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1:05:00 PM EST
Feeling Chillin'
Hearing Pink Floyd - 'Dark Side of the Moon'
30 Years of 'Born to Run'
I call this shot "Autumn Glory Suspended on a Wire."
I realize I've been a bit remiss in my blogging this past week. In addition to a rather hectic work week, I've caught a head cold. Achoo! Now, it's nothing serious, but I've been coming home feeling Groggy, Achy, and Sneezy... a collection of dwarves, y'see. I blame this illness on the general public. All the time I was in relative seclusion with the knee woes I didn't have any colds. I go out in public and WHAM.
However, I'm spending a nice leisurely Sunday at home. A bit later I'll have to make a groceries run. But for now, I've just finished an absolutely heavenly mineral salts bath; I have a cup of coffee here and I'm in a writing kind of mood. On Sunday mornings I tune into 'CBS Sunday Morning' not only to see Charles Osgood's latest bowtie, but because they often have very neat stuff on the show. Today, amongst other stories, they did a segment on Bruce Springsteen. It's been 30 years since his first hit album 'Born to Run' hit the charts. Huh. Thirty years ago I couldn't tell you about thirty years back. But, now, in so many ways, it seems like just yesterday...
The year was 1975. I was 19 for most of that year, turning 20 in mid-September. The world was mine to behold. I was carrying a full college load at Albany State; working as an assistant security manager of a big local department store; supporting my 1973 Ford Maverick, an apartment in the ethnically Italian section of Albany, my young cat who liked to jump up in people's faces to tear off their eyeglasses and I was livin' the life. I had been on my own since the age of sixteen when I started college, but 1975 was the first year I felt like a full-fledged adult.
The music scene at the time was eclectic, the war was over and it was still a time of youthful wildness and indiscretions. At least for me, it was. I had a group of single friends from my workplace who would each rotate cooking a dinner every Thursday night and we'd go to a nearby bar on Friday nights where I discovered it would be many, many years before alcohol and I could tolerate each other. Alas, I've lost touch with those friends over the years, but we certainly had some great times.
Back in '75 in New York, the drinking age was 18, so for that part of my exploration period, I was "legal." <grin> The first gay bars were starting to open in town and it was there that the dancing and disco scene thrived. We'd occasionally make that circuit in our travels, but more often ended up at the local dive right near the workplace. It had a jukebox, darts and a couple of pool tables. What more did we need? We weren't so much into the dancing... we were socializers. I learned many lessons at that bar. I learned that if you were the personnel manager and you drank too much and made a fool of yourself, folks would always remember it. I learned that rusty nails (the drink) seem to go down well until you go to get up off the barstool. <thunk> I learned it's better to sip and watch others ruin their reputations.
Oh, and then there were the dinners. Single guys and gals experimenting often for the first time cooking more than fish sticks and for more than a crowd of one! Our dinner cooking group had about five in it with a few additional hangers-on who lived with parents, thus didn't do their share of the cooking but surely ate and partied with us. I remember hits with pot roast, turkey and lobster that made me realize I could indeed cook more than just to throw a steak in a frying pan and open up a can of vegetables.
The times were a lot different from today. Today, mind you, I'm a very um... matured (?)... sedate (?)... um... grown-up, I guess... (sigh)... middle-aged kind of person who tends to not break any laws. But back in my college days and the period immediately after, I will admit I had a bit of experimentation when it comes to the uh... wilder side. Pot and LSD were big in those years and I was a lot more risky about things back then. Of course, in 1975, cocaine was lumped with being poor and heroin addicts on darkened street corners. It wasn't 'til the 80's that it was somehow deemed as "in." (And, that one is a very dangerous one... I'm glad it's "out" again. It's a horrible, horrible drug which will ruin your life.) As for the two I mentioned, the dealers were often friends and it certainly wasn't like today with guns and all. We were the hippie-freak anti-war protesting crowd, after all. We were peaceniks. Perhaps it was the pot which made our potluck dinners taste so good. ;-)
Ah, but back to the music. I know that my brother gave me the 'Born to Run' album in late '75 telling me it was good stuff and this is a guy to watch. I have my ups and downs with Springsteen. Some of his stuff is classic, sometimes his image is way overblown, but I tend to fall for his lyrics. But that album was indeed different from the rest of the charts that year. It was new and inspiring. In 1975 some of the singles hitting the charts were The Hustle (do the Hustle!); Captain and Tenille were singing that love would keep them together; the BeeGees were Jive Talkin'; KC and the Sunshine Band were Getting Down Tonight; Barry Manilow was singing about Mandy; the Ohio Players were on Fire and more. My favorite hits from that year were David Bowie's 'Fame'; LaBelle's 'Lady Marmalade'; Janis Ian's second one hit wonder that I identified with - 'At Seventeen'; Harry Chapin's magical 'The Cat's in the Cradle' and more. But we're talking a year which still had Frankie Valle and the Four Seasons, John Denver, the Carpenters, Olivia Newton-John, Glen Campbell... and here comes Springsteen with the E Street Band. Whoa. The times they were a'changin'.
That was a magical year in Albany. Soon career aspirations would take me out of the Albany area and closer to NYC, but I'll never forget the friends and the times as the newly-fledged adulthood set in.
Oh, and I can still cook. :-)
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Great entry... I was just 15 in 1975, but music was my world then. I like the CBS Sunday Morning Show, used to watch Charles Kuralt all the time. I'm glad you're back to work and sorry to hear you've come down with a head cold. Colds are miserable. Hope you're feeling better soon. Great photo!
http://journals.aol.com/boiseladie/MyWorld/
11/14/05 1:42 PM
Beautiful leaf! All our leaves are gone since the tornado last week. The green ones, brown ones, and even the beautiful golden sugar maples. I love the sugar maples in the fall. They just look like their on fire!
Lets see---in 1975, I was married with two sons 8 and 6. I think I've always felt like an adult. I was the oldest girl of 5 (farm) kids and always the "responsible" one. Good practice for adult life!
Hope you get over your cold fast! Ugh!
Darlene
http://journals.aol.com/djohn
It worked!!!!!!!!!!!