Stacey Cisneros, the Head of Adult Services at the Batavia (Illinois) Public Library, has been a Buddy Holly fan for most of her life. Author
I was sitting in the Batavia (Illinois) Public Library in a make-shift green room (a children’s story room that is not green) waiting to speak to a group of 150 local residents about my book Playing with the Enemy. They had selected my earlier effort for their “One Book, One Batavia” community-wide annual reading program. I was surrounded by the literary likes of The Cat in the Hat, Curious George, and A Boy Named Pierre, but my thoughts were not on the upcoming talk but rather on Buddy and his far-reaching impact. My conversation with Gary and Ramona was still weighing heavily on my mind and my heart.
The day before while I was touring the library, a charming young library executive named Stacey Cisneros, the Head of Adult Services, mentioned she was from Shell Rock, Iowa.
“Shell Rock? My wife Arlene is from Waterloo,” I replied.
“Shell Rock is only twenty miles from Waterloo and my dad is originally from Waterloo,” Stacey said enthusiastically. “Do you visit Waterloo often?”
“We were there about three weeks ago—Cedar Falls, actually, to take my mother-in-law to a concert at UNI,” I answered. “The Winter Dance Party.”
The tall and slender librarian’s dark brown eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oh, I love Buddy Holly!”
I tried to guess her age and of course didn’t want to ask. I guessed she was about thirty-five at the very oldest. “Stacey, I’m working on a Buddy Holly project now. How is it that you’re a fan at your young age?”
“How can you not be?” Stacey asked with more enthusiasm than I was expecting. “His influence on music is so extensive. I’ve read every book I can find on him and I’ve become a devoted fan of his music.”
We both began talking enthusiastically about our mutual interest, stepping on each other’s words as we did so. I found it so intriguing that she was so passionate about the same subject.
“My mother-in-law’s husband said that he appeared at Electric Park in Waterloo and . . .” before I could finish Stacey interrupted me.
“Oh! There’s a picture of him wearing sunglasses sitting on a freezer there. He is so handsome!”
Is? “He is so handsome.” She had spoken in the present tense. To Stacey, Buddy still lives and is forever twenty-two.
“Yes. I know that picture,” I responded. Stacey and I looked at each other. We had an instant connection. We were kindred spirits in our love of a man neither one of us have ever met and never will.
Stacey continued. “I remember seeing one of the first pictures of Buddy when I was young. I said, ‘Dad, he looks like a nerd!’ My dad shot back with great sincerity, ‘Oh no, Stacey, he was cool.’” Stacey’s love for Buddy Holly had been passed from father to daughter.
“‘Peggy Sue’ is my favorite song,” Stacey continued. “It was originally named after the Crickets’ drummer’s girlfriend, but initially it was called ‘Cindy Lou’ after Buddy’s niece and had a Caribbean sound. The drums were so loud in the recording studio that they put the drummer, Jerry Allison, out in the lobby. Jerry played paradiddles, and the sound of the drums is wavelike and undulating because they sent the sound into an echo chamber and turned the echo effect off and on.”
The depth of her knowledge floored me. I’m a drummer and I was surprised Stacey knew what a paradiddle was and could identify it on an old Buddy Holly recording.
“Tell me more.”
Stacey Cisneros, the Head of Adult Services at the Batavia (Illinois) Public Library, has been a Buddy Holly fan for most of her life. Author
Stacey’s eyes positively glowed with excitement. “This is my favorite fact of all!” she exclaimed. “Buddy played both lead and rhythm guitar on the recording. The other guitarist in the Crickets at the time knelt next to Buddy in the studio to flip a switch on Buddy’s guitar so he could make a smooth transition into the guitar solo!”
I was blown away. This attractive young librarian with the lovely ash-blonde hair was no casual fan. She knew her Buddy Holly history and she knew it in great detail. I didn’t yet know any of these facts, but there wasn’t much I knew at that point in my pursuit of Buddy Holly.
And then the mood changed. Her brown eyes saddened as the smile left her face. Her body language changed, too. She began fidgeting as if physically uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong, Stacey?” I asked.
“I have always felt guilty,” Stacey continued, sighing as she looked away from me. “It happened in my state. Not just in my state but close to home. My part of the state. My quadrant.”
Stacey somehow felt responsible. It was interesting, even charming in a strange sort of way. She shouldered part of the responsibility in the same way a Texan might about the assassination of JFK. Iowans and Buddy Holly seem forever connected, not only by the tragedy but by the proximity of the loss. The music that Don McLean sang about dying died in their backyard. I remembered the thirty-something librarian in Independence, Iowa, who stopped me as I was leaving only to tell me that Buddy died there. Stacey was about the same age.
I know an Iowa girl when I see one. I’m married to one. Stacey is an Iowa girl from head to toe. She regrets that Buddy crashed and died in Iowa, leaving Mason City aboard an Iowa charter flight, flown by an Iowa pilot. She looks at the picture of Buddy taken in Iowa and feels terrible about the fact that he left this life in her state.
Stacey turned back to look at me. “When I was very young and a small plane would fly overhead, my dad would look up and say, ‘Stacey, that plane is owned by Dwyer’s Flying Service. That’s the company who owned the plane Buddy Holly died in.’ That’s what he would tell me.” This father’s words profoundly impacted his daughter.
My mind wandered, as it is prone to do. I imagined a little blonde girl wearing a sundress standing in her Iowa backyard next to her father, a Barbie doll in one hand and the other shading her eyes from the sun. There is a light breeze. Father and daughter are both looking up to see the plane her dad is pointing out. How could her father have ever imagined that that moment with Stacey would affect his little girl into adulthood and probably for the rest of her life? Stacey is now forever gazing upward, remembering those words and the fateful event they represent.
The late great Buddy Holly sang his last song and strummed his guitar for the last time in Iowa. When he closed his guitar case that fateful night, no one could have imagined that it would be Buddy’s good friend Waylon Jennings who would open the case with tears streaming down his cheeks. Buddy took his last breath and it was Iowa air that filled his lungs. His heart beat its last beat when his body slammed into the rich Iowa farm soil. People from all over the world travel to Iowa to pay homage to Buddy. They stand in a farm field near a stainless steel marker five miles north of Mason City and remember his music, last heard live on an Iowa stage.
Stacey is a very special person. She feels the weight of these facts every day.
I was blown away.