It was sad to hear that Clarence Clemons passed away. Not unexpected, I guess. He was quite tall, and, as we all know, once you get over about 5’9″ (which is the optimum height for a man, from what I’ve read) or so, the blood has a hard time getting to your brain (this is greatly exacerbated by being forced to wear a tie). With many guys, it makes them stupid, but there are those rare times when you get somebody smart and talented, and then they just don’t seem to live long enough. I’m glad the Big Man didn’t just linger on and shrivel up like a giant zucchini in some long-term care facility, though. Better to go out when the light is still bright, I think.

I only saw Clarence live one time (with Springsteen and The E Street Band), back in something like 1981 or so, I guess. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day (either late fall or early spring, can’t recall which). I hadn’t gotten around to dropping out of school at Oswego at the time, and we made a road trip over to Rochester to see the show, with four of us crammed into my ’76 ‘vette. That would be Che not Cor, of course, so it’s always a wonder we made it there in the first place. Especially since the first order of business was to hit happy hour at “The Wheel” for a couple of hours (spin the wheel for free and/or cheap drinks).

Once properly prepared, we hit the road (with a beer ball on ice, and a double-chamber US II armed with a Gatling bowl – more of a six-shooter, really; the slide ones worked better). Not easy to drive a car (standard transmission, even) while holding a beer and doing a bong, but by golly we did these things not because they were easy, but because they were the right things to do. Or we were really stupid young kids – I forget which.

Just kidding – never did any of that. Don’t drink and drive, kids.

Anyhow, I remember the show (somewhat vaguely – I mean, it’s been like 30 years), so I guess we got there and got parked and all that. As I recall, Bruce had sprained his ankle jumping off an amplifier or something on a previous night, so he was somewhat (but only somewhat) subdued during the 4+ hour show. Little did I know that guy playing guitar would turn out to be Silvio Dante.

I don’t know how the band managed it, because I clearly recall being exhausted just watching these guys play. Now that I think about it, I guess this was in December of 1980, because it was the tour in support of “The River” and we were hoping they’d do “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” which of course featured Clarence.

It was snowing a bit as we left the show (naturally we were all in t-shirts, because, as I said, it had started out sunny and warm), and it got worse the farther east we got. In fact, it got so bad they closed the Thruway and made us get off at a rest area, where we spent the night with a few hundred other wasted Springsteen fans (I certainly hope there were no “regular” people stuck in there with us), and trying to flirt with the girls in a drunken, stupid, crashed and hung-over twenty-year-old kinda way.

We managed to live to tell the tale (though I have no idea where the three other guys I was with are today), and didn’t even have to go to jail, though, it’s coming back to me now, I think I had a final the next morning, which I barely managed to get back in time to take.

Ah, those were the days.

So long, Big Man, and thanks for the music.

Oh, almost forgot: Happy Father’s Day (as Jim Gaffigan tweeted yesterday, “thanks, Father’s Day, for reminding me that my dad’s dead”). I was reminded by the aircraft filling the sky over my house, flying in for the annual Father/Son Pancake Breakfast at the local airport. It’s kinda like Dresden in ’45, except without the bombs.