Dream Baby Dream

Four calls. 1) a three year old with pnemonia 2) a 65 year old lady with hyperglycemia 3) a 74 year old with asthma and a 27 year old with syncope in a doctor's office. I didn't do a thing. My preceptee did everything, and all quite well. I am going to recommend he be cut loose.

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After work, I went with a good friend to the Bruce Springsteen concert at the Civic Center. It was a solo acoustic performance. It was a great concert. I have been a big Springsteen fan since high school when Born to Run came out. This is the 4th time I've seen him in concert, but the first time as a solo accoustic performer. I really admire him. He sings about ordinary people who continue to live and love despite the darkness that surrounds their lives.

One of the highlights for me was the song "Wreck on the Highway," which was on the River which came out when I was in college. Springsteen rarely ever plays it in concert. It is a simple spare song about a guy who comes on a car acccident on a rainy night on a dark country road. He sings:

There was blood and glass all over
and there was nobody there but me
As the rain tumbled down hard and cold
I seen a young man laying by the side of the road
crying, 'Mister, Won't you help me please?'

He sings about watching the ambulance take him away and thinks about a state trooper knocking on the guy's girlfriend's or wife's door to tell them that their man has died.

He ends:

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness
And watch my baby as she sleeps
Then I get in bed and I hold her tight
And I just lay there awake in the middle of the night
Thinking about the wreck on the highway.

William Faulkner in his Nobel Prize Address said "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things..."*

And that is what Springstein does. Despite the darkness in many of his songs, he nevertheless lifts us up. Last night he sang "The Rising," "Promised Land" and "Long Time Coming." They were new arrangements obviously, but were very powerful. When he sang "The Rising" he stood in front of a spotlight that projected his shadow up against the far wall of the center. It was errie ghostly, and it couldn't help but make you think about the souls of people who died on September 11 or any other day trying to help others and how nothing ever really dies that was worth living.

Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)
Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

He closed with a song called Dream Baby Dream that was absolutely mesmorizing. It was about opening up your heart, no matter how hard your life has been.

Come on and dry your eyes...
I just wanna see you smile
I just wanna see you smile
Yeah, I'm gonna see you smile
Come on baby, dream baby dream