Five Lessons from Springsteen's California: Part 3 of my journey through "Born to Run"

I've been slowly 'touring' with the Bruce Springsteen's autobiography by my nightstand. My first blog
journey dealt with the opening 100 pages, his childhood, and the teenage world on the Jersey Shore. Next I rode 'shotgun' with Bruce through the heart of the E Street Band's biggest, boldest, baddest days in the USA. Naturally, each album and Bruce's personal journey gave me insight into my own life's adventures (banal compared to his). Although there are no soaring anthems in my life, there are a great many songs I have sung from America's Troubadour.Part three: California Dreaming.

1. Parenting is not for the faint of heart or the recklessness of youth. Bruce was 40, Patti 36 when their first born came into their lives...to crawl, not run. When your life's work, its message, your ambitions are soaring, it's like a wild (and innocent) ride on Thunder Road. Up, down, all around. You have little time to give to others, unconditionally. And that unconditional love is what matters most. It can't come with strings attached--and it can't be 'Mom's job.' I've been married 31 years, and our children came to us in our very early 30's. By then, I had given 13 years to coaching and teaching other people's kids. It was a great honor. Then, I wrote extensively, and those Readers Theaters were part of my soul, too. But once I met my wife Pam, I knew that I had played solo long enough. She was to be my Band. And as for the children...

2. You are not on stage; your children are, and you are the audience. Imagine being the three Springsteen children, or for that matter, any children born into a world where the limelight far outshines the night light. Bruce's wealth was a comfort, but all of us know that no amount of money satisfies a child who longs for the time, the attention, and the audience that both parents must provide. That's tough for a Front Man like Bruce, and not so easy for a rather vocal, center-of-attention-person like yours truly. If you don't realize they are the 'show' and their life's endeavors and evolution are on LIVE, (and you can't record it and watch it later) then as Patti tells Bruce, "You'll miss it." So you change with the times. You watch Barney, Sesame Street, and you listen to Now 3 (the album), while playing Super Mario (and always losing, not because you want them to win, but because you just suck at video games).

3. You are a team. Marriage is sacrifice. It is listening to the soulmate remind you of what you need to do to carry your load. Loving your family before your work, your games, your ambitions, well, that's a 'Man's Job'. Anyone who tells you differently is most likely a person tough to love...or divorced...with children bogged down with resentment.

4. Everyone needs a bike. When we were kids we rode, bad-ass, through the suburban streets to the tune of Born to Be Wild. Our bikes had banana seats on sting-ray wheels (no gears needed). Bruce's bikes were "chrome wheeled, fuel injected" and heading out to the Southwest desert roads. His rides were epic. But there was a freedom in the "Badlands," and the knowledge that came from those trips and the people you meet along the way, help shape your vision of this "Land of Hopes and Dreams." For me, it's my Klein 18 speed hybrid road bicycle that allows me ride the 101 Highway from Encinitas to Oceanside (California, in case you don't know). Sometimes you just gotta get out on the street and feel the wind blow through your hair...what's left of it...and just think. Or not. Or plan. Or stop at the Pannikin and meet Bob Bjorkquist for a cup of coffee with a splash of ideas to help shape your vision of what you want and how to get it.

and finally...

5. You have to decide what it is you believe, what you will stand for and what you will fight against. Bruce's song "The Ghost of Tom Joad" tells you a lot about who and what he values. It is probably naive to think that 'we can have it all' because, of course, no one can or should. "Life is difficult"--these are the words of M Scott Peck in his famous work "The Road Less Traveled." The sooner one accepts that the better. The accidents will happen and the road will be scary, ah, but a what ride! The point is that it took Bruce a long time to find his cause among all of those worth following. Tom Joad represents the soul of Springsteen's music.. Springsteen explains the views he and I share in simple terms: "Nobody wins unless everybody wins." Naive. Perhaps. But I don't cotton to zero sum games. And, in case one wonders who the heck Tom Joad is, Steinbeck's protagonist in "The Grapes of Wrath" explains:

Springsteen's "Born to Run":What I Learned Riding Shotgun with the Boss

After slowly digesting the opening 100+ pages of Springsteen's "Born to Run," I headed down the dirt highway to around page 300, and lo and behold, the hits kept coming. In no particular order, here are lessons from the Boss [some of which I've lived by and some...well, live and learn.]

1.Read it before you sign on the dotted line. My pal Harold Dorr lives by this creed, and it has served him well. It cost Bruce 100K to learn the hard way. 

