Thank you, Paul Simon

Dear Paul Simon,

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I’ll explain why in a bit.

First of all, I hope this letter finds you well. It must be tough being a aging songwriter. You’re much wiser than you were 50 years ago — and certainly a more profound wordsmith — but most folks aren’t interested in anything you’ve penned since Watergate.

They’re stuck in yesteryear on tunes such as “Sounds of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and the masterful “Bookends” that was one of the first pop albums to include lyrics to all the tunes.

It’s the latter that’s the subject of this missive.

I wasn’t much to behold, Mr. Simon, when I went to college in 1967. Hopelessly shy. Socially inept. Supremely unconfident. No girlfriend. Only been kissed once.

I was swallowed whole by the bustling campus and its 10,000 students. I barely knew where I was, much less who was the individual inhabiting my brain.

Everyone else seemed so happy-go-lucky, so purposeful. I couldn’t make a friend, male or female. An evening out consisted of getting a to-go order at the burger joint, buying a copy of the Roanoke, Va., newspaper, scurrying back to the dorm room, closing the door and feasting on the fries and the Major League baseball boxscores.

I possessed no stereo and no albums. Not that I didn’t enjoy music. I loved listening to the radio in the den, but I was low-priority and could only turn it on when my parents weren’t watching television. While I didn’t have much money — I looked in trash cans for a non-soggy newspaper before finally investing the nickel — I’m sure I could have worked out a loan with my father so I could play tunes. But that would have required initiative. So I did what I usually did — nothing.

The guy across the hall was in one of my classes. One night I knocked on David’s door with a question about a homework assignment. “America” off “Bookends” was playing in the background.

I was transfixed by the lyrics, the third stanza in particular. “Cathy, I’m lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping. And I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why. Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike. They’ve all come to look for America.”

I asked David if I could play the song again. He had an errand to run, so he left me alone with his stereo.

It was the start of something. I came over most nights and asked if I could listen to his records. Temptations. Early Stones. “Revolver” by the Beatles. The soundtrack to the cowboy movie, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

But mostly it was “Bookends.” I wore it out, Mr. Simon.

It was the first time in my life that I felt someone was speaking person-to-person with me. I was lonely. You were lonely. I felt overwhelmed. You felt overwhelmed. What a conversation we could have, I thought, except for the fact you’re famous and I’m not.

In “America,” your traveling companion was a girl named Cathy. That was the name of the only female of my acquaintance who could stand to be around me. I wished we could travel the country, Mr. Simon, as you did with your Cathy. But mine was only good for the short walk to the student union and back.

I’ve risen from the depths of freshman year in college. Wrote a shit-load of columns. Some books. Some plays. Not great, but decent. Landed a wife. And children. And grand-children.

You helped me get through 1967, Mr. Simon, and I’m forever grateful. You put on paper about being not much to behold and I caught your drift. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

It took courage to write about feeling alienated. You were the voice I didn’t have.

I’ll never forget.

Again, thanks.

Garret Mathews