It was roughly 100 miles from Buddy Holly’s doorstep in Lubbock, Texas to the Petty recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico. I heard David Bigham tell my photographer that when the Crickets were scheduled to record at the studio, Buddy’s goal was to leave home and arrive in Clovis at the same time they left. Even though the time zone changed at the Texas-New Mexico border, Holly still had to average 100 mph to achieve the feat. David laughed and said Holly and his bandmates always seem to accomplish the goal; mainly because there weren’t many police and there wasn’t as much traffic in those days.
It was early afternoon on Wednesday July 27, 2016 and as I rode in the backseat of the Avenger that was headed along the desolate US Highway 84 towards Lubbock, Texas, I thought about Buddy Holly and his Crickets. After all, it was along that same highway that the band had travelled to and from Clovis countless times in the late 50s.
As the clock was about to hit 3:00pm, we arrived at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock and luckily, we were able to catch the day’s final tour of the J.I. Allison House that had been preserved at the Center. The boyhood home of Crickets’ drummer Jerry Allison had been moved there in 2012 and it was restored to look as it did in the late 1950s. As I was carried into the small one-story home, albeit in my camera case, I could feel the music history as it oozed from the walls.
In the bedroom, which was shared with his brother Jaime, Jerry Allison and Buddy Holly wrote the song “That’ll Be The Day” after seeing John Wayne’s movie ‘The Searchers’ at Lubbock’s State Theater. It was also in that same bedroom, where on February 3, 1959, Jerry received the worse news of his young life. Allison’s good friend and new Cricket bandmate Sonny Curtis walked into the bedroom, woke the sleeping 19-year-old, and told him that Buddy had been killed in a plane crash.
Although Jerry Allison’s bedroom was the highlight of the short tour, my photographer and I found the rest of the home interesting as well. No matter where I was carried in the small house, it was as though I could feel the presence of Buddy Holly and the Crickets. And what impact did that early Rock and Roll group have? Paul McCartney was once quoted as saying: “If there hadn’t been the Crickets, there never would have been the Beatles.”
When the Allison home tour was finished, I was carried back into the Holly Center where we visited the museum dedicated to the life and times of Buddy Holly. The first thing my cameraman learned upon entry was photography was prohibited inside the Holly museum, which disappointed him immensely as he wanted to capture an image of Buddy’s famous glasses. From my perch inside the camera case, I saw numerous artifacts from all aspects of Charles Hardin Holley’s life; especially items from his childhood growing up in Lubbock. But for Tom and me, and likely for every Buddy Holly fan in the world, the pièce de résistance came near the end of the visit.
First, we saw a showcase that contained several of Holly’s guitars. However, the one guitar that was the Holy Grail for us was the Fender Stratocaster that Buddy had played at the Surf Ballroom on February 2, 1959. That’s right, the last guitar that Buddy Holly ever played was on display just a few feet from me; and it still had Buddy’s white guitar pick stuck in the pick guard where he had put it nearly 60 years earlier. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the Strat’s six strings on its body, knowing that the last musical sounds that Holly ever made came from right there.
Then I saw ‘them’ across the walkway from the guitar display; they were situated on a Plexiglas riser inside their own protective case. ‘Them’ were the pair of black-rimmed glasses that Buddy Holly wore on the night he was killed near Clear Lake, Iowa. Those eyeglasses were arguably the most famous spectacles in the history of Rock and Roll and I was within inches of them. As I stared at the black plastic Faiosa frames that Holly’s eye doctor had brought to his client from Mexico, an eerie sadness came over me. Hours before his untimely death, Buddy Holly looked through those glasses as he belted out his biggest hits at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. In his final moments around 1:00am on February 3, 1959, the singer likely looked through those frames and into the dark night sky; or perhaps he glanced over one final time as the young pilot, Roger Peterson, struggled to fly the small Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft.
After our tour of the Buddy Holly museum was finished, Tom talked with the curator and he was granted permission to photograph Holly’s glasses as well as the Stratocaster that Buddy had played at the Surf Ballroom. All that the curator had asked for was discretion from my photographer so that others in the museum didn’t see him taking the pictures. I knew that his request would be no problem as I’ve witnessed my cameraman being very sneaky in the past.
When the secretive photo session with the Holly artifacts was finished, my cameraman asked the curator for one more favor: “Would you please give me contact information for Maria Elena Holly? I know she lives in Dallas, and we are headed there tomorrow. My wife and I would love to meet her and invite her to have lunch with us.” I was stunned that Tom had the nerve to ask the curator that question; then I was even more surprised when the guy responded with: “Maria doesn’t have email and I won’t give out her personal telephone number. However, I will call her tomorrow, and I’ll discuss with her what you and your wife are seeking to do. I’m sure she would love to have lunch with the two of you. Give me your cell number and I will have Maria Elena get in touch with you.” Although my photographer and I were stunned, we thought having lunch with the former Mrs. Holly might be too good to be true; and it was. Tom never did get a phone call from Buddy Holly’s widow.
