"I'm Younger Than That Now"
I was handed a PDA, earbuds and a sheet of paper with printed lyrics. The file opened on the PDA listed two songs, "My Back Pages" by The Byrds and "Blue In Green" by Miles Davis. The paper just had Bob Dylan's words.
He wanted me to listen to both of them. For the entire lesson. Read the lyrics. What are they about? What do they represent?
I didn't get it at first. He insisted. Bob Dylan may have started out as a Guthrie clone, but he went on to become the greatest songwriter of the 20th century. And Miles Davis? You had to keep listening until you got it.
I still cherish both of those recordings. Certainly not Dylan's best song, but The Byrds' version is the greatest Dylan cover ever recorded.
"My guard stood hard when abstract threats Too noble to neglect Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect"
The meaning was elusive but the imagery was true. And it's stayed with me ever since.
This all came from the man who was one of the greatest influences on my intellectual development throughout my teens. An intelligent man who always seemed odd but it was obvious to me that he saw things differently to everyone else. He saw the bigger picture.
We tried to reconcile our love of the American arts with our disliking for American imperialism. "The greatest defenders of democracy are its sternest critics," he always told me.
This was a man who embodied everything I came to love about education and knowledge. Who introduced to me Capra-idealism and insisted Henry Fonda's virtue in Arthur Millers' "12 Angry Men" is one of the greatest and noblest recordings of the ideas of justice in history.
I stayed in close contact with him for several years after graduating and always mentioned him whenever the quality of education came up in conversation. Here was the greatest educator in the Queensland public service.
And now he's been charged with participating in the most vile exploitation of human capital. It's a tragedy when someone's sexuality has been distorted enough for this to occur. And I now question the value of his input into my development. I don't know where I can lay claim to the foundation of my adulthood.
If it is an open trial I am considering attending. Not for support. Not because I want him to see who he has failed and disappointed.
Because it should be documented by those that loved him too.


















