Who's the Boss?

Of course the big news in the world of demographics is that Bruce Springsteen is also my age. But this presents an interesting conundrum....

I have never BEEN to a Bruce Springsteen concert. Does this mean I am not representative of my generation? One of my friends, Becky, has probably been to over 100 concerts but she's a mere 50 plus....I have the feeling that by the time people were paying attention to Bruce I was the mother of at least one and perhaps two children and listening to "Free to Be You and Me" rather than rock 'n roll.

I do own an iPod however and have at least one if not two BS songs....does this count?

Unlike my friend Kay, who is the world's living authority on popular music, I stopped paying attention to what was going on about 1971. At that point we lived in Washington DC and there was a wonderful classical music station on AM radio which we listened to every morning on the way to work. I can tell you what was popular -- John Denver (and even I know that that is not rock music!) -- in 1974 because that was the year my husband and I took a three month trip around the country. That was also the summer of the Barbra Streisand/Robert Redford movie, the title of which now escapes me, and so they played the theme from that movie a lot too.

But once I stopped commuting to work all that came to a halt. And even though I went back to work, our town was so small that my job was literally down the street. So no long drives listening to the Boss, or heavy metal or rap or any of those other things that were going on.

I guess this is also where I should confess that I know nothing about the Grateful Dead, even though my husband's name sounds like one of the members of the group....

I really am out of it. Or was. Now that I'm almost 60 I'm on the cutting edge of social change. Just don't ask me who won the Grammys this year.