Seven Rows from Springsteen !

Gifts are gifts, but experiences are something far more eternal.

For Christmas, five people made it possible for me to hear and see the artist that I infused into the literature I taught for 32 years. 

 On a rainy December night.I saw “Bruce Springsteen on Broadway”

Just getting into the show seemed a long shot. It was sold out—all the shows are, but when my lifelong friend Jim Reifeiss snagged a ticket, he insisted I could, too. Jim’s advice was motivation, but so was the support of Pam and Anna (both miles away), but particularly my son Nicholas, now working in NYC. He was on the computer trying to figure out a way to nab a ticket and not have me be stabbed with a $1,000+ price from scalpers (and I have no scalp left). They were all pulling for me since I flew out there with only a faint hope of getting to see Bruce.

That’s when former student, Dr. Frank Lopez (and his son Lex) step into the plotline. At 5:15 pm, I turn the corner and see them in the front of the ‘cancelation line’ waiting for me. This is two hours before any cancelled tickets are even sold! I ask Frank what is he doin’ here, and he explains, “I’m making sure you get in! Look, I was just in the box office and someone just gave back tickets and you can buy one, there’s only one—right now!” I ran in and bought it at face value. And that is how this story began. It is the best $850 I have ever spent. Then Frank and I headed to dinner, walking through the misty rain. I am forever in his debt. I called my family and Jim and all were excited.

Then came two riveting hours that was mystical and spiritual. Bruce Springsteen didn't rock the house as much as he rocked my soul.

I was born in Brooklyn. My family, Italian and pretty ‘low income,’

wasn’t college educated. Louie, my dad, was a jack of many trades. My dad had so many jobs that it took two legal pad pages taped to the kitchen cabinet to know his various phone numbers of the places he worked.  Tessie, my mom, was the stay at home mom who kept the house a loving home. They were determined that I would go to college—‘cause “Ya gotta make good money.” So, we moved to Lodi, New Jersey. It was far less ‘the Garden State,’ but more a “death trap,” to my dad. So, we drove our Rambler in ‘64 seven straight days to East LA. Then, I walked home from school lots of days because my mom, was afraid to drive (she got over it, years later). So, like Bruce, I had made the trek to California, long before we had AC. Then I met Jim Reifeiss when I journeyed to San Diego to become a teacher.

Fast forward twenty years, I made the best decision of my life. I proposed to Pam, the girl next door, in 1985—the year “Born in the USA” …and thankfully she accepted. And largely because of her wisdom and support, my adult children have ‘evolved’ way past me.  I’m the luckiest guy in the Encinitas.

As I watched Bruce tell the story of his life through song and story, I could not help but feel this mystical bond between two guys who came from hardscrabble soil and who tried to make the best of what we had. I felt a spiritual connection because the pressure to be something,’ to do something,’ to matter to someone and inspire them—to be a good father and loving husband; well, all that was a part of Bruce’s journey as well as mine. The cross we both still bear, along the anxiety and worry that comes with that weight, is part of why I felt bonded to Springsteen; and the responsibility to be “tougher than the rest” is the fulfillment and beauty of life’s commitments.

Nowadays, I don’t attend St. Martha Catholic Church, which shadowed my younger days, nor does Springsteen, who spent his youth livin’ next to St. Rose of Lima. So when Bruce told the audience—and I was just seven rows away—what he says most nights—I knew exactly what he was about to tell us because I say it, too: The Lord’s Prayer. I know that my little world isn’t gonna get connected to a spiritual high speed modem to the heavens. But it makes me feel grateful, more grounded, able to in some spiritual way make a difference to those I care about.

The fifteen songs he played meant so much more as he explained how each one was a part of his journey. I thought about the songs I played in my classroom to the 10,000 kids I taught over 32 years. (If you want to know which songs he played, you will have to message me on FB ‘cause I think Bruce wants to keep that a secret. The list was something I wrote down the following morning from memory.)

I’ve been lucky, really lucky to have had family and dear friends like Jim Reifeiss who helped me find True North in my life, but I never, ever thought I would get a chance to be seven rows from a man and Patty, his wife, whose work spoke to so many people who had hungry hearts and a desire to find the “Promised Land.” Springsteen is vulnerable,  giving, humble, passionate, and he reminds me that in this “Land of Hope and Dreams” that you gotta get out there on those two lanes and make your mark—even when you’re “Dancin in the Dark.”