Glory Days

Glory days well they'll pass you by

Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye

Glory days, glory days

The Boss kind of interrupted my morning meditation to the job at the university in the big city as I was driving through the darkness of a Montana winter . . . he was singing one of my favorite songs . . . Glory Days.  Shame on the Boss for throwing me back . . . back to another time, another place . . . of a time long gone.  If you have never heard the song by Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days . . . you should listen to it . . . especially if you are over the age of forty.  It is a song about a guy in his mid-thirties who keeps running into people from his past while in the present . . . a present which encompasses work, family, and the reality of attempting to make it in a world that does not care one iota about the past . . . and, in meeting up with these people from his past he reminisces about their “glory days”.  Days back when they were the stars and heroes . . . the studs . . . of the world in which they were young.  It is a conflict between what was hoped for in the future and what really is.  It is one of the coolest songs . . . and, one of the saddest songs.  One of the saddest songs because we all realize that he is us . . . we all have “glory days”.

As much as I enjoy the song, I am not sure I appreciate the Boss making me drop into a melancholy funk.  Hey!  You cannot listen to the song and not get thrown back into what once was and what you now have.  What the Boss sings about, we all know.  Trust me . . . I know.

The older I get, the better I was.

I am a legend in my own mind.

You get the picture.  The older we get, the better the stories get . . . especially as those who remember them are dying off and can no longer contradict.  Now, trust me, I was no slouch when it came to sporting milestones in my life . . . I lettered in high school in three different sports . . . I lettered in college (how many of you studs out there did that?) . . . I was quite successful after college running . . . I have the letters and trophies to prove it.  But, it is amazing at how much faster I ran in my memory than reality states . . . reality doesn’t get it!  It is amazing how much faster those times have become over nearly forty years . . . shoot, I once kicked a winning field goal in a raging blizzard (the only problem is I quit playing football after my freshman year in high school and was never a kicker).  In my mind, the legend grows!

What was and what is . . . are rarely the same years later.  There are moments in my life when I wonder . . . what if?  What if I had taken working hard at running . . . what would have been?  What if I had done this instead of that . . . what would have been?  The problem is . . . I didn’t . . . and, now, I will never know.  Cue it in . . . Glory Days.

Yeah, hindsight is twenty/twenty.  I cannot change yesterday and I do not know what tomorrow holds.  Lots of life has come and gone . . . there has been joy and there has been sadness . . . I have laughed, I have cried . . . and, this is where I am.  It is not too exciting, but not always boring . . . sometimes an adventure, sometimes a pain.  This is life, and for the most part, it is good.  I really do think that I am where I need to be . . . but, from time to time, I reminiscence . . .

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight

and I'm going to drink till I get my fill

And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it

but I probably will

Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture

a little of the glory of, well time slips away

and leaves you with nothing mister but

boring stories of glory days

We all do it . . . male or female . . . young or old . . . we remember the “glory days”.  As Bruce sang in the darkness of my drive I was thrown back . . . to a simpler time . . . an easier time . . . a time of “what if”.  For a moment, a mere moment, I wondered . . . what if?  Then it hits me . . . life ain’t so bad.  I have a woman who loves me . . . children who love me . . . friends who care about me . . . two dogs that greet and fawn all over me when I get home . . . satisfying jobs . . . a beautiful place to live . . . and, I am pretty happy where I am at.  Those “glory days” were wonderful and make me smile, but they compare nothing to what I have now.  The older I get, the better I was . . . I am a legend in my own mind.  God doesn’t seem to care . . . the loved ones don’t care.  Maybe, just maybe, these are the “glory days”.