Track #48 - “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range (1986)

From the album The Way It Is

Music & lyrics by Bruce Hornsby

Performed by:

Bruce Hornsby – lead vocals, grand piano

David Mansfield – guitar

George Marinelli – acoustic guitar, backing vocals

Joe Puerta – bass, backing vocals

John Molo – drums, percussion

US Billboard Hot 100 - #1; Billboard Year-End Hot 100 - #8

Said, “Hey little boy, you can’t go where the others go

‘Cause you don’t look like they do”

I said, “Hey, old man, how can you stand to think that way?

Did you really think about it before you made the rules?”

He said, “Son

Well, that’s just the way it is

Some things’ll never change

That’s just the way it is”

Ah, but don’t you believe them

Through the first 47 tracks of this musical trip down memory lane, I’ve never included what I would call a “prologue” in any of the posts. This might be the closest thing that qualifies as a prologue. Why now? Well, there’s only been one time I ever considered moving a song out of the alphabetical order I had them in, and we’re about to talk about that song now. At one time I thought of moving this song, “The Way It Is”, from its spot at #48 all the way to #10 or so. And the reason is because “The Way It Is” is about my father and me. I thought about moving it because when it became clear to me that we were going to lose my dad, during that terrible spring of 2022, that it might be appropriate to write about this song and the time in my life when the song was important to me. But then I had another thought: during that stretch of time when he was in the hospital when I was looking at hundreds of photos of him, writing his eulogy and just remembering him the best way that I could, that maybe all these emotions and all this grief was too raw to recall this song and the effect it had on me in the right way. Meaning, I couldn’t talk about this time while wearing rose-colored glasses. I had to recall this time for what it was: that for about three years I thought my dad was sort of a jerk. I know “jerk” is a harsh word, but I know you’re all nodding and agreeing with me that most of us did not get along with our parents when we were teenagers and maybe even have choicer words than “jerk” for describing them back then. It’s just how it is; your parents are there to rebel against, to roll your eyes at and to generally dismiss as overbearing and clueless when you’re a teenager. So, when I lost my dad and I gave thought to my relationship with him, I felt bad about this period where we didn’t get along and thought that by writing about this song in the moment that it might somehow make it better. But then I realized how unfair that would be, both to me and his memory. Why sugarcoat the bad times? Writing about this song during the time when we were all grieving my dad would have just clouded my memory of that time, and I knew I couldn’t do it. Now, almost four years later, I feel enough time has gone by where I can recall and write about those days more honestly. Of course, I still miss him; I miss him every day. But now when I talk about him, I find myself smiling more instead of getting choked up and wringing my hands about how unfair life is. And listen, this story about “The Way It Is” is about a moment we had during what was a turbulent three years. We didn’t have a father/son day fishing and talking about the meaning of life, culminating in the two of us hugging it out while Bruce Hornsby played in the background. My dad wasn’t that kind of dad. He didn’t soften up until I had kids of my own, and then he’d look at me while I was all stressed out and say, “Now do you understand why I was so hard on you?” Then he’d hug me and he would tell me to relax and remind me that everything was going to be OK. But that was much later; when I was a teenager, not so much. So, spoiler alert, this is about one moment. At least now, I can talk about it in an honest way. Make sense? And this is one of my favorite songs on the list; it’s one of my wife’s favorites, too, so I can’t wait to talk about it, and that time in my life. 1986! What a year! OK, away we go…

