Noreen Bender said for decades she has kept a sheer top, a remembrance cloth and other accessories tucked away in a Bob Dylan merchandise bag, waiting for just the moment to return the items to her idol.
Bender, 56, finally got the chance Sunday at Dominican University, where punk rocker Patti Smith held a discussion of her new memoir “M Train.”
“I knew I had to get it back to her. It’s not for a stranger,” said Bender, who lives in the west suburbs.
At the Dominican talk, Smith identified the sheer top as the one she donned on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine for the July 27, 1978 issue. The cloth belonged to her brother and road manager, Todd Smith, who died in 1994, she said. Smith, 68, did not return Tribune requests for comment.
“It was just a very tender moment,” said audience member Catherine Forster, a Crystal Lake artist.
The items, whose authenticity could not be confirmed by the Tribune, may be tied to a theft of a Ryder rental truck used by Smith’s band after the group played a show at the Aragon in June 1979.
The truck, which carried about $40,000 in amplifiers, guitars and other musical equipment, was stolen outside of a Gold Coast hotel, according to a Tribune article at the time. Jeff Shaw, then a member of Smith’s stage crew, said he spent the night at the hotel and the truck was gone in the morning.
Shaw said he called the police and to his knowledge, the items in the truck were never returned.
“We had to buy all brand-new equipment after receiving insurance money,” Shaw told the Tribune by phone Monday.
It’s unclear what happened to the truck. A spokeswoman for Ryder said its consumer rental business was sold to the Budget Group (owner of Budget rental cars) nearly 20 years ago. A Budget spokesman said the company has no Ryder files of this type from 1979. Shaw also recalled a December 1979 theft in Chicago of a rental truck full of sound and musical equipment belonging to singer-guitarist Rick Derringer. A Derringer rep did not return a Tribune request for comment.
Bender said she came in possession of the items decades ago through a male friend of her Chicago roommate at the time. The man, whom Bender would not identify, worked for U-Haul, she said. He brought a suitcase full of Smith’s goods to her home and she and her roommate, whom she also would not identify, divided them up.
“I just thought, ‘Oh my god, these are her clothes and they still have her sweat on them,’ ” Bender said.
Bender said she held on to the items and waited for the perfect time to give them to Smith. It didn’t seem right to throw the clothes on stage during one of her concerts, Bender said, because she didn’t want the items to get lost in the commotion. She said she waited until Sunday night, when her hands shook as she met Smith.
“The feeling of making your hero happy, it was a moment. It was the highlight of my life,” Bender said.
Twitter @tracyswartz
