An old friend gave me a cassette tape of the first CD from Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and I thoroughly enjoyed it — so much that, in fact, after "Scenes From the Southside" hit the music stores on this day in 1988, I bought it without hearing a single track from it.
I was rewarded handsomely. I believed then — and I still believe — that it was better than that first album.
Actually, I guess that is a little misleading. I didn't purchase the album the day it came out. That came a couple of months later.
But it is true that I hadn't heard any tracks from the album before I bought it, not even on the radio. I saw it on display racks whenever I went to stores where records were sold — and the desire for it grew.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be "Look Out Any Window," but that was probably more because of the circumstances.
As I have written here before, "Scenes From the Southside" was the album I listened to the most after I moved from Arkansas, where I had spent most of my life, to Texas, where I enrolled in graduate school. I was eagerly anticipating that experience, but my thoughts were preoccupied with the friends I had left behind.
I was also preoccupied with thoughts of a girl with whom I was infatuated. She was a waitress in a Little Rock restaurant, and "Till the Dreaming's Done" always made me think of her.
I saw relevance in each song to my life in those days. I had many dreams, and there were many lessons to be learned, both in and out of the classroom. I believed my future held great things for me.
I'm still waiting for the great things I thought would come — and may never come — but, in the words of another song from "Scenes From the Southside," the show goes on.
There may yet be great things in store for me.
But as I look back, I know that there have already been some great things in my life. They may not have been what I expected or hoped for, but hasn't it been your experience that they seldom are?
