In the fall of '88 I was in my first quarter as a transfer student to Auburn University. The place was way bigger than the University of South Alabama where I'd spent the previous year, and it took me a while to get my bearings. Luckily I ran into Chris Turner and his wife, Trish. They basically took me in and their home was my second residence. Trish fed me countless spaghetti dinners and Chris helped me navigate a lot of my engineering classes.
During downtime at their place, I was checking out their album collection and came across Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II. There was a lot of good stuff on those two pieces of vinyl, and I think my favorite was "Allentown".
Originally released on 1982's The Nylon Curtain, it made another appearance on this Greatest Hits compilation. The song has become an anthem for American blue collar workers dealing with the decline of American manufacturing. Elsewhere on this blog I've recounted my experience in Detroit, where the old bastion of the automotive industry is now a ghost town.
Years later, I still don't know how to stem the tide of our declining manufacturing base, apart from my strict adherence of buying American if at all possible. It's not easy. One time I needed a flashlight. It took me nearly half an hour of crawling through products of Chinese origin before I finally found an American manufacturer. At least Mr. Piano Man used his celebrity to highlight the issue.
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