In 1986, there were only two things I cared about: getting my learner’s permit and the New York Mets. I know, one has nothing to do with the other. But as I was about to turn 16 that year, there wasn’t anything more important than those two things. Learning to drive meant freedom and not having to ask for rides any time I wanted to leave the house, which was becoming more frequent, by the way. Plus, you could not walk anywhere on Long Island. I mean, you could, but it would take forever to get to where you were going. This was the ‘burbs in the 80s; nobody walked anywhere. But as my friends and I turned 16 that year, we could all smell freedom. And I just want to add an aside here: I don’t think learning to drive is as important to teens now as it was for my generation. Maybe kids are spending more time in the house, or the rise of Uber and Lyft has something to do with it, but it just seems driving has become less important among teens in recent decades. When my boys turned 16, they needed some encouragement and push to get their permits and take their road tests, which they both passed on the first try, unlike their father. It took me three tries, but let’s not get too caught up in that (haha). I spent most of 1986 studying the New York State driver’s manual to prepare for the written exam to obtain a learner’s permit. This meant I could practice driving with another licensed adult in the car, preferably one of my parents. Once I got my hands on the manual, I studied it every day. There was no way I was going to fail that exam. Aside from being a laughingstock among my friends, I would have to go back to the DMV at a later date to retake it. It’s not like today where you can take it online till you pass. Failing would set me back, and I’d have to wait for one of my parents (probably my mom) to take me back to the DMV office, at her convenience. So, yeah, no way…I had to pass on the first shot, so I studied that manual until the cover was falling off. But I had most of the year to study; as you all know by now, my birthday is in late August, so I had the time. We’ll get back to my driving adventures in a few minutes; let’s talk about the Mets. Being a sports fan in NY means options. Like California and Texas, there are multiple teams in almost every major sport you can root for. This often means friends turning into friendly (or not) rivals during sports seasons, and sometimes literally not being able to support your team in an opposing stadium or arena in your own state. In New York, you had to pick sides: Giants or Jets, Knicks or Nets, Rangers or Islanders, and the biggest one, Yankees or Mets. We all know the storied history of the Yankees, so there’s no need to get into all that here. But at one time, from the early 1900s to 1958, there were actually THREE baseball teams in New York: the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. And the thing was, they were all great. They played each other multiple times in the World Series, produced several Hall of Fame players, and were successful draws at the ticket gates. Can you imagine having three good baseball teams within a few miles of each other, and having to pick one? It would never work now, but these were simpler times; it was probably amazing to be a baseball fan in New York back then. However, in 1958 it finally became unsustainable and the Giants and Dodgers both moved to California, to San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively, where they still are today. So, the Yankees were the sole baseball team in New York…until 1962. That year, Major League Baseball granted New York an expansion National League franchise, the Metropolitans, or the Mets. So, once again, New York had rival baseball teams. Founded by attorney and philanthropist William Shea, the Mets hired Casey Stengel and later Yogi Berra, both former Yankees, to manage and coach them. But for years, nothing could stop the Mets from being the worst team in baseball. They lost 120 games in their inaugural season, a record that stood for 62 years until the Chicago White Sox lost 121 times in 2024. It wasn’t until they acquired ace pitcher Tom Seaver in a lottery that things began to turn around. The “Miracle Mets” as they were called, won the World Series in 1969 and made it back in 1973, but lost to the Oakland A’s in seven games. Then in 1977, they inexplicably traded Seaver…and then the Mets became a very bad baseball team. I mean they were bad, really bad, like last place every year bad. And the Mets being bad came at a time when the Yankees were very good, like one-of-the-best-teams-ever-assembled good. They won three straight American League pennants from 1976-1978, winning the World Series in ’77 and ’78, something I vividly remember while living in Brooklyn. And they won with flair, with grit and dominance. There was just this mystique about those Yankees teams back then that you did not f*** with them. They had a manager, Billy Martin, who would get into fistfights with his own players. Their catcher and captain, Thurman Munson was an MVP and 7-time All Star, and everything a captain should be. They had an ace pitcher, Ron Guidry, who won 25 games and the Cy Young award in 1978, and they had Reggie Jackson, who hit three home runs on three pitches in one game in the 1977 World Series. And to top it off, they were entertaining to watch. But, although I watched them, I never became a fan of the Yankees. Despite the Mets being at or near the bottom of the National League East year after year, I stuck with them. I watched those bad teams bumble their way through painful games on New York’s channel 9 year after year, wondering when my little team from Queens was going to get its shot at the World Series. And it wasn’t until Doubleday Publishing bought the Mets in 1980, and new team president Nelson Doubleday hired general manager Frank Cashen that things looked like they might improve. Cashen began using the high draft picks to revamp the Mets farm system and rebuild the team. Slugger Darryl Strawberry won Rookie of the Year in 1983, and phenom pitcher Dwight Gooden won the award in 1984. They acquired National League MVP Keith Hernandez in 1983 and finished just 6 games out of first place in 1984. In 1985, they acquired All-Star catcher Gary Carter, and won 98 games, finishing only 3 games out of first place. You knew going into the 1986 season that this was the Mets’ year. All the years of them finishing last and then rebuilding and coming so close were going to pay off. We were not only going to make it to the World Series; we were also going to win it. We had all the pieces in place: the talented, spirited catcher (Carter), the ace pitcher (Gooden), the slugger (Strawberry), the on-the-field leader (Hernandez), and the right supporting cast. Yep, this was the year. When they started the season with two wins and three losses, me and the rest of the Mets fans wondered aloud if we were headed towards another 2nd place finish, and more disappointment. But then they started to roll and they kept rolling right through the rest of the National League that summer of 1986, and they did it in spectacular, gritty New York fashion. They chased fly balls and crashed into the outfield walls. They dove for line drives. They collided with catchers at home plate. They got into bench-clearing fights. They hit come-from-behind home runs. They took curtain calls. They swaggered through that summer of 1986 like they owned the place. You had to physically knock them to the ground to get them to stop coming at you, and even then, they would get up. Like the Yankees in the late 1970s, you did not f*** with the Mets that year. I watched every game that season, and in between I studied the driver’s manual. By the time my 16th birthday arrived in late August, the Mets had a commanding 19 game lead in their division. Nothing was going to stop them. And on August 28th, I passed the written driver’s test on my first try and received my learner’s permit. Like the Mets, nothing was going to stop me from driving. I got my first part time job that September, so I could pay my part of the car insurance. I would drive to and from work after school, with my mom holding on for dear life in the passenger seat. It was during these drives, which lasted maybe fifteen minutes each way, that I began to think that the radio stations only had three songs to play, I heard them so much. I grew tired of two of them: “Amanda” by Boston, and “Human” by The Human League. But the third song stood out. With its beautiful, bright piano and thoughtful lyrics about poverty and civil rights, “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range became the soundtrack to my afternoon drives.

