After a break from school that, for all intents and purposes, began last December, I am just one week from embarking on at least two grueling years of intensive study, and I am sad to see this summer pass away.  I have a great deal to look forward to, but at the same time, the uncertainties are many and the fear is strong.

Furthermore, with the commencement of autumn classes, this long, glorious summer will come to an end, and I will still not understand how it could have passed so quickly.

So, before that dreaded day arrives, I will reflect on these last few months in a series of posts that I hope will answer that age-old question: how I spent my summer vacation.

MTV connected with kids because it was on when kids wanted it.  Every afternoon after school, on weekends, all summer, MTV was there with videos, and almost everyone I know watched it every day.

MTV doesn’t exist anymore.  Sure, I understand that there is a channel called “MTV”, but it isn’t “Music Television”.  There may even be “MTV2″ or “MTV [Whatever]“, but videos don’t seem to matter to anybody anymore – at least not like they used to.  MTV cannot be blamed for that, I suppose, since cable television in those days consisted of maybe thirty channels, and, as the only station of its kind, it had a captive audience it cannot take for granted today.

Still, if you were a kid in the 1980s, and you had MTV, you almost certainly remember the video for The Cars’ “Magic”.  This is the MTV I miss.

But Barber, of course, wrote much more.  Yesterday, for example, I listened to Gil Shaham’s wonderful recording of Barber’s Violin Concerto, which deserves a place in the regular concert repertoire.

Happy Birthday, Samuel Barber.

UPDATE:  When I arrived at work this morning, I noticed that Exploring Music this week is devoted to Samuel Barber.  Tomorrow, in fact, the show will feature Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and the fabulous Summer Music for Woodwind Quintet.  Friday’s show will have the Piano Concerto played by John Browning – a recording I have on CD.

Actually, I never really possessed this record until I was much older.  It was always at my grandparents’ house, where I could listen to it on visits.  And since I visited so often, and since I loved Sesame Street so much, I have heard this album more times than I could ever count.  Of course, I got older, and though I never forgot that this record existed, I only thought of it occasionally.  Then, a couple years ago, my grandmother gave it to me as a Christmas present.

As you can see from the cover, the Sesame Street Book and Record “contains [a] 24 page illustrated book”, and a “full color poster [is] included”.  Most of that stuff is long gone from my copy.  I have three or four pages from the book inside the gatefold jacket, and the vinyl album itself isn’t even in a sleeve.  Naturally, the disc is in fairly bad shape, with plenty of pops, and a couple skips on side two.

But, aside from the magical nostalgic quality, what I can appreciate about this record even as an adult are the songs.  They’re clever, sweet, and performed in a surprisingly unadorned style when compared to what is popular today.  The little kids sound like little kids, and not children mimicking Aretha Franklin.  Susan’s a little bit soulful on “I’ve Got Two” and “Nearly Missed”, and the backing band gets pretty funky in “Up and Down”, but you never forget that it’s a record for children.  “What Are Kids Called”, “Somebody Come and Play”, and “J-Jump” are especially sweet.  “Number 5″, “I Love Trash”, and “Rubber Duckie” are lots of fun, and “Green” is a quality song.  I seem to recall “People in Your Neighborhood” being a favorite.

I don’t know if I would have admitted it at the time, but the Sesame Street Book and Record was my favorite album until I was a teenager.

So, as I sat with my father on a blanket under the open sky last Saturday night, watching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play “Racing in the Street”, I felt like things couldn’t get better.

Sure, it looked like the sky might open up any time and unleash a raging storm.   But aside from a few sprinkles here and there, the weather held out.  And, sure, I was a little worried about how bad our view would be way back on the lawn, but that actually turned out great, too.  And, if $56 per ticket seems expensive, we did get three solid hours–twenty-seven songs–of rock.

Miriam and I met my dad at my Uncle Tom’s apartment in Tampa.  It could not have been more conveniently located.  We ate an early dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, which was enjoyable and new to me.  We made it to the Florida State Fairgrounds before six o’clock, but they didn’t open the gate for a little while after that.  We weren’t too far back in the line at the gate, but there were still enough people that I was slightly nervous about getting a decent spot on the lawn.  Plus, while were were standing there, the sky, which had spent the earlier part of the day raining, then the afternoon threatening more, began doing just that.  It didn’t last, though, and by the time we reached the grass we were hopeful.  Though there was a mad dash for the closest seats on the lawn, we managed to find a great spot.

As I expected, “Badlands” opened the show, but for the next two songs I was nervous.  Springsteen’s voice was shot.  It wasn’t that he couldn’t sing in tune; he couldn’t sing.  I honestly expected him to call the show off.  But he drank some sort of hot beverage, saying, “I’ll be better in a few songs”. Sure enough, he was.  By the time he got to “Seeds” his voice was strong.  In the request portion of the show, which has become a fixture of the last couple tours, Bruce grabbed just about every sign from the pit.  I saw some fools asking for “Ramrod” and “I’m a Rocker”.  Fools.  I did see someone after my own heart requesting “Drive All Night”, though, of course, we didn’t get it.  What we did get was “Growing Up”, requested by a child in the front row, “All or Nothing at All” which has only been played six times ever, and “Jole Blon” which hasn’t been played since 1981.  So, we did okay, especially considering that a few nights later he played “Ramrod”.