Back outside, the three of us walked across Crickets Avenue to the Buddy and Maria Elena Holly Plaza where we saw a large bronze statue of Buddy Holly that was surrounded by the West Texas Walk of Fame. Holly was the first musician inducted into the Walk of Fame; he received the honor posthumously in 1979. The three original Crickets; Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, and Niki Sullivan; received their honors in 1986. The eight-and-a-half-foot tall bronze statue featured Buddy as he played his Fender Stratocaster.
We finished our visit at the Buddy Holly Center at a few minutes past 5:00pm and it was time to make the three-mile pilgrimage to the City of Lubbock Cemetery to visit the final resting place of Buddy Holly. Once Vicki navigated the Avenger through the cemetery’s gates, we made a right-hand turn and within a short distance we easily found the grave of the late musician located near the roadway.
As I was carried in the camera case to the gravesite, the first thing I noticed was Buddy’s last name was spelled H-O-L-L-E-Y on the marker; which was the correct spelling of his family’s last name. Located next to the singer’s final resting place were the graves of Buddy’s father and mother, Lawrence O. Holley and Ella P. Holley.
While we were at Buddy’s gravesite, my photographer had three small rituals that he carried out. First, Tom placed a KISS guitar pick that once belonged to Paul Stanley on Holley’s grave marker. It’s customary for visitors to leave guitar picks, and my cameraman left the KISS pick from a show the band had performed at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City on October 10, 2012. Tom felt that the pick was symbolic as Buddy Holly had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show twice in that theater during his brief career. Second, my photographer scooped up some of the reddish-colored dirt from Holly’s grave. The sample of earth that was over the final resting place of Buddy Holly found a home in my photographer’s showcase that featured a tribute to the Winter Dance Party performers. And lastly, Tom played several Buddy Holly songs at the grave; he ended the small tribute with Eddie Cochrane’s version of ‘The Three Stars’.
I thought the small musical tribute that my photographer had played to Buddy was touching, especially when he finished with Eddie Cochrane’s “The Three Stars”. I was doing fine until Eddie sang the line: “Well you’re singing for God now, in his chorus in the sky. Buddy Holly, I’ll always remember you with tears in my eyes.” In 2015 I visited the Surf Ballroom and the crash site and this year I toured the Petty recording studio; I saw his glasses; and I finally ended up at Buddy’s grave. In the past three years I had visited the gravesites of 19 Presidents and none of those graves had the effect that this one had on me. I had figured that was due to the fact that Buddy Holly was only 22 years old when he climbed aboard the airplane and died on that cold February night.
It was late in the day; a day that had begun in Clovis where Buddy Holly recorded most of his biggest hits and ended with some of those hits being played at Holly’s gravesite in Lubbock. A mile or two from the City of Lubbock Cemetery, we arrived at our motel – the Holiday Inn Express. In our room, I was placed alongside the television set where I spent the entire night thinking of the chorus to one song: “Well, that’ll be the day, when you say goodbye; Yes, that’ll be the day, when you make me cry. You say you’re gonna leave, you know it’s a lie; ‘Cause that’ll be the day when I die.”
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The morning of Thursday July 28, 2016 was sunny and the sky was bright blue as we headed for another Buddy Holly site in Lubbock, Texas. It was a few minutes past 8:00am when we pulled up to the curb across the street from the house that Lawrence and Ella Holley once owned; and where Buddy Holly married Maria Elena Santiago on August 15, 1958 in the family’s living room. The Holley’s family pastor, Ben Johnson, conducted the small private ceremony that was also attended by Crickets Jerry Allison and Joe Mauldin. When the ceremony was over, Allison and Mauldin played the record ‘Now We’re One’. Since the home was a private residence, we couldn’t get any closer to the house than the sidewalk. As we stood in front of the house, I thought it would have been cool if we could’ve seen the living room where the wedding ceremony was held. I also thought to myself: “That’ll be the day, but it won’t be this day!”
Our final stop in Lubbock was at the Tabernacle Baptist Church, which was the church that the Holley family had regularly attended. On February 7, 1959, the funeral for Buddy Holly was held in the sanctuary of that church. Buddy’s widow, Maria Elena, did not attend the service; nor has she ever visited his gravesite. Our stay in front of the church was brief; it had been stated that tourists were encouraged to not enter the building unless they were attending a service.
When our short visit to the church was finished, the three of us sat back in the Avenger and headed east. During that 314-mile trek to Fort Worth from Lubbock, my photographer and his wife discovered just how big the state of Texas was. For me, I just relaxed in the camera case and thought about what I was going to do when I got to Rose Hill Park Cemetery and stood on the grave of another Presidential assassin.
Before we went to the cemetery, however, we made one stop in downtown Fort Worth, Texas: It was a return visit to the former Hotel Texas where the President and Mrs. Kennedy had stayed on the night of November 21, 1963. Two years earlier, on March 22, 2014, I visited the historic hotel where I posed for photos with the exterior; and then I was carried inside to a section of the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom where JFK delivered his last speech.
