Tag: entertainment

I think the first Bruce Springsteen song I ever heard was “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” from 1973’s “Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ.” I can’t claim any great prescience about Bruce’s stellar future; I was drawn by the album title because my nephew Josh happened to be born in Asbury Park. But I’m a sucker for a song that tells a story, and I loved that one. Somehow I missed the next album until later, “The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle,” but boy was I blown away by 1975’s album, “Born to Run.” I kept bugging the crap out of everybody–have you heard this guy, Bruce Springsteen? He’s GREAT! And everybody pretty much ignored me. I think I was living in the wrong place. However, my early faith has been reaffirmed millions of times over by Springsteen’s long career and many brilliant albums.

I always go back and forth between saying my favorite song of all time is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” and Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” I used to teach “Thunder Road” alongside Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” to college freshmen as great examples of the carpe diem theme.

I’ll never forget the excitement of driving from Tuscaloosa to Starkville for this–so many cars on the highway had “BOSS” and “SPRINGSTEEN” and “BRUUUUCE” written on the windows in white shoe polish, making strangers seem like fellow pilgrims.

Notice those tickets cost $9.50 each–you wouldn’t see that today! But as an indicator of how much I loved Bruce, you should know that my budget for buying groceries for two people at that time was SEVEN dollars a week. A WEEK. Times were hard, but Bruce was worth it.

Along about the time my mother took this photo of Debby holding up my Bruce Springsteen calendar in Mother’s apartment just outside Tuscaloosa (an apartment I’m pretty sure was wiped out in 2011’s monster tornado), my love for Bruce had a little tarnish marring its shine. I was put off by the scandal of his first marriage breaking up when paparazzi caught him nuzzling bandmate and future wife Patti Scialfa on a balcony in Rome. I still bought his music, but it wasn’t until a few years later, when I was older and wiser, that I realized while watching a video of Springsteen and Patti singing together how powerful their bond is. The expression on her face and the love in her eyes was the stuff novels–and songs–are written about. In fact, they’ve now been married for almost twenty-one years and raised three children outside the glare of publicity, so kudos to them for that.

Also: This is a totally great article (including wisdom for those who create) in Rolling Stone: an interview of Bruce by Jon Stewart. My take-away quote, about how our formative years remain with us:

I have a metaphor. I say, “Look, you’re in a car, your new selves can get in, but your old selves can’t get out.” You can bring new vision and guidance into your life, but you can’t lose or forget who you’ve been or what you’ve seen. New people can get in, but nobody can get out: The child from 1950, he doesn’t get out. The teenager, the adolescent boy, no one can get out. They are with you until the end of the ride, and you’re going to pass a certain amount of them on.”

Bruuuuuuce!

My mother, pictured here in the center, was in her mid-sixties when she volunteered as a Pink Lady (though by then they were called “Auxiliary Volunteers”) in the hospital of the small town where she was living. This might have been the last of decades of her volunteering in hospitals, libraries, schools, and museums.

For many years, she was a Red Cross volunteer. I don’t think I have a photo of her in her Red Cross uniform, but I do have some of her pins, along with other volunteer pins, pictured here:

One time Olivia de Havilland was coming to the town where we lived—I’m not sure if I was in high school or college then. But my mother, knowing how much I love the actress, went to the airport hoping to get her autograph for me. It just so happened to be one of the days Mother worked at the hospital on our nearby Army post, so she was in her Red Cross uniform. Miss de Havilland had been a frequent visitor to hospitals during World War II, plus—a passionate reader—she once recalled that the first book she ever read was written for the benefit of the Red Cross in World War I. So my mother may have been right in her belief that it was her uniform that made Miss de Havilland stop and not only give her an autograph but spend a few minutes in conversation with her.

Sadly, though that autograph was among my most treasured keepsakes, it has been misplaced for years. Maybe one day it’ll turn up tucked into some other papers—but I’ll always appreciate the kind hearts of the two women who gave it to me.