Not Born To Run? Why was Bruce Springsteen rescued from roadside by New Jersey bikers?

From Entertainment Daily

A group of bikers from the American Legion helped the rock star get home after his motorcycle broke down

Coming across Bruce Springsteen on a broken down motorcycle on the side of the road could probably be a lyric from one of his songs, but it really happened for a group of guys from New Jersey.

A group from the Freehold American Legion were riding after a Veterans Day event when they saw a stranded motorcyclist up ahead near Allaire State Park, in Wall Township.

Biker Dan Barkalow said: “Bikers gotta stick together. I stopped to see if he needed help, and it was Bruce.”

Dan said they tried to get his bike running, but when they couldn’t, The Boss – wearing a brown riding jacket and a red handkerchief – hopped on the back of Ryan Bailey’s bike and they headed to a local bar.

“We sat there and shot the breeze for a half hour, 45 minutes till his ride showed up,” Dan said.

“Nice guy, real down to earth. Just talked about motorcycles and his old Freehold days.”

Bruce was raised in Freehold and still lives in New Jersey. Ryan said: “It was nice to help out. One Freehold person helping out another.”

Last month, Bruce Springsteen credited his music with helping him navigate depression and says playing marathon shows until he was exhausted helped chase away the blues.

He spoke to a sold-out crowd in San Francisco in an 80 minute on-stage interview as part of a nationwide tour for his best-selling new autobiography Born To Run.

The Boss has a storyteller’s knack for recounting the past in vivid detail, with quick wit and humour. He discussed the laboured process of writing the book, which took seven years, his troubled relationship with his father, sweet memories of raising his children with wife and longtime backup singer, Patti Scialfa, and his history with depression, as he does in the book.

“I think music was the way that I medicated myself in the beginning,” he revealed. “It was the first thing that centred me and chased away the blues.

“I found that the experience of playing cleared my mind and gave me a brief moment of respite from the things that tended to disturb me,” he said. “I found out that exhaustion was my friend. Because if I got myself tired enough, I was simply too tired to be depressed.”

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