger who cared to put in even a minimal amount of effort, would have discovered that the story of Hibbing is remarkable, even in a country full of remarkable achievements. He mentions the “castle in the wilderness” and expresses condescending dismissal and confusion as to why people seem so proud of it. A minimal amount of research would have revealed to Mr. Banks the incredible story of immigrants from 43 countries who, in spite of the underhanded efforts of the mine barons to divide us, stood our ground and achieved not only concessions on workplace safety and pay, but also forced the mining companies to put some of their profits back into the community including building the high school and the state’s first pool. That High School, in the span of about 30 years, graduated Governor Rudy Perpich, baseball player Roger Maris, basketball player Kevin McHale, Manson prosecutor Vince Bugliosi, Palucci, Dylan and hundreds of others whose achievements would be considered notable if they were from a town without so many remarkably accomplished people.
For instance, did you know that Hibbing was home to a lady who went on to become one of Macy’s head buyers? Did you know that Hibbing produced a Broadway performer who went on to become one of the producers of the Vagina Monologues? Pp did you know that the journalists who uncovered the Enron scandal was a graduate of Hibbing?
Did you know about the little bus company that grew up to become Greyhound? Did you know that the ore from these mines became the steel with which we won World War II and built the greatest industrialized country the world has ever known? It seems like Banks was content to try and find in Hibbing a town deserving of Dylan … early dismissive comments without considering that those may have been the sentiments of a young man freshly freed from small-town life and eager to experience a much bigger world. Again, with just a minimum amount of effort, Banks could have uncovered Dylan recent comments where he explains that his recent successful career as a sculptor of iron gates is an homage to his hometown and the hard-working people who lived there.
Bob was laughed at – as well as admired!
Rhonda Wiiliainen
Mr. Banks, Understanding everyone has an unique lense the look through, I accept your view of Hibbing.
Being a life long resident, my lense is different. Our town’s history has molded us here. We are a melting pot of many religions, races, and cultures. I encourage you to listen to the Podcast “Power in the Wilderness” and read the book of the same name, which will come out this year.
It tells much about how we grew out being a mining camp who’s residents lived under a form of indentured servitude, fought the biggest company in the world to become the “richest village in the world”. I believe history provides insight. My early years in Hibbing were good.
Our diversity was not colorful but cultures from what we called the old country were strong and, from saunas to poticia, we still share and celebrate them. My education was exceptional. Our teachers were great. I was prepared for college. We were an inclusive bunch. One teacher said “this is the first school I’ve worked in where I can’t tell the rich kids from the poor.” I was taught by my parents that skin color, gender or any “differences ” are hard to live with, not because of the differences, because of how some people react to those differences. Politically we were strong DFL – socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Things have changed but, the changes are not unique to us.
Our politics are leaning more conservative, mostly because the DFL is not the DFL anymore and has basically Stopped listening to the people and become part of the machine.
Our country is changing and has been for years. If you compare my time and Robert Zimmerman’s time to now, we had it good and Hibbing was different then.
He was laughed at, he was also admired. His experience wasn’t much different than most other American middle class kid. I think we romanticize our idols experiences. As for Hibbing now, our education system is not what it was.
We don’t have the finances or the population we had before. Our diversity in color is growing but still low.
We are good people here no better no worse than anywhere else. I’m glad I grew up here and that I am still here. That is my view.
An uninformed, disjointed curmudgeon
Gina Forti
Not “very nice”. It’s his blog and his opinion, as negative, uninformed and disjointed it may be, so I’ll just file this one under “badly written free speech”. Call me “judgmental”, but I would prefer to have read something more positive about the wall itself versus of a curmudgeon’s opinion of the community.
I didn’t quite understand this one …
Plinkin
“Leaders in Hibbing have joined a Police Department task force to sort out any hints of Trumpian racism left in the community”… So now it’s totally acceptable to admit to a systematic process of taking out people you disagree with politically? Who exactly are these “racists”? “At midnight, all the agents and the superhuman crew, come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do”
#BOBDYLAN #dylan #hibbing #minnesota #ironrange #
Do you have the HABIT of having a few? Inside my alchie world …
In a little Minnesota town called Hibbing, people are apparently always talking about each other.
Some even say it’s a bit of a twitchy-curtain community.
The disingenuous are known to describe each other as judgemental while others simply say everything is ‘very nice, thank you’.
