Before it gets weirder...

It's my 20-year college reunion this year. I'm not going. Although Trinity looms large in my internal legend, I haven't actually set foot on campus since my surprisingly teary graduation day all those years ago. They recently sent me a list of the classmates who are attending, which somehow made it all more real, and so I find my college years making more of an appearance in my thoughts than usual. That and some wonderful discoveries on You Tube are setting me off on a trip down memory lane. I will warn you that much of what I loved learning about in school was the weird stuff, the stuff that makes the top of my head blow off, a feeling I LOVE. So brace yourself!

But before we go there, I need to address the summer before college, definitely one of the most fun times in my early life. I was living on Long Island, working at the local public library, hanging out with my best friends Ed and John, and listening to a lot of The Smiths, thanks to Ed. And the highlight of the summer definitely was seeing The Smiths at Pier 84 in NYC. Here's where I love the internet. Now I can see footage from a concert just weeks before and get the set list for the show I saw. Oh, what a fun night that was! This is the soundtrack to my summer of 1986. (And I was NOT depressed:) This music was sheer joy to me. Still is.)