Beautiful Day

In those weeks when fall is just about to turn to winter in the Southeastern U.S., we often have these unusual days that feel less like fall and more almost spring-like, if you can manage to get past the fact that the all the trees are losing their leaves and the leaves that remain have turned all manner of brown, orange, red, and yellow. Those are the days you giddily open up the shorts and t-shirt drawer one more time, for perhaps the last time for a while, instead of automatically reaching for a jacket or a sweater on your way out the door. One of those such days is what U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" immediately takes me back to when I hear it now.

I started college in the fall of 1984, and The Unforgettable Fire album wasn't released until October, so I had already been in school a few months at that point. Still, the song is a reminder to me of what it was like beginning a new life away from home with new things and new people around me, the excitement of starting college, being 18 years old with my whole life still ahead of me. The thrill would wear off soon enough and I would eventually become flatly bored with and sick of school, but at the time it was still a kick - exciting, new, and thrilling.

I had initially been disappointed to not have scored a room in one of the newer and more modern high-rise dormitories when school began, but the old dorm I wound up in suits this memory so much better anyway. One wall of the room was mostly taken up by two humongous windows that opened all the way up, so you could sit in the window on the ledge and read, study, write letters, people watch - whatever. That ledge was often my perch that first year of school.

So there I was that amazingly sunny and warm November day, hanging out on the window ledge looking at the trees, the sky, watching people pass by on the quad below and occasionally calling out and waving to those I knew, the stereo on in the room behind me tuned to one of the local rock stations and turned up. They were playing the new U2 album in heavy rotation at the time, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" came on, and it was just the perfect soundtrack to such a beautiful day (pun/slash/U2 humor intended). Just another of those slightly almost magical moments you just don't forget.