Sun Bank Arena, Trenton, June 21, 2012

I was eight years old and running with a dime in my hand
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I'd sit on his lap in that big old buick and steer as we drove through town
He'd tousle my hair and say son take a good look around
This is your hometown, this is your hometown
This is your hometown, this is your hometown

In `65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
My hometown, my hometown, my hometown

Now main streets whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there aint nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they aint coming back to
Your hometown, your hometown, your hometown, your hometown

Last night me and kate we laid in bed talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
Im thirty-five we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said son take a good
Look around
This is your hometown


... Bruce Springsteen, Freehold, My Hometown

E Street, Belmar, Mother's Day, 2012

I know that I'm a little slow on the uptake, but, until today, I did not realize that I am living in Bruce Springsteen's paracosm, or particular mini-world.  Apparently, when the Boss goes worldwide, our little state becomes his Narnia, his Emerald City, his Hogwarts.  Magical things happen every day here in a sort of landscape that he has familiarized all over the world.  Our struggles, our places, our expressions become a distinct way of viewing America, wrecking ball or no. Nobody in Europe is sprung from a cage on Highway 9, but it seems many people have stepped out over the line with us.  Woah-oh!
Here's an article from today's New York Times that tells the story of the Bruce-world that we live in and the expensive but dreamy road trip it took to visit there.

Keep reading and writing this summer.  I am working on an old novel by Joyce Carole Oates about the Adirondacks called Childwold, recommended by the in-laws.  Am also navigating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks so that the kids can read it at school.  Good stuff.

Maureen