In my late teen years, much like most young men, I entered what Warren Zevon once called the Wild Age -- a time of reckless abandon when logic does not always enter into the decision-making process. Often, fueled by hormones, beer, and boundless energy, those teenage choices can have life-altering consequences. Many times though you find the essence of yourself in those run-amok-nights. Eventually, most of us grow out of the constant need to prove ourselves and win some meaningless point of quasi-honor. Others of us never do.

A classic album of my youth

There are a thousand stories from those nights. Most wouldn't be particularly interesting to you unless you knew the people involved. Besides, you have your own stories that are amazingly similar to mine. You just may not want to tell them while your kids are around. ;-)

Still, there were lessons I learned from those days. For instance, being the first guy out of the car, screaming expletives, and throwing your jacket on the ground, often would convince the guys in the other car that you were too crazy to fight. Of course, that was in a time before every other teenager seemed to have a gun and little remorse in using it. Or, exactly how far below E does the needle on the gas guage go?

But I also learned the pleasures of semi-rural roads, loud rock anthems, and friends that knew all of the words to the song too. How many Saturday nights, just the guys, were spent splitting a 12-pack of beer between four friends, driving those rural roads (50 cents a gallon gas!), and singing along with Bat Out of Hell, We Will Rock You, and Born to Run?

That brings me to the title song of this blog. On the same album as Born to Run is a song called Backstreets. The lyrics reflect much of those Wild Age nights, but the lessons somehow run deeper for me. For a young man, mostly estranged from his own father, how could he not be struck by lines like these:

Remember all the movies, Terry, we'd go see
Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be
Well, after all this time to find we're just like all the rest
Stranded in the park and forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets

Those run-amok-nights were as much about learning how to metamorphis from being a boy to a man as they were about the reckless abandon. The hard truth that maybe, just maybe, you weren't destined for greatness was sobering. The fact that despite all of the efforts of the "self-esteem society" that you were way more like everyone else than something special was harsh, but it may have driven you to examine yourself more closely than you may have before. Those years were invaluable to me as I learned what I valued and what was worth letting go.

I made more mistakes than I care to admit in those years. And I'm sure I hurt more people than I know. In many ways, I'm still trying to walk like the heroes I think I need to be. Holding myself to a higher standard though seems worth the turmoil I feel in my soul nearly everyday. The easy way is not often the best way.

Note: Unlike many of my other posts, I reveal the reason for the title within the blog itself. Because I'm such a sucker for a song, I'll say that I had yet another moment where a song I know struck me deeply despite a thousand listenings.