The times they are a changin'

I am a teenager again. Bob Dylan's music is discussed on the radio. The chords of a Dylan song are summoned up by a busker in the streets of Manchester. A vox pop reveals that few people really know who Bob Dylan is. I know. He was one of the voices of my youth. The school folk club. The inspiration to pick up a guitar and to learn a few chords.
But my interest in Dylan was choked. The singer poet was a subversive force that militated against my family and religion. Today. with the wisdom of hindsight, I am hearing those tunes again. A documentary about him, directed by Martin Scorcese, is due to be broadcast next week. Dylan is the topic of conversation again.
I reflect on my teenage years from the dual standpoints of youthful longing and middle age regret. The feelings struggle inside me. What ifs rise about what was. What if I had joined the revolution - if I'd been a real child of the sixties rather than just a critical observer from the moral highground? What if I'd followed my ability and had gone to university instead of the safe option of technical training as a broadcast engineer?
I started work in 1967 while most of my peers went to study at university - they gained the tools to make sense of life while I made sense of printed circuits. In my mind I remained within my narrow way of religious tradition. Now I often long for the opportunity to catch up on my academic development. Bravado says that if I haven't learned it by now it's not going to make a much difference to a man my age.
It's only a brave face. Inside the desire is still there. It's not the qualification that attracts me but the process of getting there. The context to challenge ideas, explore thinking, examine motives and to experience the dawning of deeper understanding.
I took my son Wesley to university during the sixties revival of the mid 1990s. I left him in his room in Hull with tunes from Sgt Pepper drifting through the walls - the album had just been released when I left home for my training course in 1967. Wes was starting on the path I never took. Somewhere inside me emotion struggles with sense - the tension is still alive - that's what makes me who I am. Time to walk to the newsagents for the paper before I become morose .....
"How many roads must a man walk down ..... ? The answer is .... ?