2. Own your stuff. If you sell it, you may never get it back. At great pains, Bruce owns his music. Few musicians do. Ask the Beatles. People hire "Intellectual Property' lawyers for a reason. Bobby Harkins, I may need you.

3. Sobriety never fails. Bruce's story is worth reading if, for no other reason, because when you got nothin' you can't afford to be stupid and stoned. When I was a teacher, the subject of marijuana came up. I explained that I was too scared, too naive, and too interested in girls, baseball, burgers, books, movies, and a car to care about being high. A cute girl with me in my car at In'n'Out and listening to the radio after playing baseball--and then taking her to the movies--well, that's when the stars aligned in the night sky. That's as high as I got.

4. Everybody's got a hungry heart. Young love is the real intoxication. And Bruce and I took a long while to find the right girl...mine's a Vermont Girl, not a Jersey Girl.

5.Blood Brothers and Soul Sisters never let you down. I have been blessed by many brothers and sisters (even though I am an only child). Mark McWilliams and his wife Kathy go way back with me to 1974 to be exact. These are the folks that will stop whatever they are doing and travel across the wide expanse between your world and theirs to come knock on your door if you need them. [Or on your 60th birthday]

6. Music saved Bruce's soul... and my career. (Clearly, that is NOT a spoiler.) For me, I don't know what I would have done without a record player, a tape cassette, and eventually a CD player in my classroom. Anyone who knows me, knows that music is the language that was (and always will be) the bridge between me and all the young ones (and old, too) who are turning corners looking for love, hope, inspiration, and compassion. 

7. You cannot escape you parent's influence, but you can and  should ascend to higher ground.  Springsteen's parents had a profound influence on him,with a poignant downside and a unshakable upside. As for mine, nothing could possibly be as dramatic.Tessie and Louie did their best; the best that two young lovers from Brooklyn could do without much of a formal education. Fortunately for me, they realized that education was the way up and out of the lower class. But becoming a teacher crossed the line with my Dad.. The line being that expression their generation referred to as 'making good money." So I hadda do what I hadda do. I was lucky that my passion for teaching was validated (to them, anyway) when I became the 1998 San Diego County Teacher of the Year. I wasn't rock n roll star, but it sure was music to my ears.

8. Doing what you have always done is a trap. Change and growth have to come, even if you have mastered something. I remember when I was talked into teaching American Literature by Paul Robinson, my colleague. I was perfectly content doin' what I had done so many times. Teaching freshman. Coaching Speech and Debate. But all that hadda change. I was slowly grinding to a halt...I could hear my inner voice talkin' to me as I was speaking out loud to my students. "This is the same thing I've said over and over," the voice was needling me. That voice got so loud that it was hard to concentrate.. So I had to change, which brings me to the biggest ah-ha moment in the novel so far...

9. The fear, the anxiety and the depression has to be faced.  Some people, like Springsteen, realized that the box they were trapped in with all its pressurized expectations was not something they could deal with alone. The fear led to doubt...that led to worry...that led to anxiety...that led to a pounding heart and a pouring sweat...and that led to depression...because one is never sure it will go away. The early 30's were that pivotal time for the singer and the teacher. The causes, quite different, as was the diagnosis. Parenthood for me was anxiety, not the darkness and depression that Springsteen felt. But I do understand that fear. Help came in every direction. Doctors. Wives. Friends. I'll never forget how a colleague, Wally Opstead, God bless him, helped me out. There's this thing you never believe about yourself: you are young, unbreakable, independent. That is...until you are not. Fortunately, that chapter of life has a happy ending. 

10. You have to have a passion, a voice, a theme--and for Springsteen, it was for the little guy.  He became the new Tom Joad. He wrote about the factory workers, the Vietnam Vets who came home to ridicule, the woman who worked her ass off at the supermarket, the hometown with boarded up windows, and the characters with boarded up hearts, still willing to take a chance and dance in the dark. Me? I went to a high school (Catholic) that made you take a test to get in. Then they tracked you. The 7th track was as low as you can get. That was me. Every test I took I bombed. So when the chance came to teach those kids that were like me, regular ol' kids who needed someone to talk to and believe in them (as my special teachers believed in me)--well, that was right in my wheelhouse.

"And that's the way it is." Where did you go, Walter Cronkite?

I've been thinking about the FACTS lately. 

Last night a CNN, 'expert' political commentator (and Trump supporter) Scottie Nell Hughes claimed, “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts.”She was debating the fake news issue. [She also has a problem with sentence structure, but I digress.] Hughes was ironically stating that--as fact.