Bruce Hornsby was born in November of 1954 in Williamsburg, Virginia, the son of a musician-turned-attorney father, and a mother who worked at the local church and played piano. Bruce wouldn’t focus any attention on music at first, playing basketball in high school and earning a degree from the University of Miami. After returning briefly to Williamsburg and playing piano in local bars, he and brother John, who would collaborate on several future hits with Bruce, moved to Los Angeles in 1980 to pursue music careers. The Bruce Hornsby Band, as they called themselves, played in and around LA and Bruce and John worked as songwriters-for-hire, and Bruce found work as a session player. By 1982, Bruce had joined soft rock band Ambrosia (“How Much I Feel”, “Biggest Part of Me”, “You’re the Only Woman”), in time to record their final album, Road Island. Hornsby would also become part of Sheena Easton’s backup band in 1984, appearing on her hits “Strut” and “Sugar Walls”. He continued to record demos on his own, in hopes of securing a recording contract. It was during this time that 80s pop crooner and hitmaker Huey Lewis heard some of Hornsby’s music and asked to record some of Hornsby’s songs. Hornsby politely declined, but Lewis continued to support Hornsby and his music. Hornsby would form his own band, the Range in 1985: David Mansfield and George Marinelli on guitar, former Ambrosia bassist Joe Puerta, and John Molo on drums. RCA signed the band in 1986, and they began work right away on what would become their first album, The Way It Is. Hornsby had written the lyrics, followed by the music for the title track, “The Way It Is” in 1985. The song featured Hornsby’s typical jazz infused, syncopated piano style, meaning it did not follow the typical format for a radio hit; no verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, two unexpected (but brilliant) piano solos in the middle, and certainly no hook. And the lyrics were thoughtful and weighty, and made you form pictures in your mind that maybe you did not want to think about. Not exactly the formula for a hit in the age of MTV and flashy synth pop and hair metal. When the song was released as the second single from the debut album, it caught on slowly, at first in Europe, notably in the UK and the Netherlands, then Canada, and finally in the US. Then that piano riff that oddly almost sounds like a pop hook began to catch on in the US. On the strength of heavy rotation on MTV and a market for more adult contemporary music that year, “The Way It Is” became a #1 song for Bruce Hornsby and the Range in December of 1986. If you were near a radio in the fall and early winter of 1986, you heard that song. And it didn’t matter what kind of station; rock, pop, and adult contemporary stations all got hold of it, and played it…and played it, and played it. It seemed like MTV played the video once per hour; I saw that video a lot.  “The Way It Is” was one of the biggest songs of the year. It was a song that the MTV generation (me) could get behind and that the older generations (my parents) could also tolerate, and maybe even like. By the time “The Way It Is” hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, I had been driving four months but was not at all good at it, and the Mets had won the World Series in extremely dramatic fashion, meaning they were thisclose to losing, and my dad and I were about as far apart as we would ever be. Then about a week before Christmas, my dad sat down in the living room while MTV was about to play the video for “The Way It Is” for the 1,000th time and we had our moment.

