Glory Days

I've been reading a very fine book by Paul Clemens titled "Made In Detroit" which I have gotten about 2/3 of the way through. Paul's book is memoir of a white, Catholic School kid, growing up on the East Side of Detroit in a neighborhood beset by rapidly changing social economic circumstances. I am about 15 years older than Paul, a product of a one parent home and a West Sider. Aside from those distinctions, I can see a lot of myself and my friends and family in  his account. When reading such a tale I am invariably filled with nostalgia, especially when I compare my younger "Glory Days" to what my son is experiencing now. It's a great read and I highly recommend it.

My son, who has been often referred to as my "clone" by my wife and other family members, is in just about all ways an improved version of myself. Just as smart, just as funny. with a talent for music and an ease with friends both male and female that I was not to have until my mid-to-late twenties. I guess this comes with having been raised by two loving parents in an atmosphere of unconditional love and acceptance as opposed to being raised by a single mother with limited parenting skills because she came from a union of parents who  married, and fought during their marriage and after their divorce.

Which got me too thinking as I celebrated my daughter's 12th birthday today, as she stands on the brink of her teen years, with my son about to turn 15 in one month, will their glory days be their high school years like the sad friends of the protagonist of the classic Bruce Springsteen song, or like their old man, will their glory days be now, when they have a marriage to a loving, understanding wife who puts up with him, and they have kids of their own?

From the Born In the USA album released in 1984, that watershed year in pop music, maybe the last great year for top 40 radio when great singles Springsteen, Van Halen and Prince dueled at the top of the charts, here is "Glory Days!"