Every Jersey girl has a memory involving her father, her hometown and Springsteen

I was raised on Springsteen.

For as long as I can remember, Saturday mornings were always my father's errand and garage sale day, when my mother ushered me out the house so she could clean or take time to herself. At the time, my father worked five days a week in Newark. Often, he would not get home until long after I went to sleep. But Saturday mornings, I was his responsibility. 

He drove a teal Ford Ranger at the time (a truck that would later become mine) and he'd settle me into the front seat on top of a pillow so that I could see over the dash. The night before, we'd scour the classifieds of our local newspaper (back when people used the classified section), choosing interesting ads to go check out.

We typically avoided the ones that started on Friday ("All the good stuff will be gone by Saturday," my father would say) and look longingly for estate sales ("Those are always the best"). Taking a red sharpie, we'd outline the boxes and then my father would lay out a map of our county to plot the next day's route.

My father loves maps. Even after GPS's and Google Maps became reliable, he still uses "old-fashioned" maps to plan his journeys. He'd measure the distance between each address on the map, choosing where we would start and finish our trip. Saturday mornings, we'd wake up early. Leaving the house by 8, we'd be gone well into the afternoon, trapeezing across Morris County, New Jersey. A weekly education of the place I was growing up in.

And these trips would always, always include music.

Music was always playing in my house. Whether it be the low hum of a top-40 station in the kitchen while my mother is making dinner, or Sunday morning Mozart after mass, music is a constant. My father took control of my music education at a young age. Springsteen, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Rush, ELO, The Who, The Stones, Meatloaf...Every early memory I have of my father includes a background soundtrack from one of these bands.

I can probably sing Springsteen's entire "Born to Run" album. "Cadillac Ranch" is the funniest song I've ever heard (and best inner-album art). "Blinded by the Light" will only always be a Springsteen song to me. And NO ONE can play the sax like Clarence Clemmons did (especially his solo in "Jungleland").

My father would make tapes of his favorite records and we'd play them in the truck between garage sale stops. He'd quiz me ("Song, band, album: Go!") and I'd be rewarded with an affectionate "that's my girl" if I got it right or receive a "lecture" on the band's entire discography/history/style if I got it wrong. The result? I became the world's youngest classic rock connoisseur. I could lecture about the significance of The Moody Blues' "Every Good Boy Deserves a Toy." I could explain why Pink Floyd shouldn't be defined by "Dark Side of the Moon." I could hold a discussion on the depth of U2's "Joshua Tree." And I was eight.**

My father would rarely have a particular item he was looking for at garage sales. We would go "treasure hunting," hoping to find an antique perfume bottle for my mother or a discarded coin collection for him. I'd be content to look for slightly loved toys and books with scarred covers. Between sales, we'd stop for lunch or go to Home Depot for items he needed. 

Next to smell, sound is one of the strongest memory triggers. Every time I hear a Springsteen song, I am instantly transported to Spring Saturday mornings, going from house sale to house sale with my father.

When I turned ten, I decided I was too old to be seen in public with him anymore and our Saturday morning journeys stopped. Our relationship became strained and only in the past five years have we worked to repair it. 

Older now, and I realize how those trips meant just as much to him as they did for me. The summer before I went away to school, I bought him Springsteen tickets for his fiftieth birthday. Standing beside him and my mother, we sang the words to "Born to Run" as the Boss played to a sell out crowd at Giants Stadium. And when I'm home from college, I run errands with him every chance I get.

My favorite Springsteen song, "Thunder Road."

**(Note: this is not the only 'knowledge-that-little-girls-should-probably-not-have' that I got from my father. These trips also included extensive NHL lectures. I could tell you the entire history of Philly's "Broad Street Bully" years; track the career of former Devils' captain Scott Stevens and explain the difference between offsides and icing to people three times my age. I was an oddity to some family members, but my father's friends got a kick out of it. History was also not off limits and I learned all about different WWII campaigns, battle sites of the Revolutionary War and American war heroes.)