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I got up Thursday morning and drove three hours to Connecticut. It was my brother’s birthday this weekend and I was taking him to see Bruce Springsteen at the Meadowlands.

We have some history of doing this over the years, but it had been awhile.

The last time was in 2003, when the rock star did a 10-night stand at Giants Stadium and we were there for three of the shows.

 

They’ve torn down Giants Stadium, but we’re still going strong.

I like to say I got two things from college: a bachelor’s degree and a love for Bruce Springsteen.

I gifted the latter to my younger brother one Christmas with each of the Boss’s first five albums.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned he had not only listened to them, but the music, the lyrics spoke to him as well.

My brother and I are quite different, and as we got older we’ve struggled to find common ground.

I was ridiculously passionate about sports as a kid. My brother was not.

I played football and basketball in high school. My brother got a hot car.

I went to college. He got an apprenticeship as a tool and die maker and went to work in a factory.

I became a sportswriter and bounced around the country, working for different newspapers. He stayed with the same company for 35 years and never left home.

I got married and had a family. He’s still single.

But we have Springsteen, and it has brought us together more than once.

So there we were Thursday evening, “sitting on the hood of a Dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain” — yeah, that is a Springsteen lyric — living life again, minus the Dodge.

As I looked around at the tailgating horde, I could see our former incarnations from 15 and 25 years ago. Just a couple cars away was this older couple, staring passionately into each other’s eyes and tenderly, happily dancing to a Springsteen ballad as if they were all alone out there on the blacktop, like they first met.

A few cars away, a group of college-aged kids played Beer Pong with music blasting on the stereo. They could easily have been from nearby Rutgers or Seton Hall.

And right next to us was another group setting up their own game, but I suspect they had babysitters at home.

I thought about those passions that drive us, that define us and make life worth living. 

 

I was thankful for them, sitting in the soft summer rain, even though it cost seven hours of driving time and I would be exhausted in the morning.

Over the years, those passions build one upon one another to make us who we are, some displacing others along the way as we change and grow.

Forty years ago as a 19-year-old, I made 17 trips to the Bronx, often driving into the teeth of rush-hour traffic, to see the Yankees play over and over again during one long, glorious summer before going away to college.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that Thursday was my 26th Springsteen show.

One of my favorite things during a Springsteen concert is to look around at the audience in the throes of his spell.

 

Everyone is on their feet, moving to the music, cheering, pumping their fists, but what I’m looking for is more subtle.

Every five or 10 rows or so, you see a person with this crooked smile of contentment, of satisfied joy. And you see it in their eyes.

I know that look.

They are in the moment, and they wouldn’t be anywhere else.

That was me again Thursday night.

I cherish those moments more these days, just as I cherish those memories of Yankees games when I was a teenager whose life was an open road.

I feel lucky I’ve had those moments of pure passion, and that I’ve found so many things that move me.

I’m pretty sure many people never do.

So there I was again Thursday, with my brother at my side, taking it all in again.

I now realize it isn’t the music or the memory, it is the feeling of being so darn happy at that moment, and that those moments are fleeting.

So I did what anyone would do.

I danced.

Ken Tingley is the editor of The Post-Star and may be reached via email at tingley@poststar.com. You can read his blog “The Front Page” daily at www.poststar.com or his updates on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/kentingley.

http://poststar.com/news/opini...ac-a3488a3f1761.html

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The SPL Rocks!

Prego che tu stia danzando con San Pietro alle porte perlacee del cielo





Pulled up to my house today
Came and took my little girl away!
Giants Stadium 8/28/03



Oats

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