When I say I wasn’t getting good at driving, I’m exaggerating…a little. I think I was just nervous, or rather my mother was making me nervous. Every day after school I’d drop my books, grab a snack and head to my part time job at a local electronics company. I cleaned up, did paperwork and inventory, and moved heavy stuff around, all for the princely sum of $3.50 per hour, which was just about minimum wage. That job funded my portion of my parents’ car insurance, which was a condition of getting my permit and learning to drive. The guy that owned that company could have asked me to clean up toxic waste and I’d have probably done it; I needed that job. My mom would hand me the keys, and I’d drive the four miles or so to the industrial park in Bohemia, and she offered me advice the whole way. I would dutifully check my mirrors, use my turn signal and do my best not to speed or tailgate. But still, I was green, and my mom giving me instructions and “Johnny this” and “Johnny that” was not helping me. Her nerves got on my nerves, and I inevitably made mistakes at first. I got better, but it took some time. It also didn’t help that I was driving my parents’ brand-new car. Yep, I was driving their 1986 Buick Regal, which was only about six months old when I received my learners permit. It looked like something out of the movie GoodFellas. It felt like I was driving a battleship. But my dad said it was a good car to learn on; if I could handle that behemoth I could handle any car. My mom, on the other hand, just didn’t want me to hit anything, or anyone with it. Those drives always began with my mom turning on the radio, probably to distract her from what was happening in the car. She would always tune into 97.5 WALK or 106.1 WBLI, both Top 40 stations heavily leaning towards pop music. I would have preferred Z100 or WBAB, but I had no say; I had to concentrate on guiding the Titanic on the highway. And she would turn on that radio, and inevitably we would hear “Amanda”, “Human” or “The Way It Is”, or sometimes all three on the ride there and the ride home when she picked me up a few hours later. It was uncanny how many times I heard those three songs on those car rides. But it made perfect sense, at the time. All three songs were Billboard #1 singles that year. “Amanda” and “Human” both hit #1 in November of 1986, and “The Way It Is” made it to #1 in December. The fact that I heard them all at 2:30PM and then again at 6PM is the part I chalk up to fate. The songs became a soundtrack and reassuring to hear every day. Despite growing very tired of “Amanda” and “Human”, I would almost feel relieved when I heard them on the radio every day; it meant the stars were lined up and I would have a safe drive to and from work. My feelings about “The Way It Is” were much different. I first heard the track on WBAB, who played it as a new artist track that summer. The very notion that my beloved rock station played the song gave it much more weight than if I had heard it somewhere else. I took it way more seriously. Seeing it on MTV was the final stamp of approval. Now, these guys did not look like what was on MTV at the time. They looked very regular, like the first time I saw Genesis and “Abacab” just a few years before. The focus was all on the music, rather than appearances or effects. There were these overhead shots of Hornsby playing his Steinway, his fingers just bouncing and dancing with confidence back and forth on the keyboard. My grandfather used to play the piano. He had an upright in the apartment in Brooklyn, and I would just sit there and stare at his hands tapping on the keys. Watching this video reminded me of watching him. Instead of a guitar solo, there was an amazing piano solo in the middle, and then again at the end, tying up the song and blending it right into the main melody; it was the “hook” of this “hook-less” pop song. So, as 1986 moved along, I became more and more familiar with this song; when it came on the radio during those drives with my mom, I was more than grateful to hear it, every single day. As fall turned into winter, and my family prepared for the holiday season, my dad and I settled into our neutral corners.