I was hoping to hear some classic songs I had not yet heard live, and I got them, including, in the encore, “Rosalita”.  After “American Land”, I figured the show was over.  But the crowd was so frantic that he busted out “Bobby Jean” and “Dancing in the Dark”, then, finally, “Hungry Heart”.  The place was out of control, and I didn’t think he would try and top it, so we grabbed our blanket and were making our way out when the noise got even louder.  Something was happening on stage that we couldn’t see.  Then we heard Bruce grab the mic and say, “I guess we forgot one”, before the opening strains of “Thunder Road”.  It was incredible.

Still, in a show which included so many highlights (including an enthusiastic version of–of all things–Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More”, which, as you know, is my personal anthem), perhaps the best single performance of the night was an astonishing version of “Johnny 99″.  It turned into a rollicking railroad reel with dueling guitar solos and showboating.  It was thrilling.

Nevertheless, ages and ages hence, when I think back on that night, I’ll most fondly remember hearing “Racing in the Street” while seated on a blanket with my father under the open sky.

When someone did come to protect me from the lion, and took me to the window to see the beast, I found something completely unexpected.  The fearsome roar was, in fact, a hot air balloon flying low above the woods across Fletcher.  I was in awe.  Since that day, I have dreamed of riding in a hot air balloon.

Today’s featured Flickr gallery highlights the recent Biennale Mondiale de l’Aérostation, and the pictures are incredible.

I suppose that I will someday ride in a hot air balloon.  But when I do, I want to do it right.  It needn’t be in some spectacular place like the Grand Canyon or the Loire Valley, but I wouldn’t want to just drive out to Palatka and soar majestically over a bunch of rotting mobile homes and deserted strip malls.

Glynnis Ritchie has some wonderful photographs of a balloon ride over Virgina.  A voyage above rolling hills followed by an excursion to Monticello seems truly delightful.

Nobody born after 1984 can appreciate how big a star he was.  No pop culture figure can ever match the Beatles and Elvis for sheer overwhelming fame.  But if you lived during the early 1980s, Michael Jackson was the star.  When I was little, every kid had Thriller, and listened to it over and over again.  A new Michael Jackson video on MTV generated tremendous interest.  Kids at my school wore leather jackets with tons of zippers and tried to moon walk.  He was ultra-famous.

But, of course, he could never duplicate the success of Thriller.  Even if he continued to sell well through the rest of the 1980s, everyone compared his later work to Thriller or Off the Wall, and the comparisons were never favorable.  Combine that with his increasingly erratic behavior and freakish appearance, and before long Michael Jackson seemed like a sad carnival act.  While he had once been the one everyone wanted to emulate, he wound up being tabloid fodder.  A lot of it he brought on himself.  Some of it may have been unfair.  But, by the mid-1990s you could have queried a hundred Americans and not found anyone who’d claim to be a Michael Jackson fan.  “Thriller was good”, they’d say, “but that guy’s messed up”.

We live in a different age.  Everything is incredibly segmented now.  There isn’t just one MTV anymore to claim the attention of the young.  The 1980s saw the rise of some remarkable superstars, but the conditions that created those stars don’t exist any more.  Set aside the sham marriages, plastic surgery, baby-dangling, accusations of molestation, and all the other bizarre and disturbing behavior and rumors, and think back to the years 1983-1985.  There was nobody bigger than Michael Jackson.  And no athlete, movie star or singer will probably ever be that famous again.

I am not sure the same can be said of television.  Certainly, the generation that first developed the technology still lives.  But, unlike the pioneers of aviation who predicted space flight, I doubt many involved in the development of TV could have anticipated what the technology would look like today.  With the obvious exception of color broadcasts, my early TV experiences were probably not so different from those of kids growing up a generation before me.  Our set was fairly small, required an antenna, had no remote control, and received maybe four or five channels.  Today, though, TV is unlike anything I could have ever imagined.

While I was growing up, a 27″ television was considered very large.  A TV over 30″ was enormous.  Anything bigger than that–a projection TV, for example–was something you’d only see at a sports bar.  When I moved back to Gainesville in 2000, I bought a 27″ TV at Best Buy on Archer Road.  It was too big to fit in the back of my car, so Jeff and I took it out of its box, flattened that, and put the TV itself in the back seat.  I felt like a king with such a big screen.  For the first month I lived at 1600 4th Avenue North, I got free cable.  That is common in Gainesville, since everyone moves in August, and Cox often needs a month to connect new customers, and disconnect former customers.  Alas, they had cut me off just before the Sydney Olympics. Today I watch a TV larger than I ever thought I’d own.  And it looks better than I suspect anyone fifty years ago thought television could ever look.

