Dear Readers,

Bob Dylan is on the cover of this month's edition of the AARP magazine.

That's right. Bob Dylan. The same guy whose sullen smirk was once plastered on the walls of every college dorm.

The same guy, the official Pied Piper to a generation that sang his tunes in bars, homes and at gatherings protesting everything from the lack of academic freedom to the Vietnam War.

We knew his songs by heart. “Blowin' in the Wind,” “Mr. Tamborine Man,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin'.”

Can you believe it been almost 50 years since he shocked the college crowd and other assorted folk hippies by walking on stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with a Fender Stratocaster draped around his neck. Then, with help from Chicago's powerful Paul Butterfield Blues Band, he launched into “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”

The simple folk troubadour had gone commercial, gone electric, and the stunned crowd booed. The times they were a-changing.

It happened before many of you, dear readers, were born. But to lots of us with gray in our manes, it seemed just yesterday that some of us were caught up in an exciting atmosphere, a culture of change, fueled by a fear of war in Vietnam, passionate support for civil rights marches, and the heartbreaking murder of political leaders.

As passionate as we were then, we got over it, mostly. We directed our efforts towards family, friends and work. Now, some 50 years later, we are into different routines as lots of us volunteer to help our communities.

Today, when we think of the younger generation, we shake our heads in wonder as our grandchildren and their friends are caught up in another wave of change as evidenced by their seeming addiction to mobile devices and other electronic gadgets.

The national campaign to legalize marijuana gives us another excuse to shake our heads in wonder. Weed? Legal? Who would have thought it.

Not so Dylan, now 73. He has evolved into a rock ‘n’ roll master, churning out hit after hit and continuing to haunt the road. Today he is on stage somewhere playing the role of the senior pop song master.

Dylan sat down with AARP magazine because he wanted to reach his old fans, the generation of once passionate kids who gobbled up his record albums by the millions. After all, he is a musician and musicians plug their recordings.

He told the interviewer he wanted to let us know he had released another album called “Shadows in the Night,” featuring 10 songs, including “Autumn Leaves,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” What'll I Do” and “The Night We Called It A Day.”

Yes, Dylan, the once sullen rebel who wooed us with his poetry, his old Gibson and his simple melodies, admits he has a secret passion for the complex melodies and lyrics of the Great American Songbook. Among his favorites are Frank Sinatra, Irving Berlin and Johnny Mercer.

I know, it takes a while to wrap your mind around the idea of Bob Dylan singing “Some Enchanted Evening.” But, like the rest of us, Dylan got old. His tastes have changed. He has mellowed.

Still, I'll bet there are more than a few of you out there who can still lean back, shut your eyes and remember peering at a tiny stage. There, a crimson spotlight shone on a long-haired performer wearing a blue jean jacket, cuddled up to an old Gibson guitar that was mostly in tune.

As a single spotlight pierced the smoke of a hundred cigarettes, he sang: “Gather round people. Wherever you roam. And admit the waters. Around you have grown.”

“For the times they are a-changing.”

They sure did.