My dad and I didn’t argue. There were no fights where we yelled at each other and stormed off, muttering curse words under our breaths. I had friends who had heated fights with their parents but that didn’t go on in our house. Sure, my dad yelled when he needed to, especially when my brother and I were small kids, but he would really have to get frustrated with us to raise his voice as we got older. What happened between my dad and I was almost worse than yelling at each other. Arguing means you’re at least communicating with the person. We had reached such an impasse by the time I turned sixteen that we just didn’t understand each other, and we just sort of shut down most of the time when we were around each other. There was no animosity, only a sense that we didn’t truly see each other back then. He didn’t get why I spent my free time listening to loud music, playing hockey, and reading Stephen King novels instead of studying, and I didn’t understand his need for rules and having to ask for permission every time I wanted to do something outside the house. My need for independence was far outpacing the means to actually be independent, i.e. no driver’s license and little money in my pocket. It was typical: the teenager questioning authority and devising new and creative ways to deceive the parents.  That’s where I was in life, and my parents, especially my father, were the obstacles. To his credit, my dad drove me to hockey practice and games and threw me an extra $20 here and there when I needed it. But we didn’t talk much. I was worried he thought I was a weirdo, or a disappointment somehow, and that we’d never have a real father-son relationship. I think he saw the heavy metal posters and stacks of cassettes and albums and horror books everywhere in my room and just didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe he was worried I was going to join a cult or sacrifice a rabbit in the woods, or maybe he just thought it was all just noise and I would grow out of it. Either way, we never talked about any of my interests outside of school, except hockey; he went to every game that he could, and I’ll never forget that about him. Besides that, we just went about our business. But then there was that Saturday in December. My parents used to go out a lot on weekends. When we were much younger, my grandparents, who lived in their own apartment on the first floor of our house, would “keep an eye” on us. But now that we were older, my parents would go out much more knowing we could stay on our own and not have my grandparents be involved. They would have dinner with their group of friends or just go to one of their houses to eat, drink, and probably commiserate about their jobs, mortgages and kids. I’m not sure where they were headed on this particular Saturday, but I remember sitting in the living room, and watching MTV as my parents were getting ready to leave. My dad emerged from their bedroom down the hall, wearing stiff jeans and probably a sweater or button-down shirt, and sat down on the sofa opposite me to wait for my mom. I expected him to ask me to change the channel, or at least to lower the volume, but he did neither. He sat there with his legs crossed and seemed to be watching MTV with me, something he never did. That is not hyperbole; my father did not watch MTV. The MTV top of the hour promo played, with the rocket taking off and then the astronaut planting the MTV flag on the moon (just look for it on YouTube, kids), and the VJ previewed the videos that would appear that hour. And then, very familiar piano chords began to play, and there was Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and their video for “The Way It Is”. I may as well have been driving with my mother after school to work, but the familiarity of hearing that song at that moment took away from the awkwardness of my dad watching MTV with me on a Saturday evening. We both watched in silence, and then there’s the bridge in the song where Bruce Hornsby plays that wonderful piano solo, the solo that made this pop song so unique and so unformulaic, that made it a hit despite being unformulaic. Hornsby’s hands glide and dance over the keys, and then the song continues and he begins to sing again; and it was at that moment that my dad spoke:

“Wow that guy is some musician, huh?”

I think I may have jumped, I was so surprised to hear my dad speak, let alone offer commentary on the video. I had to respond; I couldn’t leave his attempt at communicating with me hanging out there. So, I said the first thing that came to my mind:

“Yeah, this is one of my favorite songs right now.”

