Summer Mixtape 2013: Pre-1984 Springsteen

Here I am halfway through this summer and I still haven't put together a Mixtape to play in my truck for those morning drives to the beach, or along Ala Wai Blvd. at night while the hookers congregate three at a time on the sidestreets to stay off HPD's radar.

Then I find this post at The Trad, images of New Jersey in the early 80s.  As a kid I spent several summers with cousins in Cranford, NJ, and we would always go down to Wildwood or Seaside Heights for a day or weekend.  Those Jersey kids I hung out with, Mickey Marino, Dave Levy, and Frankie Williams (the strongest kid I ever ever met) and the inimitable Schlick and Styszy -- I can't say we became friends for life, but it sure felt like we would be. Sneaking into the community pools, raiding my uncle's bar, collecting newspaper money to spend on the weekend, lifting weights in somebody's basement, trying not to get into a fight with the bigger kids at the community center.  Crowding onto a field on July 4 with just about every other kid in Union County, waiting for the fireworks show to start.  During the day we'd sleep in, then hop on our ten speeds and ride uptown to the Pink Submarine for sandwiches and soda and to spin Bruce Springsteen's "Prove It All Night" for about the billionth time on the jukebox.

This was before Born in the USA.  A fine album, sure, but Springsteen before then will always be those summers to me, before he was the world's, he was Jersey's.