The summer days of my childhood were spent largely outside, swimming and biking and running around the neighborhood. My brother and I would be out of the house by 8 or 9 in the morning and not return until an early dinner time. Then we’d be back out again until the light just started to fade and June bugs swarmed the tops of all the trees. (Both usually drove me home before a shout from my parents.)
Back then we’d just go around to our friend’s houses, using the pool if they had one, or rustling up mischief in their overheated garages or cool and quiet basements. I don’t really recall what exactly we did – which probably meant it was mostly nothing. Kids could entertain themselves back then, without a television or computer or cel phone, and we would become better for it. We learned how to sit still with nothing to do. We learned how to entertain ourselves with nothing around but a bike or a garage of rubbish. We could create endless pool games that were so stupid and fun that the adults had to drag us out to eat lunch or we would have stayed in until our pruny fingers were malnourished. Like most adults, I remember those summer days as filled with glory – and in the 80’s it was literally true.
We pause in this retro summer of Solid Gold 70’s tunes to advance a bit into the 80’s with a Bruce Springsteen classic from his epic ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ album. To come of age at such a time meant Bruce, Michael, Prince and Madonna formed the phenomenal soundtrack to our formative years – and the music you have when you’re growing up is the music that shapes your personhood. Those of us who were children in the 80’s have a very distinctive musical DNA – once removed from disco, twice removed from classic rock, and gorgeously afflicted with the synth pop confections that would only last if they came with a melody. Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’ gave us a rock classic that the whole country embraced, and it rang with a built-in nostalgia that its lyrics so beautifully belied.
“I HOPE WHEN I GET OLD, I DON’T SIT AROUND THINKING ABOUT IT, BUT I PROBABLY WILL…”
