Simon and Bill and Garfunkel and Me

My friend Bill drove down from Warwick in his magnificent new (old) Ford Crown Victoria, stopping for an overnight en route to North Carolina. We had a quiet 6:30 a.m. walk in the nature center with little Rosie, and spent the morning talking about music, friends, and stuff. It is such a pure reminder when friends from the group visit.


Bill recalls the first time he met Mr. Nyland in 1969, at a meeting upstairs at the Gotham Book Mart on 46th Street in New York.

"Simon and Garfunkel came to the meeting. They had both ridden in on motorcycles and were wearing their leather motorcycle jackets. Garfunkel was very interested and even continued coming to meetings for a while. Simon had no interest in what was being discussed and kept looking around, obviously bored."

Bill's experience was different. To this day he vividly recalls the impression that Mr. Nyland made. "He was addressing a room packed with people, but at a certain point I had the strangest sense that he was speaking to me, and just at the moment when I felt it strongest, he looked directly at me."

Thirty-eight years and thousands of work days later. . .who is and who isn't still crazy after all these years?