August 26, 1985

This memory actually begins at around 11 p.m. on August 25, 1985.

My college roommate, Fluffy and me were hosting a small party at the house that we had rented prior to the start of our senior year at college.

We were at school a full week before classes were set to begin because we wanted to get a jump on drinking beer.

Hence, the party and then an announcement on the local radio station as ‘Dancing in the Dark’ played.

“Springsteen and the E-Street Band will be at the CNE in Toronto tomorrow entertaining about 80,000 people. Are you one of the lucky fans who will be going?”

“We’re going!” Fluffy announced.

I laughed.

“Seriously, let’s go!”

Now, we were both feeling pretty good around then and we began talking about how great it would be to make the 4 hour drive to see the show.”

Couple of problems.

We would need to be up and out of bed by 8 a.m. and we were broke college students who didn’t have tickets!

“You have your tuition money,” Fluffy reasoned. “We use that. By the end of September, when the bill is due, we will come up with the money to pay it off.”

I laughed again.

“If you’re awake at 8:00 we’ll talk about it,” I said. We went back to drinking and laughing with our friends.

My recollection is going to sleep somewhere between 2 & 3 in the morning.

And then being shaken awake by Fluffy at 8:00.

So, against all sound reasoning…

…we went.

Drove straight through to Toronto and paid to get into the CNE. We spent an hour or so asking friendly Canadians about where we could possibly get tickets.

No luck.

The show was slated to start at 7:30.

At 5:30, we visited a place that said:

“Bruce ate here last night!”

(It was apparently true - he had a Reuben and fries).

So, as we finished our Reuben and fries, I said, “I can’t believe we’ve been here all day and we aren’t going to see the show because there aren’t any scalpers.”

The waitress asked:

“You need tickets?”

Two hours later, I was two hundred dollars short on my tuition and we were inside the stadium.

Bruce and the E-Street Band were a force of nature back then and somewhere around midnight we filed out of the stadium.

Smiles plastered on our faces…

…and we headed back to Erie.

We made it back to our college home around 5 in the morning.

On August 26, 2022, I texted Fluffy:

“Where were you 37 years ago?”

He answered instantly:

“BRUCE!!!!”

And then added:

“That’s a day I’d go back to if I had a time machine.”

I responded:

“You still owe me $100.”

He answered:

“Still working on putting that together for you. Give me a couple of more years.”

He can still make me laugh.

What a great memory!

We lived our lives hard that day!

Worth every penny.