On this enormous TV, I can choose from among a couple dozen high-definition channels.  Generally, I’ll choose PBS, or one of a handful of network shows that I enjoy.  We get a few movie channels in HD, too, which is nice.  In fact, I essentially avoid watching anything in low-def now.  I don’t mean to sound snooty about it, but once you have seen 1080p, 420i is unacceptable.  SDTV is the visual equivalent of hearing the latest digitally-mastered stereophonic recording played on an Edison wax cylinder.

One of the high-def channels we get is MLB, the Major League Baseball channel, and my interest in it came about in a strange way.

Repeats and syndication are probably as old as TV programming.  When I was very little, I remember watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, and several other shows.  Later, when Nick at Night debuted, I loved The Patty Duke Show, The Donna Reed Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Lassie, Mr. Ed, and several others.  I spent whole summers watching these black and white sitcoms with my grandparents.  I noticed that any television show that enjoyed a decent run would eventually be syndicated.  I never thought, however, that repeats of sporting events would be broadcast.  “Why”, I wondered, “would anyone want to watch a game for which they already know the outcome?”

Then, a month or so ago, I was flipping through the guide on the DVR, and I saw a listing on the MLB channel advertising a repeat of a June 17, 1978 game between the Yankees and Angels in which Ron Guidry struck out eighteen batters.  Now, even though I knew exactly what to expect by watching the game, I watched it anyway.  And it was great.  So, last weekend, when MLB was showing a 1998 Cubs vs. Astros game in which Kerry Wood struck out twenty batters, I couldn’t resist.  This is curious, because feats of great pitching don’t become apparent to the live audience until late in a game.  Nevertheless, I wanted to watch a game for which I knew the distinctive feature, and for which I knew the outcome.  It makes no sense.  Last night, I watched game seven of the 1965 World Series, and followed it with a Bob Costas interview of three former Major League umpires.  It was fascinating.

But, most significantly, an MLB channel repeat of an episode from the 1994 Ken Burns documentary, Baseball, so enraptured me, that I straightaway went to the Smathers Library and checked out the entire series on DVD.  I loved all nineteen hours of it.  The history of baseball really is the history of our country, and while the business of professional baseball is ugly, the game of baseball remains one of man’s few perfect inventions.

Social networking websites have wrought much evil, but they have reintroduced me to several friends who had, for all intents and purposes, dropped off the face of the Earth.  Facebook has done more to counter the diasporic effects of time than anything else, and on Monday I experienced a rich reward: I had dinner with Erin Alvarez.

It had been almost ten years since I had seen her last, and until we found one another on Facebook, I couldn’t have guessed she lived here in Gainesville.  But she does, and she has a nice boyfriend, and we had a great time at Big Lou’s, and I am looking forward to spending lots more time catching up and hanging out.

Now if I can just persuade my friends Dan and Burt to move to Gainesville I’ll be set.

Then I heard the driver say something–first to his companion, then to me–that both dispelled my fear and surprised me.  “My father planted that tree”, he said, pointing to one of the cedars in the front yard.  The man, who appeared to be middle aged, got out of the van, introduced himself, and told me his parents lived in this house when he was born.  For the next several minutes, in a very animated fashion, he told me stories about he and his brother and father, and what the house was like when he lived here, until his teen years.  He described the inside when he lived here (“the back room [which I now call the middle room] had a built-in wall bookshelf”; “there were parquet floors” [there still are]), and told me stories about how he and his brother used to play in the yard and on the great live oak, which, of course, is much older than the neighborhood.  He told me a few things I had already surmised (our foyer used to be a screened porch; there used to be a building on the slab in our back yard), but I was thrilled to have the opportunity to ask some questions I’ve wanted answered for years.  The square cut out of the slab in the back was where his father had a brick barbecue grill, until he and his brother broke it down with a hammer when he was seven.  The house used to be green.  The bathroom tile isn’t original because his father ripped up the floor to replace a pipe.  Before the Hewetts’ house was built, the block to the west was an empty field.  He told me that for most of his childhood the house had two bedrooms, but eventually they built a small room behind the kitchen.  So, I know now that something preceded the dining room and guest room that stand today.

This man seemed so thrilled to be sharing these memories, and I felt extremely privileged to be hearing them.  I think a lot about all the places I once called home.  I’ve even driven past a few of them just like this fellow did tonight.  I’ve never met any occupants of my former homes, but I would like to think they care for these places as much as I did, and still do.

I know a beautiful old song about a man who visits the house where he grew up, and meets the family that now lives there.  He shares his memories with them and it makes him happy, but he realizes that a house is “a hotel at best”.  Just as my new friend was “a guest” in this house, so too may I be.  Just as this house means something very special to him, it means something special to me.  And some day, ages and ages hence, I may drive slowly past it, and remember everything it means to me.