For about 2 weekis in 1963 Moondog was hanging around Rose Records (214 S. Wabash in Chicago) where I was working days then(singing nights--I hoped). Mostly he'd lurk out on the street under the Adams & Wabash "L" stop. Several times he'd wander into the store. I tried talking to him about things but didn't get very far. His horned viking helmet was pretty amazing. Since Rose Records tried to stock everything available, we had all of his LPs (Columbia classical as I recall). Unless I'm wrong, I remember coming back from lunch one day and walking past Moondog and into the store to hear the sad news that John F. Kennedy had just been killed in Dallas. I went straight through the store and out into the back alley loading dock area and broke into tears. Then, all of a sudden, Moondog just wasn't there any more. He seemed to enjoy being an enigma! Working at the store then were all kinds of musicians trying to keep body and soul together while trying to get to a place where they could make their livings with their music. (Warren "Mike" Casey was selling cassettes then at Rose. Nice guy. Mike, along with Jim Jacobs, would later write a little play named _GREASE_ that made some waves in a little storefront theater in town.)Dan Keding, the storyteller and writer of the storytelling column in Sing Out, worked there also---but not right then. Two blocks North on Wabash, a guy named Sandy Paton had started a strange department at Kroch's & Brentano's book store maybe a year earlier; a folk music records department.

A block east was the Art Institute of Chcago with the two huge lions in front. Many people spent their lunch hours with a book on the steps of the Art Institute---reading between the lions. **little joke**

Moondog seemed old back in '63----he must've been really old by 1999.

Somehow, I think he should've made it to 2000! He was a cosmic personality.

Art Thieme