Chapter 12

When I think of all you had

“For three days a year I am the most famous photographer in the world! That’s how Buddy Holly has impacted my life,” he responded over the phone without hesitation.

Dick Cole of Waterloo, Iowa, is forever a part of Buddy Holly’s enduring legacy, and his brush with the legend changed his life forever. “That few moments in the kitchen in the ballroom at Electric Park in the summer of 1958,” Dick reminisced, “set my life on a course I could never have anticipated or planned.”

Arguably, Dick snapped the most famous Buddy Holly picture ever taken. At that time he was a seventeen-year-old photographer on staff at the Waterloo Courier. His employer didn’t condone this new type of music that was sweeping the country and moving and shaking the young of America. As a result, that night Dick paid a visit to the Electric Park Ballroom on his own—as a fan. His expectations were modest. He wanted to take a few pictures for his private collection. But that night, Dick caught lightning in a bottle.

According to Buddy’s widow, Maria Elena Holly, Dick’s snapshot captures Buddy better than any other photo in existence. And because Buddy fans all over the world are familiar with the photograph, they know the name Dick Cole.

Dick Cole with his ubiquitous camera. For a few days each year he is arguably the most popular photographer in the world. David Wieland

“I was a big Buddy Holly fan and of Rock & Roll in general,” Dick admitted. “I was young and completely taken by the whole musical movement. We were lucky in Waterloo to get the biggest acts in the business, but always on week nights. Waterloo is situated between larger venues and the big cities hosted Holly and others on weekends, so we caught them as they passed through. If you were in Minneapolis one weekend and Kansas City the next, for example, the acts could play Wednesday night in Waterloo and pick up an extra five hundred bucks during the week!”

Each year during the first three days of February, newspapers and magazines across the nation and around the globe publish Cole’s picture and often call to interview him.

“Nearly every reporter asks me same question,” he told me. “They want to know, ‘What were you thinking the moment you snapped that famous photograph?’”

“What else do they ask you about?” I inquired.

“Everyone asks what we talked about and I really don’t remember in any detail,” Dick answered. He could have made something up, but that’s just not Dick Cole. “He was so friendly and kind. We made small talk and I felt like I was talking to a friend,” he continued. “In fact, Buddy did make friends in Waterloo and even went water skiing the next day with local fans. Buddy promised to come back the next summer for a few days to vacation but of course, he was not around to make his promised return.”

“That one photo made you famous around the world,” I continued.

“Yes, it did.” Dick shared a story with me to confirm my observation. “I was at the Surf Ballroom for one of the anniversaries. I can’t remember which. The forty-fifth maybe, I don’t know,” he said. “I got out of the car and was mobbed by a group of Japanese tourists yelling, ‘Famous photographer Dick Cole!’ I had to pose for pictures with each one of them. I’m more famous in Japan than my hometown. Can you believe it?” He paused for a moment.

“I was there for the fiftieth anniversary in 2009, but on February 2, 1959, I couldn’t make the concert at the Surf. I was working at the newspaper and we were at the peak of the Iowa basketball season. I was on a basketball floor capturing the action that night, but my heart and mind were in Clear Lake. I was just sick over what I knew I was missing.” Dick paused and thought for a moment. “There were so few pictures taken that last night. Had I been there, I would have captured it all on film.” He laughed. “Maybe then I would have been famous for more than three days!”

One of the photos Dick Cole captured of Buddy Holly that night so long ago at Waterloo’s Electric Park Ballroom. Dick Cole