Time flies...

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, thirty-fifth President of the United States, would have celebrated his 93rd birthday today.  As I calculate it, the planet has spun on its axis 16,990 times since JFK was assassinated.  Which is almost exactly the number of days between his birth in Brookline MA and that horrid Friday in Dallas; Kennedy’s life was 16,978 days long.  On May 17 of this year, then, John Kennedy had been dead exactly as long as he lived.

Five days ago on May 24, Robert Allen Zimmerman, far better known as Bob Dylan, turned 69 years old.  He’s been a professional musician for nearly fifty of those years.  Just 22½ in November 1963, Dylan was already a star of the folk/protest/civil rights community when Kennedy died.  Since arriving in New York City in early 1961, he’d released two albums on Columbia Records, Bob Dylan and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and his third album The Times They Are A-Changin’ was already in the can awaiting release in early 1964.  Dylan and Joan Baez were so highly thought of at the time that they had been invited to play short sets at the August 28, 1963 March On Washington, where Dr. King gave his renowned I have a dream speech.  The other musicians who performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that afternoon were Mahalia Jackson, Marian Anderson, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Below is a public domain photo of Joan and Bob on that day:

I don’t have much of a point to make regarding this awkward juxtaposition of the birthdates of JFK and Dylan.  Merely acknowledging that tempus fugit, whether or not one is having fun.

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