Once Vicki parked the Avenger, I immediately posed with the statue of John F. Kennedy that stood in General Worth Square. The JFK Tribute was located directly across the street from the famous hotel where the President and Mrs. Kennedy spent their final night together on November 21, 1963. As I was held a few inches from the bronze right hand of JFK, I suddenly noticed that my left leg was once again damaged; it appeared that a small section of my shin was missing. How could that have happened? Did it occur during the middle of the night when I was boppin’ and noddin’ to Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day”? Whatever caused the damage, it was something that I would have to live with for the remainder of the trip.
From the statue of JFK, I was carried to the area that was close to where the President had delivered his second-to-last public speech, which was an impromptu address to over 2,000 people who had gathered in the rain in the hotel’s parking lot. For me, it was great to be back in front of the former Hotel Texas; and as I stood there, it was as though I could hear President Kennedy as he spoke to the spirited, but rain-dampened, crowd.
As I was carried into the hotel for another attempt at visiting the Crystal Ballroom, I had wondered what event would prohibit me from seeing more of the famous room. Two years ago, when I was in that same hotel, a dance recital was in progress and my photographer was only allowed to take me into a small section of the room and photograph me near a side wall. That lackluster photo was better than nothing, but we wanted more; and on that day in 2016, we got more.
As my cameraman carried me into a large section of the Crystal Ballroom, it appeared that an event had just finished as several hotel staff members were cleaning up the room. There was a podium there, which was a great place for me to pose for photos. I also saw the kitchen entrance, which was where President Kennedy and his entourage had entered and exited the Crystal Ballroom on the morning of November 22, 1963. Since the entire ballroom had been renovated since 1963, it was hard for us to tell exactly where the head table had been situated, but we knew for sure that we were in the right room. It was exciting (and sad at the same time) for me to stand in the same room where John F. Kennedy had delivered the final speech of his life.
My photographer and I felt a lot better with that visit to the former Hotel Texas than we did two years earlier. But unlike our trip in 2014, we were headed to another Presidential site in Fort Worth – the grave of alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. The large burial ground was located roughly ten miles east of downtown Fort Worth; which was perfect as it was on the way to our final stop of the day: the home of Vicki’s cousin Kim Johnson in Plano, Texas.
When we arrived at the huge cemetery, officially named Shannon Rose Hill Funeral Chapel and Cemetery, we had difficulty finding the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald. My photographer and Vicki had been to the site back in 1995, but since they were old, their memories have faded a bit in the past twenty-one years. Tom went inside the funeral home, and he asked for precise directions to Oswald’s grave, but he ran into some resistance. My cameraman immediately administered his usual spiel about me and when the manager realized what the purpose for our visitation was, he “spilled his guts.”
As I stood at the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald, I had the same feeling come over me as I had when I was at the final resting place of John Wilkes Booth two years earlier. It was great to visit places that had Presidential connections, but both Booth and Oswald had a Presidential connection for the wrong reasons. There were differences between the two, however. In the case of John Wilkes Booth, there was no doubt that he shot and killed Abraham Lincoln. With Oswald, however, the jury was still out as to whether or not he pulled the trigger that ended JFK’s life in 1963. My photographer and I believe that Oswald had some prior knowledge to the assassination and maybe even had some involvement in the actual shooting, but there is no doubt that a second or third gunman was involved. And to make matters worse, the United States Secret Service did their best to cover up the evidence of the crime.
My photographer carefully placed me onto the rectangular, burgundy-colored granite headstone of Oswald. At the moment I stood there, a plethora of mixed emotions flooded my resin-filled body. Had I been totally confident that Oswald was the gunman who assassinated Kennedy, I would’ve tried my best to whizz on the grave; although I imagine only a smidge of dust would’ve spewed out of my resin pants. But I wasn’t totally convinced that Oswald was the triggerman; he may have been only a patsy, as Lee had suggested following his arrest. I did think of the sadness that Oswald’s family must’ve gone through on that terrible weekend in late November ’63. After all, Lee was only 24 years old when he was assassinated by Jack Ruby just two days after JFK died and Rose Hill was the only cemetery in Texas that would take his body. Since Lee had no friends, or anybody that claimed to be his friend, a handful of news reporters carried Oswald’s coffin to his grave. Lee Harvey Oswald was a lost sole who had a crappy childhood and was likely mixed up with some crappy people as a young adult. Oswald had made some choices and those choices likely cost him his life.
It took us about 45 minutes to make the drive from Rose Hill Cemetery to Kim and Bill Johnson’s home in Plano, Texas. It had been two years since Kim had driven my photographer and me around Dallas and Fort Worth as we visited Presidential sites. I had looked forward to seeing Bill and Kim again as they are among the nicest people I have ever met.
My photographer’s wife loves spending time with her cousin Kim whenever she gets to Texas. An added bonus for Vicki is her aunt Sally, who is Kim’s mother, also lives in Plano and visits the three of us when we’re in town. We had a full-agenda scheduled during our stay – some of it was centered on JFK sites, which was right up my alley. However, there were other items on the itinerary that highlighted Vicki’s interests as well; and I was cool with that, too. Dallas is one of my favorite cities and I was excited to be back. And on this trip, I have a larger window to tour and see the sites I didn’t have time to visit in 2014. All I could think was: “Look out Dallas, here I come!”
