I was doing my work this morning, up to my eyeballs in Perry, Cain and Paterno. Staring out the window at a drizzly fall day. Looked like the Indian summer of the past few days had vanished for good.

The news cacophony was getting louder. I needed a brain chaser. Hiding under the covers with Queen Ginger the Sweet Old Toothless Wonder Dachshund couldn’t even cut it today.

So I went to my personal jukebox on YouTube. Tried to drown my sorrows in sappy soulful drivel like Savage Garden. And then decided to try really retro with Earth Wind and Fire. Still too cheerily bland. Didn’t hit a chord.

Then I found a young Art Garfunkel solo, All I Know. Its pure beauty started to rouse me. Then Paul Simon, solo, doing Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.

But I longed to see them together, before we all grew up and went our separate ways.

Did some excavating and found Simon and Garfunkel at a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame Concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden two years ago. And sat back, transfixed, staring at my laptop like it was a stage and I had a front-row seat.

HBO

Whatever had driven then apart was forgotten for those few moments. When they emerged onstage and smiled at each other, I also grinned. Hairlines and physiques had certainly changed. But they still performed their much-older hearts out, still in perfect harmony with Sound of Silence and The Boxer.

When they switched to Bridge Over Troubled Water, with the George Washington Bridge in the background, I lost it. Forty years melted away, and we were all back in 1971, my senior year in high school.

Them crooning about New York, the greatest city in the world, which I had just started exploring. (Used to get on the bus at the Jersey Shore and take myself to Broadway and Times Square as a kid. Just like it was in Midnight Cowboy, before it was cleaned up.)

So here’s to 40 years ago, when we were all young and full of big, idealistic dreams. When we all thought there would always be someone to be our bridge over troubled water.

Time to get these middle-age bones off Memory Lane and to the gym …