Personally, I don’t know which is worse – to be described as ‘nice’ or ‘judgemental’.
But there is certainly a middle-class pride in Hibbing, considering it is such a small place standing in the foothills of the Masabi Iron Range …
One of its claims to fame is that it had the first swimming pool in Minnesota. And that makes people feel very nice, thank you.
Oh, and the man who invented pizza rolls lived nearby.
But he wasn’t much of a role model, by all accounts. He came from ‘the other side of town’ and, for some people, that was just too far.
The swimming baths make many good people beam with historic pride though. But the man who invented pizza roll, Jeno Paulucci, who died in 2011 aged 93, got talked about plenty when he was gone.
He was a ‘peddler’ with a foreign name who’d built several food empires, including Chun King, Jeno’s Inc. and Luigino’s.
And successful people are always worth gossiping about.
Oh, and we all know that Bob Dylan was brought up there don’t we … he was a small-town dreamer, just a son of a polio-victim furniture and appliances salesman.
Bob went to Hibbing High School.
It still has a marble staircase, brass handrails and massive stone pillars standing sentinel at the entrance.
And now there is something else.
A brick wall
The school itself was built in 1920 for $4 million and became known as ‘the castle in the woods’ for some reason.
Nobody gossips about that though. I don’t think they even know.
The school has a 1,800 seat auditorium with crystal chandeliers. That’s where Bob fronted a garage band and pounded out 1950s rock‘n’roll at a school assembly.
It was his first step on the highway of his life.
Dylan didn’t have far to walk to high school. His house of blue, with its funny flat- roof, was just two blocks away at 2425 7th Ave. That’s now called Bob Dylan Drive.
Bob’s old house …
Bob Dylan super-fan Bill Pagel bought the 1,600 square foot home from Greg and Donna French, who had lived there since 1990. It was valued at $84,000. but Pagel is said to have paid more than $300,000 dollars.
Later, he said: “I paid way too much for that house.”
His own small-town dream was to restore it back to the way it was during Dylan’s childhood in the 1950s. He said: “I’m trying to locate another collector who purchased many pieces of the original furniture, including Bob Dylan’s bedroom set, from the Hibbing home in 1988.”
Pagel, a pharmacist now in his late seventies, has run the Bob Links website since 1995.
And now there is that new little brick wall outside the school, just a few yards away from his ‘museum’ where Bob’s infinity goes up on show.
Some say it is very nice brick wall, but it is described jokingly as ‘two-faced’ by the judgmental ones.
“No one likes him here,” one of them, an elderly woman identified only as Irene, is oft quoted. “He wouldn’t acknowledge he’s from Hibbing, so we took his house off the bus tour.”
The house is back on now, and so is the wall.
The wall, described as a monument, is biographical on one side but has lyrics – and a chair – on the other.
Some, like Irene, have tried to paint a rift between Bob and the people of his home-town. But I don’t believe it, not since the far-off Sixties and Seventies anyway.
Certainly, his lyric ‘they’re selling postcards of the hanging’ didn’t endear him to some types during that period … it referred to the fact that on June 15, 1920, the good residents of Duluth, lynched three African-American circus workers, Isaac McGhie, Elias Clayton and Elmer Jackson.
This ‘strange fruit’ horror was photographed for posterity and turned into a postcard.
A hundred years later things have changed and towns folk and some leaders in Hibbing have joined a Police Department task force to sort out any hints of Trumpian racism left in the community.
But because of his flamboyance and many of his biographical lyrics Bob has always ruffled feathers in town.
Now, however, 30 snippets of his lyrics take up one of the faces of this strange, conservative, under-stated red brick monument which cost just $100,000.
Chairman of the bored!
On the other is a legend marking the Nobel Prize in Literature Bob was awarded in 2016.
Then there is also that bronze depiction of a school chair. It faces the school. Is it saying that it was his ‘schooling’ that made him what he is today?
A nice conservative thought or a subjugation of genius?
President of the Dylan project, Katie Ferdeen, said that placing the wall in front of the school would inspire students.
“I believe it’s really important to our community to recognize him so that graduates from our schools in the future realize that if they work hard and they chase their dream, they have the potential to achieve the great things that he did throughout his career,” she said.
At the end of the groundbreaking for the wall the celebration moved down the street to Bob Dylan’s bright blue childhood home, where refreshments were served.
And somehow it all seemed very nice but very un-rock’n’roll indeed.
