III

During my first vacation to the Outer Banks, my cousins, my brother and myself spent a good portion of our time roaming around stealing fireworks and then walking past houses, tennis courts, and pools throwing them at the inhabitants. The terrified screams of families enjoying their day then suddenly eying smoke and flame hurtling towards them brought us an immense amount of joy. The climax came when we were sitting on the porch watching as one cousin made his way to the field of sand and bushes between houses and threw a few smoke bombs into the neighbors pool with them inside. We were jealous of the pool they had, a luxury we were not afforded during the trip, and thus had to ruin their fun. He lit the smoke bomb just in time for his mom to walk outside, see him out there and wonder aloud, "What's Mitch doing?" Screaming ensued, and he fled through the backyards, out onto the street behind ours and then made a big loop to get back home. Needless to say, our parents were not impressed, and we were forced to apologize, a small price to pay for being able to torture strangers for a few days. Afterwards, my dad nicknamed him Smokey, a moniker which stuck for many years.

Anytime I see fireworks, it reminds me of July 4th and driving around blaring Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." We're still a few months away from the big day, but it's never too soon to listen to the Boss. I'm throwing up the first disc of Tracks, a box set of rarities. It's the best one of the four. There's also a thinned down version of the box set called 18 Tracks, a selection of some of the better songs.


Bruce Springsteen - "Tracks" (Disc One; 1998)