Follow-up: In Appreciation of Bob Marley

We got a gratifying number of visitors yesterday that were drawn to my In Appreciation of Bob Marley post. One visitor, an old friend and fellow music head, sent along this great tale:

My former wife, a newspaper editor, tracked down Marley's mom through the Wilmington's Jamaican community, thinking it'd be a decent feature story.

It truly was.

My ex never let a source or story subject stray too far, thinking they might well prove useful in some future endeavor. So she stayed in touch with Marley's mom and her community, and one day she was advised that Bob was coming to town for a visit. The circumstance was either because of a regular community picnic-barbecue, or else it caused it.

Anyhow, the gathering was to be at a truly obscure, weed-overgrown city parklet on the Brandywine riverfront hard by some rather derelict communities. My ex thought it'd be an interesting scene to take in, but she also felt that it'd be unwise for her to make that scene alone. She suggested I be her escort.

The picnic was well-attended, it turned out; about three dozen or so showed up, as I recall, and they were all reasonably solicitous of us -- even if they weren't so sure what in heck these two white folk were doing there. We arrived, as per the invite, somewhere around 3 in the afternoon, and there was no sign of Bob. We lingered for several hours, not sure what to do with ourselves, but the anticipation among the assemblage seemed palpable to me, so I persuaded my ex not to give up on it.

Finally, around 6, some rather nondescript dark cars swept up to the picnic area, and out popped several rather heavy-looking, bodyguard types, and then the diminutive Bob himself. I flatter myself to think I recall a large cloud of smoke following him out of the sedan.

I managed to accost him almost too immediately -- the bodyguards notwithstanding. He may or may not have been aware that I (or at least my ex) would be in attendance. In any event, he was in full Rasta mode, replying in cosmic riddles to my every way-too-rational query, and in general ruminating in an advanced stage of herbal intoxication. He seemed to be taking my presence as a rather distracting (high-killing?) bother.

While I might have gleaned something later had I had the foresight to have taped his answers, I daresay almost nothing he said to me made a bit of sense beyond the most basic understanding of oneness consciousness, and that Jah rules all things. He was really all about kicking back with trusted friends and acquaintances of his mom in a casual evening; this was no press opportunity.