The Never Ending Pool

Dear Sabine, dear poolers,

I first met Thomas in 1993 and at many, many Dylan shows over the course of the following years. Since about 1998 we had been in regular Mail and E-Mail contact, always exchanging information about Bob and trading CDs, Videos and DVDs. He was always very generous in what he sent out and often also gave you little things he had picked up on the road, like flyers, posters and suchlike. If I remember it correctly, I met you, Sabine, before the 1998 Leipzig concert when you accompanied your brother. I still have a note he wrote for me before that show with the adress of two record stores in Berlin.

This year Thomas told me very early on that he intended to travel to the Scandinavian shows and then follow the tour "all the way to Toulouse". My plan was to see the show in Vienna on June 10th and we were looking forward to meeting up there. Sure enough, when I arrived at the venue in Vienna, I met Thomas near the box office. After the show we met again in front of the stage. We both had enjoyed the show and specifically talked about the songs "Sugar Baby" and "Ain't Talkin'". Outside we talked some more. Thomas told me about his travels to the other shows on this year's European tour. He had been to Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, Poland (where he had also visited the grounds of the former concentration camp in Auschwitz) and the Czech Republic. From Vienna Thomas wanted to drive through the night straight to Salzburg for the next day's show. Some of you met Thomas in Salzburg at the last Dylan show he was able to attend. It is nice to see him smile in the photo that was taken of him after the show. That is the Thomas we all should remember.

It would be really sad if he would have to be buried in foreign ground, in Italy. I think we should all do whatever is possible to help Sabine bring his body back to bury him in his home town. Maybe the best thing (especially given the state his body was found in) would be to have him cremated in Italy and to transport his ashes back to Germany for burial there. But that is up to Sabine to decide. We do not know what Thomas would have wanted, but to me he always seemed to favour straight and pragmatic solutions.

Sincerely
Andreas and family

P.S.: As to the attempt to get Dylan's people involved, I applaud the initiative to contact the Special Rider Office in order to inform Jeff Rosen (Dylan's manager). They must get many people contacting them about all sorts of things, but you never know. By the way, Thomas once wrote a letter to Jeff Rosen inquiring about the rare Japanese issue of "The Bootleg Series Vol. 1–3" and Jeff Rosen replied telling Thomas that he was looking for that CD-set himself! This was in 1997/98, I think. So, if Mr. Rosen is reading this, maybe he will remember ...