Some of my fondest childhood memories were of get-togethers with my Mother’s side of the family.  We lived only a 2-hour drive from where my Mom grew up, so we saw our uncles, aunts, and cousins regularly.  My Uncle Angelo was a strong, burly guy who loved to roughhouse with us boys.  Me, my brother, and my two cousins would spend hours trying to dunk him in the pool, and it wasn’t until we were in our mid-teens that we succeeded.  Just once.

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It was August 25, 1978.  I had just graduated from High School a few months earlier, and that summer I spent as much with friends and family who would soon become relegated to phone calls and letters.  My best friend Tom and I were sitting around his house listening to the radio, when the DJ announced that there were still a few tickets left for the Bruce Springsteen show at the New Haven Coliseum.  It was only about an hour's drive, so we jumped in Tom's Cougar and headed south on I-91.  We bought a couple of "restricted view" seats on the left side of the stage, blocked only by a couple of lighting cables.

I had been a Springsteen fan for about three years, starting with "Born to Run" in 1975, and working my way back to his first two records.  After a three-year hiatus, he released "Darkness on the Edge of Town" in the summer of 1978.  I can remember riding my bike to the department store to buy it the first week it was on sale.  I liked the music and knew the songs, but was totally unprepared for what the next three and a half hours would be like.