September Cold

With the crack of a cue ball
And Friday night football
And books I had to memorize
I walked around all through this town
With music in my earphones
They said we had the time of our lives

There’s a chill in the air. The evenings in Lancaster, PA are dipping into the 40s. Growing up in the Western PA town of Barnesboro, evenings were already like that by late September. I loved that time of year, not just because my birthday falls right before the transition into October, but because I enjoyed getting back to school, being with all of my friends, and heading out on the town as night fell earlier and earlier each day. Growing up, Friday night football games at our downtown stadium were a highlight of the week. After the game, it was over to Rocco’s pool hall for billiards and cigarettes. 

In 2004, I finished Boredom Breeds Curiosity, a concept album in three acts, remembering my first three decades. In the middle is a song called “September Cold” about this place and this time in my life.

Things were already changing in Barnesboro when I was in high school. Eleven years following my graduation in 1989, Barnesboro (now called Northern Cambria, the name of the school district) had merged with the neighboring town called Spangler. By then the pool hall, along with many other downtown businesses, was closed and the economy continued a decades-long decline. I don’t get back to Barnesboro much these days, and when I do, I find a town that’s a shadow of what it once was. I’m grateful to have grown up there in the 70s and 80s, a time that has proven to be the end of the town’s peak years.