Expecting Rain

On the front page today in the "other" section there's a short interview with Mavis where she says that she met him when she was 17 and he was 16!! According to my math that would be 1957. I always thought they met sometime in the 60's though I admit I don't know much about the circumstances, That would be before he even left home wouldn't it?
I say to myself why would she make it up? She wouldn't

What gives?

She might make it up because it sounds romantic and endearing. We like our youth to appear romantic and rosy from life's other end. And she is touring with him.

The Staples Singers were traveling the country throughout the '50s and 60s and engaged in the Civil Rights Movement. Its possible Bob went to see them or they came through town nearby. Dylan claims he saw Buddy Holly et. al. the before the fateful night the music died. Maybe he followed the various groups that came through the area and he went to see them.

Dylan knew her from the radio as early as '53. According to an article in the Guardian, Mavis say they met in the early 60s. Still, they've known one another for a long time.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/ ... -bob-dylan

This was my take too.

Memories are fluid, sometimes they fade, and sometimes the power of suggestion makes us "remember" things that may not have actually happened, though its "real" to us. Memory is an interesting thing. What we choose to remember and how we choose to remember it can be fascinating. We sometimes endow the most innocent or innocuous statements or gestures with meaning and hold onto those things for life and the questions of "What if..." or what might have been are sometimes the most compelling.