We all know Senator Daniel Moyihan famously stated that we are entitled to our our opinions, but not our own set of facts. Well, the late Senator would be very disturbed at what the world sees now as 'fact'.

The tweets and re-tweets of inaccurate or vilifying 'facts' are too numerous to name. If you can't list at least five of them right off the top of your head--then you are either not paying attention or don't care anymore.

Not paying attention is of great concern to me because I am also focusing on the theme of 'taking things for granted.' We, for instance, took for granted that the President knew The Constitution's provisions. We took for granted that both parties operated for the greater interests of this nation and the provisions of its Constitution (i.e. the Supreme Court). We took for granted what the news anchor said was based on solid reporting. We took for granted that news organizations were really that--journalistic cooperation that stood by a code of ethics and would not publish scurrilous rumors. There was a clear distinction between the National Enquirer and the Washington, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, Atlanta, etc. NEWSpapers.

And we took for granted that The President of the United States spoke to the American people about facts, with dignity and restraint, and with the full support of the experts on domestic and foreign policy standing behind him (not her, yet). He would not be flippant. He would not speak until he had full command of the FACTS.

Which gets me back to the facts. Each evening as I grew up, Walter Cronkite ended each broadcast with his signature phrase: "That's the way it is." He was a republican. Conservative. And that did not matter because he was Walter Cronkite. His was the soul of the news business. He told us exactly when JFK died. He told us that Neil Armstrong had landed on the moon--and he smiled as he took off his glasses, on both occasions, as we saw his emotions bubble to the surface.

I remember when he famously went to the jungles of Vietnam to report on the conflict; checking if what Dan Rather and others were saying was true. He was shaken. He told us that this war was tragic, misguided, and he felt for our troops in harm's way and the poor people of Vietnam were caught in the middle. More than anyone, Cronkite may have turned the tide of public opinion. That's the way he was.

I'm not sure any of the news anchors have that status with the American people. Maybe they do, some of them, but many of us are not paying attention--or the news anchors are not 'telling it like it is.' That is another story for another day.

Then there are the other people who do not care anymore about facts. They either don't believe anyone or they believe in opinions based on blind faith. Both are dangerous. People who don't believe anyone just themselves--and I understand why. They feel betrayed by forces that took away jobs and medical benefits. Divorce has ravaged their souls and pocketbooks. To many of these Americans, the 'facts' don't matter--their life's realities matter. But this is precisely when they abdicate their duty as citizens in our democracy. This is a the republic that needs their educated citizenry, and they DO BELIEVE DEEP DOWN that America is the greatest nation on earth. Their apathy is a sad and a scary proposition.

Or they listen to others (not read, mind you) LISTEN to others, and take their statements as truth--blindly. The 'sources' of this information often have never served this country either as civilians or soldiers. They are not privy to National Security briefings. They get their facts from 'their guts'--or from other like minded folk. And they spew it out as if it is the Word of the Lord.

These 'believers' are looking for simple answers to what informed folks know are very complicated issues. The facts are lost. It's about ratings, eyeballs on the screen, 'if it bleeds it leads' is how the media mantra goes, and if the blood is made up or exaggerated, oh well (see Clinton's children prostitution ring). The loudest voice in the media replaces the smartest man or woman in the room.

So...I will read David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Farid Zakaria, etc. They represent voices of the right, the center and left center. But I will question. I will check on the facts. Facts do matter. Truth does exist. I look for that evidence whether it is data, studies, surveys, opinions of experts in the field--because that is what American democracy depends.. An enlightened, energetic citizenry is what makes us a 'more perfect union.'

We are lucky to live in the USA, but it is a privilege and a responsibility, but I surely miss Walter Cronkite.

And that is the way it is.

"This Is Us"...The first of two 'TV' shows that knock me out!

In these days of pretty awful sitcoms, our friends the Parkingtons gave us a tip on a tv show that blows us away..."This Is Us"--It is not a 'comedy" [although strangely billed as one]. It is drama at its finest. [And somehow it is on regular old NBC, and not HBO or some other 'golden age- pay for it channel.']

It's a flashback- fast forward look at what three completely different kids grow up to become. It never ceases to have moments of heartfelt emotion, without the maudlin soap opera nature associated with most one hour network 'stuff.'

The three generations of characters and the sublime acting [even the little kids!] pulls us into the mystery of life and how, as parents ourselves, no matter what we do, little is 'as it is supposed to be.'

I can't say that "This Is Us" is me; but they sure are people I'd like to know and befriend.