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.