Sound Affects (My Lost 15 Minutes of Fame)
or artists or, at best, college students with too much time on their hands.
And me.
So, anyway, there I was in my banker persona, thinking that no one understood the passion that Springsteen inspired or the pain that his words deferred, when another adult stood up and said, "I get it, too!" The adult in question was Clark DeLeon, who was then the Inquirer's metro columnist - well-read, well-respected and every bit a grownup. But there it was in black and white - a column about DeLeon's own passion for Springsteen and the meaning he found in the musical wail at the end of "Jungleland."
I felt validated, saved. At least I felt that there was someone else out there who was as fanatical as I was. So I did the only thing I knew how - I wrote to DeLeon and thanked him for the column. I told him about my own life - my car accident, my existence as a single parent, my struggle to keep my identity while providing a life for my child - and I told him the part Bruce's music had played in comforting me, celebrating with me, clearing my mind to focus on the "reasons to believe" that existed in my life.
"Bruce isn't my reason to believe. I have my own reasons," I told DeLeon, and listed some of them. Then I concluded, "But Bruce Springsteen reminds me that they are there for me. I thank him for that, and for the magic in the night."
It was one of the best letters I'd ever written, and I didn't "work" on it at all. The words - my feelings - just flowed onto the paper, and I was proud of them as I put the envelope addressed to the Inquirer into the mailbox outside the bank.
It should have ended there, actually. It still would have been a good story - not life-changing, of course, but interesting enough to tell my friends over cold pizza and beer. But the story didn't end there.
One day, months later, I turned to DeLeon's column, expecting to see something about Bruce, who was playing the Spectrum later that week. Well, the column was about Springsteen, but the writer wasn't DeLeon. Instead, it was me. DeLeon had used my letter (identifying me only as "Mary from Woodbury,") framing it with some words about how those who "get it" get it and those who don't are missing out. He even
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