“I see down below in the Meadowlands two guys definitely up to no good. They’re about to take someone or something out of the trunk. And I just thought to myself, Man, I love the Garden State.”

That would be NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, who loosens his proverbial tie and opens up about his New Jersey roots in the current issue of New Jersey Monthly.

The article traces his roots from high school, to firefighter and his long road in the media to nightly news anchor. Williams describes the love of his job. “There’s a rush, a sense of mission. It’s the same charge whether it’s heading out to a fire, getting behind the wheel of a race car, or getting a breaking story. It’s the thrill of doing something unusual,” he says.

A good portion of the article focuses on Bruce Springsteen, who Williams says he is a “stalker” of. The Boss is quoted throughout the article. “Once the jacket and tie come off, he’s a huge music fan — funny, profane, irreverent — and the Jersey fireman inside him quickly rises to the surface,” says Springsteen.

Williams displays some of his self-deprecating humor as well: “At the end of the day, I am just a college dropout who got lucky.”

(photo courtesy of New Jersey Monthly)