The magical moments of a Bruce Springsteen concert begin seconds after the lights in the arena, club or theatre go out, you're staring at the stage knowing that in the next few seconds Bruce will arrive ready to pour out his heart, sharing his soul night after night, city after city, concert after concert tour after tour. The stage lights begin to shine and within a minute or so the sounds of The Rising, Thunder Road, Badlands or Devils and Dust are all around you and once again Bruce and each of us are heading on that special journey that is so special each night. It's magic in the night, each and every night.

"Experiencing" Bruce Springsteen in concert is part religious rock and roll, part revival meeting, a journey of joy, passion and excitement. Be it at Fenway Park with Bruce trying to end the Curse of the Bambino, the lone spotlight on Bruce singing Thunder Road simply with Roy Bittan on the piano in 1975 on the Born to Run tour, the Boss and the Big Man hitting/creating perfect synergy during Badlands - Bruce Springsteen on the 1978 Darkness Tour, the sheer force of Born in the USA on the 1984-1985 BIUSA Tour, the carnival like start of the 1988 Tunnel of Love Tour or that unforgettable moment during the Reunion tour when faith was restored - Bruce was back where he always belonged - on stage with the E Street Band, Bruce has thrilled so many of us.

Each of us has our own Bruce experiences, stories that we've often wanted the opportunity to share with fellow Bruce fans. The authors are looking to find out how has Bruce moved you? Emotionally, politically or from a humanitarian perspective. Traveling to the Holy Mecca Asbury Park, taking your children/parents to their first Springsteen concert, meeting strangers who have become lifelong friends, inspiring you to speak out on issues that make a difference - there are countless stories that can only be told by each of us and we've never had that chance, until now. Finally here is your opportunity to share with the rest of the world your feelings and Bruce experiences. We are calling out to Bruce from the Jersey Shore, Philly, the backstreets of Boston, Bruce fans in the UK, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Japan, France, Canada - everywhere and anywhere where Bruce fans call home, we want to ensure you're all represented in this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Planned for publication in 2007 the book is simply called For You, and we are looking for your Bruce Springsteen stories to be a part of the book. We're looking for anecdotes, tales, vignettes, feel free to offer special moments (both good and even those regrettable moments in time). What we're looking for are your Bruce Springsteen experiences that are so special that you'd like to share them with others.

The journey continues...

We are also looking for original photography to publish in the book. Please let us know if you have original negatives and or slides of Bruce Springsteen in concert, the older the better. If possible please include city, year and date where photos were taken.

They locked arms and trudged the last steps of the last mile as one.

Grimaces curled into smiles. Heaving chests swelled with pride. Swollen, blistered feet found new spring and weary, sweat-stung eyes brightened at the sight of pink flags and blue banners.

Tears came easy. They had reached the end, where all new beginnings are born.

Sun and stress had bleached my wife’s hair almost white. Her face looked like a bleached beet. Her legs were quivering stalks speckled with heat rash and striped by uneven sunscreen. Her feet looked like they’d been boiled and salted.

Aside from our wedding day, she has never been more beautiful to me.

“I’m (bleeped) up bad,” she said as she crossed the finish line. Her words may have been questionable, but her self-diagnosis was dead-on.

Over three days, my wife and nine teammates walked 60 miles in the Philadelphia edition of the “Breast Cancer 3-Day,” which benefits the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The team raised nearly $33,000 for breast cancer research and programs. The event raised more than $6 million.

What’s that? Yep. You read it right. Sixty.

Miles.

The team was composed of friends who met through www.backstreets.com, an online ticket exchange and discussion forum for Bruce Springsteen fans. They walked under the banner of “Bruce Sent Us,” an extension of “Bruce Sent Me,” a grass-roots charity drive started by Springsteen fans who take his calls to help those in need to heart, and more importantly, to the streets.

Before the sun rose on Friday morning, the Bruce Sent Us team and more than 3,000 other walkers took to the streets of the Philadelphia area, passing through tree-lined upscale developments, urban neighborhoods and small-town downtowns and city parks.

Along the way, 3-Day volunteers staffed “pit stops” where walkers found water, food and medical care ranging from ankle wraps to pats on the back and shoulders to lean or cry on.

Supporters turned out at “cheering stations” to urge the walkers on. Well-wishers waited in driveways and on street corners to offer cold drinks, encouragement and thanks.

At one stop, I met a rabbi waiting for her daughter. The rabbi’s mother was diagnosed with cancer three times, finally succumbing last year.

“She said, ‘I’m going to do this for grandmother,’” the rabbi said proudly.

“She’s amazing. They all are.”

At night, walkers slept in tent cities assembled by a volunteer crew so efficient the Federal Emergency Management Agency should hire them as consultants.

By Friday night, the rows of blue tents lined up in a grassy field looked like a Civil War encampment outfitted by IKEA. Walking wounded hobbled off to rest as a scorching blue afternoon melted into a mercifully cool, vibrantly pink sunset.

Some stayed up, sipping electrolyte punch at the traveling “3-Day Cafe” or checking e-mail at portable Internet stations. A woman named Rita got more than a few weary walkers up on their battered feet with a karaoke rendition of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots (Were Made for Walkin’)” Rita replaced “Boots” with a slang term for breasts. No one was too tired to laugh.

The trials and triumphs of the Bruce Sent Us team were periodically uploaded to Backstreets.com by Sean, who had more reason for walking than most. His wife, Karyn, died of cancer in 2003.

She was 34.

At a dinner Sean hosted the night before the walk, I noticed a pair of letters she wrote to their two young children hanging in the dining room. I don’t remember when I’ve read anything as heartfelt or eloquent. I never met Karyn, but I know she was a beautiful spirit.

A woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes. Every 13 minutes, the disease takes another life. This year, more than 200,000 women (and men) will learn they have breast cancer. More than 40,000 will die.

There are more than two million breast cancer survivors living in the United States, and more than a few were there to greet the Bruce Sent Us team and thousands of others as they lined up for the closing ceremonies.

In my lone contribution to the team effort, I snapped a photo of Suzanne, Carol, Susan, Jeanne, Melissa, Holly, Kathy, Barb, Sean and my wife, Chrisann, whose mother died of lung cancer in 2001. It is a portrait of hope in motion, charity in action, faith in flight.

With a sea of shoes held to the sky, more than 3,000 voices proclaimed the force that sustained them when the next hill seemed unconquerable, the next milepost unreachable, another minute of walking unthinkable.

The words were printed on their T-shirts and written in their souls.

“We walk because we believe!”

If you had seen them, you would too.

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