He continued, saying he had heard “The Way It Is” on the radio, but that watching the video made you realize what a good piano player Bruce Hornsby was. We sat in silence until the video ended, and then he rose from the sofa as the next video began, as my mother made her way into the living room; it was time for them to go. They told me to “behave” and to “keep an eye” on my brother, and they left. I remember hearing the front door close and the car engine starting in the driveway and replaying the very short conversation (could it even be called that?) my dad and I just had. What did I take from that exchange? And how did I feel at that moment? Was it relief that my dad broke the awkward silence? Astonishment that we bonded over a video on MTV? Gratitude he tried to find some common ground with me? I think it was all those things. But mostly I came away with a sense that we’d be OK. Maybe not now, but somewhere further down the road we’d understand each other and have more to talk about. I’d grow up, and these angsty teen-age years would be in the rearview, and my dad would just mellow out. It would all be OK. For now, we’d go on like this...neutral corners. But after that moment, whenever I heard “The Way It Is”, and that bright, glorious piano, I thought of that moment with my dad in the living room...and I still do. My biggest regret from that time isn’t the relationship with my dad. No, my biggest regret from that time was that I never told him how much “The Way It Is” reminded me of him, how much that brief exchange we had meant to me and how that song somehow made everything OK. Now, I like to think that whenever I hear that song or any Bruce Hornsby song that he is somehow stopping by and saying hello and reminding me to just relax; it’s all going to work out fine.

Thanks again for reading! Please sign up for email updates to get new posts delivered to your inbox and if you’re enjoying the posts, please feel free to share the link with your friends! Two. More. Songs. To go!

Here’s that video for “The Way It Is”. See if that piano playing doesn’t dazzle you the way it dazzles me every time I watch it. :-)

Next time…is it the greatest song from the greatest year of pop music, ever? I just might be, but I’ll let you decide. And make sure you wear something purple :-)  

P.S.

Bruce Hornsby and the Range ended up winning the Grammy for Best New Artist at the 1987 Grammy Awards. The album The Way It Is has sold three million copies worldwide and remains Hornsby’s biggest commercial success. The title track is still his only Billboard #1 single. “The Way It Is” was famously sampled by Tupac Shakur for his hit “Changes”, and rapper Polo G also used the groove for his track “Wishing for a Hero”. Shakur’s song channels similar themes from “The Way It Is”, referencing homelessness and racism on the streets, and uses the refrain “…some things will never change” throughout. The band released Scenes From the Southside in 1988, and features the single “The Valley Road”, one of my favorite Bruce Hornsby tracks. The Range would put out one more album in 1990, A Night On the Town, before Hornsby went solo, and became one of the most on-demand producers and collaborators in the music business. In 1989, Hornsby co-wrote and played on Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence” from the album of the same name. Play that song and tell me you can’t tell that it’s Bruce Hornsby playing the piano after just a few seconds. His sound and influence are just unmistakable. In 1991, he played piano on “I Can’t Make You Love Me”, Bonnie Raitt’s #1 single, considered one of the greatest pop songs of all time. Raitt maintains that Hornsby’s piano was what made the song what it became. In a recent New York Times piece on Hornsby written by Jon Pareles, Raitt says, “The reason that song is the heartbreaker it is, is because of the way he interprets those chords…even in the intro alone, it already breaks your heart.” Since then, Hornsby has collaborated with Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Stevie Nicks, Squeeze, Bon Iver and more recently, Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend, to name just a few. Hornsby also toured and played with the Grateful Dead, from 1988 until Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, playing piano, keyboards and accordion. And he has composed over 100 pieces of music for use in Spike Lee’s films, dating back to 1992. I could go on. Bruce Hornsby has been one of the most diverse artists and collaborators in music for over forty years, never adhering to a formula or one specific genre. When he tours, fans get angry when he doesn’t play the hits. As he claims in the Times article, after a four-decade career, he’s just “trying to stay interested.” Hornsby just released his latest album Indigo Park, which features collaborations with Raitt, Koenig and singer-songwriter Blake Mills and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. It’s not The Way It Is, but it’s never been Hornsby’s style to stay in one lane. “The Way It Is” will always be special to me, but Hornsby’s vast catalogue is worth exploring.

