TERRY MOSHER
I didn’t miss the 55th anniversary of his death. I was sad when he died and it still feels the same all these years later today as I write this. I was stunned, shocked and very sadden when the news spread that a plane carrying Buddy Holly had crashed and he had been killed.
Holly was 22 when the plane went down in freezing Iowa weather in a cornfield near ClearLake in the early morning hours of Feb. 3, 1959. He, The Big Bopper, (J.P. Richardson), whose big hit was“Chantilly Lace,” and Ritchie Valens (his major hit was “La Bamba”) and pilot Roger Peterson were all killed.
Don McLean in 1971 eulogized Holly with his hit song, “American Pie.”
“A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
So bye-bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die”
In the early 1980s I was visiting family in Ferndale. I was in the car by PioneerPark when McLean’s song came on the radio. As it began, I stopped the car alongside the road and left the motor running. I was overcome with sadness and grieve for a longtime friend who was living in a state facility in Bellingham, having contacted Multiple Sclerosis (MS) years before.
Everything hit me at once and I was shocked to the extent that I was frozen in time, couldn’t move and was tearing up at the same time. Holly’s death ended for me and countless others music that tore at the fabric of our being. His first hit – “That’ll Be The Day” – came in May of 1957 as I was completing my junior year at Ferndale and living my Dark Ages. I had long and thick brown hair, was tall and thin as a wire, was four years almost to the day Holy die of having lost my mother, and was adrift in a morass of loneliness that stifled any meaningful progress by me.
Most things repelled me during this time. School was a welcome second home, although my grades (c+) reflected my personal and mostly self-inflicted struggles. I clung to the moral standards my older sister and three older brothers had established, which kept me from killing myself, although there were times that the things I did could be construed as half-ass attempts to do just that (i.e. driving my dad’s DeSota 140 miles a hour on back county roads),
The one constant was this friend, who had her own demons, mostly a dysfunctional family, to contend with. She and I hit it off and spent hours listening to the gloomy but heart-felt words of Hank Williams. We particularly loved “Lonesome Whistle” and the stuff Hank did as Luke the Drifter.
There was some comfort knowing you had shared sadness and loneliness with somebody else. It kept both of us straight and narrow down the sometimes slippery slope of our life. She would go on to marry somebody else, but two years into that union she developed MS. It hit her suddenly and hit her hard. So hard that within a couple years she was put in that state institution from which she would spend the rest of her life – nearly 20 years – before finally returning home to God at a young age.
So there I was that day just outside PioneerPark, listening to American Pie. All the loneliness, all the heartbreak, all the sadness of that time, those dark ages, came wheeling in on me, crushing me so I couldn’t move as tears slid down my cheeks.
“Did you write the book of love
And do you have faith in God above
If the Bible tells you so?
Now do you believe in rock and roll
Can music save your mortal soul
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
“Cause I saw your dancin’ in the gym
You both kicked off your shoes
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.
I was a lonely teenage bouncing’ buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died.
I started singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Then good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die.”
My wife kept saying, “What are you doing? Let’s go” But I couldn’t. I was transported back in time, and nothing could budge me. I was thinking as McLean sang on,” Why do the bad things that happen to people happen? Why does my friend have to suffer? Why can’t things – the good things – stay with us forever, not just in fleeting memories, but really with us for all time?
“And where,” I thought, “did all the time go?
Best friend Pete, by then, was missing for nearly a decade, never to be seen again. Ray had been dead for just over 10 years, struck down by a family genetic disorder at 31. Another best friend lived in La-LALand where he had been for 20 years at the time. Western Washington and its Old Main and Dr. John J. Wuest, the professor who had the most influence on me (still does), had been gone from Western for California for 15 years.
What happened to the fun times that peaked through my youthful darkness?
What happened to my youthfulness?
“Now for ten years we’ve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone
But that’s not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh, and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
A quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
We were singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die”
Helter skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast
Now the halftime air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
‘Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We started singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die”
Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
‘Cause fire is the devil’s only friend
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan’s spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die”
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play
And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
And they were singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die’
They were singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die”
As the music died that day, I turned the radio off and put my foot to the pedal. We were gone again, leaving behind Hank Williams, my dark ages, and the friends that unknowingly got me through those dark years.
My friends are all gone now, and we can’t do down to the levee anymore to drink whiskey and rye and dance before the stars.
As I wiped away my tears, I looked one last time in the rearview mirror at what used to be, and slowly it faded away.
God bless you.
Be well pal
Be careful out there
Have a great day.
You are loved.