Graduation Day

Three weeks have passed since I last sat down to write in this space. That's way too much time. But I've been "in the midst of perpetual fetes": celebrating the end of the academic year, the students who are graduating, the new students who are coming in to get ready for fall, friends who are leaving to work elsewhere, friends who are retiring, my younger granddaughter's first birthday. Party after party after party.


One of my favorite parties of the last few weeks didn't take place on campus or at home or at church. It took place in Philips Arena in Atlanta on the night of Friday, 25 April, when my wife and I and good friends Sam and Sharon did an overnighter to see Bruce Springsteen perform a show on his Magic tour. I've gone over 20 years without seeing The Boss. He'll be turning 60 later this year (23 September--my younger son's birthday also), but he seems to have slowed little in the years since I saw him a handful of times back in the mid '80s. Back then, I was younger as well--I'll be 50 this year--and slept on a sidewalk during a chill December night to buy tickets for my first time to see Springsteen. This was maybe December 1984; he was on his Born in the USA tour and coming to Murfreesboro in January. If I remember correctly, he came out and played for about two hours, took a break for a few minutes and then returned to play another hour and a half. I saw Springsteen two more times in the mid '80s--once in Lexington, KY, and once in Greensboro, NC. I think both shows might have been on the Tunnel of Love tour and both were structured about the same as the first time I saw him.

As I said, however, he's turning 60 this year. The show was understandably shorter--just under two and a half hours long, including maybe a five-minute break that took us from the main show to the multi-song encore. Great show. Great time with great friends.


I meant to do more tonight, but I'm tired and will only await Raleigh's return home before going to bed. But at least I'm back. I have one more entry for the "Nashville 1980" sequence, and then I'll move that story forward. But first, church tomorrow; then I take the University Honors Scholars sophomores to Washington, DC, for basically four days (Monday morning through Thursday afternoon round-trip). If our fleabag hotel has Internet, I'll blog from there. If not, I'll be back at the end of the week.


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