The Mets did in fact win the 1986 World Series, but not before causing heartache and extremely high amounts of stress. It took six games to dispatch the Houston Astros to win the National League pennant, with Game 6 going to 16 innings. The Astros had the tying run on second, but the Mets prevailed and they headed to the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. And it looked like in Game 6 that the Red Sox were going to shake the “Curse of the Bambino” and win their first World Series since 1918. They had a two-run lead going into the 10th inning. The World Series trophy was in the Red Sox locker room at Shea Stadium, the lockers were draped in plastic, and the champagne was on ice. Then Gary Carter singled to left…Kevin Mitchell singled to center…Ray Knight singled to center and Carter scored…Bob Stanley threw a wild pitch to Mookie Wilson and Mitchell scored, tying the game…and then, after fouling off about a dozen pitches, Wilson hit a weak squib down to first base, and first baseman Bill Buckner, hobbling on two bad ankles, let the ball get between his legs and Knight scored the winning run, completing maybe the greatest comeback in baseball history. It was simply unbelievable. And even though the Mets won the series, Game 7 was no picnic. The Red Sox had a 3-0 lead, but the Mets came back…again. It was thrilling, and tough to watch, but I think if you were a Mets fan, it was well worth all the stress. The Mets have been back to the World Series twice since then, losing both times: in 2000 to the Yankees (argh) and 2015 to the Kansas City Royals. They have spent A LOT of money to build competitive teams but promises to win another World Series have fallen short; they’ve had a couple of good runs but haven’t won since 1986. And you know what? I would put that 1986 team up against any of the Mets’ teams since and I bet they would win. They just had more grit and are one of the toughest baseball teams I’ve ever seen. It’s like I said…you do not f*** with the 1986 Mets.

One of the last conversations I had with my dad was about retirement, specifically how he and my mom had saved enough, and what my timeline was for my own retirement. It was the first time we had ever discussed that topic and I’m sad we never got to really finish the conversation. But we had come a long way from the days when we didn’t understand each other and barely spoke. It took many years, but I had arrived at a point where I really enjoyed spending time with him. Once I had kids of my own, I realized why he had rules and seemed so stressed out all the time when I was growing up. He and my mom were so young when they had my brother and I that sometimes I’m amazed our family survived. I had my boys when I was 30 and 34, and I think that was young; I couldn’t imagine being a father at 21 like my dad. I managed to learn a lot from him as I got older, so I feel like that made up for the times I dismissed his advice and thought I knew better. I remember a Saturday when Christine and I were first living together and she played her Pandora radio app, and “The Way It Is” came on, and I told her how much I loved that song and Bruce Hornsby, and it turned out she had an entire Bruce Hornsby station that she had curated. She also told me that her dad, whom she had lost many years ago, loved Bruce Hornsby, as well as Fleetwood Mac, Steve Winwood, and other bands my dad had listened to. The conversation turned to our fathers, and we laughed about how similar they were. Both served in the military, were hard workers, and loved rules... “Don’t touch the thermostat”, “Take a shorter shower”, “Be home by nine” ...we agreed that they would have gotten along very well, had they met. Maybe they’re somewhere now sharing stories...I sure hope so.

Before I go, we must talk about music in 1986 for a minute. I mentioned 1986 in metal when we talked about Metallica and “Master of Puppets”, how so-called “hair metal” became popular and speed metal found its moment. But pop music and hip-hop had some unforgettable and iconic releases that year. I can’t list them all here, but Paul Simon, Steve Winwood, Madonna, Peter Gabriel, Janet Jackson, Beastie Boys, and Run-D.M.C all released some of most influential and memorable albums of the decade. Throw in seminal new wave albums by The Smiths (who we talked about in Track #42 ), New Order, R.E.M., and Depeche Mode that were released in 1986, and I’d put that year in music right in the top five of my lifetime. Granted, I did not really discover a lot of the new wave music that came out in 1986 for a few years, but I included many of those songs on a Spotify playlist, including the three that kept me company as I learned how to drive...did I miss any?

See you next time…

JS

4/15/2026