The legendary ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Author
The drive to Clear Lake was roughly ninety miles from Electric Park. I pulled out of the parking lot and called Arlene. As usual, her phone rang but she didn’t answer. Arlene has this idea that her phone is for her convenience, not mine. Go figure. So who could I call? I called my daughter Tara Beth and got her voicemail. I called both my sons, Toby in California and Travis in Chicago. Neither answered. Both, I’m sure, were still sleeping. How could I make a drive that long without talking to someone? I pulled out a CD and listened to Buddy and John Mueller. I thought about calling John but decided not to because he had performed the night before in Modesto, California.
I’m not sure what I expected from my visit to the Electric Park Ballroom. As an author I wanted to feel something special, and then write about what I felt. But I admit I left disappointed. Electric Park was interesting, but it didn’t stir any real emotions. Perhaps I was expecting too much.
About a half an hour outside Waterloo driving north on Highway 218 I passed a sign for Shell Rock. That’s where Stacey, the librarian from Batavia, is from. I wisely decided not to bother her. What would I have said? “Happy Sunday morning! Hope I didn’t wake you. I’m passing through Shell Rock, and just wanted to let you know.” Instead, I opened the Facebook app on my iPhone and posted on my Facebook page, “Passing through Shell Rock, Iowa, headed for Clear Lake.” Then I recalled signing the pledge spearheaded by Oprah to stop texting while driving, I felt guilty about breaking it and put the phone on the seat and shook my head. It really is a dumb and dangerous thing to do. No more of that!
I was running low on gas, so pulled off the highway at Charles City for some gas at the Kwik Trip. A middle-aged man in a white T-shirt with an Iowa Hawkeyes cap on was filling his tank next to me. I got my own pump going and turned to face him, leaning back against my car.
“Hi! How ya doing?” I asked with a wide smile. It’s just my nature and as an extrovert, I needed company. I can’t help it. He glanced over his shoulder to see if I was talking to someone else, and when it was apparent I was not, gave me a “Why are you talking to me?” glare. I held my smile and he finally nodded slightly in my direction. “Driving out to Clear Lake,” I continued. The poor guy couldn’t tighten his gas cap fast enough. Within five seconds he was speeding out of the station. “His loss,” I grumbled under my breath.
The gas was still pumping, so I pulled out my phone and checked Facebook. Stacey the librarian had already responded: “Tell everyone in Shell Rock I said ‘Hi!’”
I finished filling my tank and climbed back into the driver’s seat. Before pulling out I tried calling Tim. No answer. I dialed Jim (aka Levi). Same result. I thought about calling my publisher, Ted Savas (I have his cell phone number), but was afraid that if I woke him this early he might change his mind and not publish my book. I was beginning to get very tired.
I pulled out of the Kwik Trip, but not before sticking my iPhone under the passenger seat. I figured it was the best way to keep my pledge to Oprah—and reach Clear Lake alive.
I had no idea what to expect, but found Clear Lake to be a gorgeous community! The lake was full of sailboats racing around under a brisk breeze and a sun that was finally beginning to show its face. I drove up North Shore Drive, forgetting for a moment why I was there . . . and there it was.
The Surf Ballroom.
The legendary ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Author
I pulled into the parking lot and jumped out of the car. The bright blue letters on the side looked just like all the photos I had seen. I walked up to the door and was reaching for it when I spotted the sign: “Sunday— Closed.”
Oh, man!
Okay, okay, I thought. Let’s walk around and see what we can see. (I was so desperate for company by this point that I began speaking as if someone was with me.) I looked through the glass doors but couldn’t see much. There was a bench out front, so I took a seat and sat for fifteen minutes or so. During that quarter-hour, five different cars slowed down as they passed and snapped pictures of the Surf sign. Hmm. “Why would they do that?” I wondered. The only thing I could come up with was because Buddy’s last gig was here. What else could it be? After all this time this place is still important to people. I understand it now, but would not have understood it at all but for my evening at John Mueller’s “Winter Dance Party.”
My hypothesis about the intent of the anonymous photographers was confirmed a few minutes later when a minivan with plates from Ohio pulled into the lot. Two kids jumped out ahead of their parents and ran up to a small monument in the front of the building commemorating Buddy, Ritchie, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson. Near the top in big letters it says, “In Memory of Rock N Roll Legends.” Below it are these words:
The above legends
played their last concert
at the Surf Ballroom,
Clear Lake, Iowa,
on February 2, 1959.
Their earthly life
tragically ended
in a plane crash
5.2 miles northwest of
the Mason City Airport,
February 3, 1959.
Their music lives on
“Cool!” exclaimed the oldest, a boy who looked to be about nine years old. The middle child, a girl maybe all of six, stood stock straight and said with real enthusiasm and authority, “This is their grave. They are in the ground here.” She folded her hands as if she was beginning to pray. That was really touching. This young girl thought the granite memorial was a tombstone.
Mom and Dad arrived with another youngster in tow a few seconds later. “Mom, is this their grave?” asked the oldest.
“No, I don’t think so,” she answered. “This is just a monument with their names on it so we don’t forget them.”
“I’m hungry,” whined the youngest, perhaps four or five years old. “Can we eat?”
“OK, OK,” answered the dad.
The parents herded the kids back into the minivan and started the engine and Buddy’s “Not Fade Away” cranked up from inside. I was getting off the bench to try and catch them when the van pulled out of the parking lot and vanished.
The memorial outside the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Author
A wave of nostalgia and sadness washed over me. They reminded me of my own family many years ago. We did a lot of traveling in a blue minivan in the early years, and later in a small motor home. We never missed stopping at a historical marker. Now my kids are grown and scattered all over the country. Those precious years pass much too quickly.
I turned back to look at the building behind me. “You’re a historic old place,” I mumbled. “I’m glad you still stand.”
I reached out to touch the brick with my hand before walking around the perimeter of the Surf. There were several back and side doors. I read somewhere that Buddy, Ritchie, and The Big Bopper left out the back door and climbed into a waiting station wagon for the ride to the Mason City airport just a few miles away.
“Which door was it?” I wondered as I let my mind wander back several decades. I pictured them walking outside in the dark frigid Iowa winter and loading into a 1950s-vintage wagon. Someone laughed. Someone else complained about the cold. I could see Buddy in his long coat with a big fur collar and carrying a small bag that he throws into the back. He turns the coat collar up around his neck and jokingly shouts to The Big Bopper, “Get away from that door! I’m riding front seat!” as he darts past J. P. Richardson and slips through the open front passenger door. More laughter. Ritchie and Bopper climb in the back. Three doors slam shut, their echo bouncing through the cold air. Three young talented men working hard and beginning to enjoy real stardom. I want to warn them—“Stop! Wait . . . don’t go!” I shout in my mind. But they don’t stop. They don’t hear me. They aren’t really there. And when they were here, I wasn’t. I admit to having a vivid imagination, and the movie reel that had just played in my head left a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It was now time to move on. The eagerness I had felt about driving out to the site of the crash was replaced with a feeling of dread. I felt as if I was about to attend a funeral for someone I cared deeply about rather than visit an empty crash site where people I have never met perished more than five decades ago. Should I go? Why? Was a visit to the site germane to the book I was writing? A visit wouldn’t really change anything. Everyone already knows this story doesn’t end well. And there are plenty of pictures of the site.
My phone rang. It was Arlene.
“Well? How’s it going,” she asked.
“I’m at the Surf.” My voice cracked a bit and my eyes began to fill. I felt like telling her I had just watched three friends drive off to their death, and I couldn’t stop them.
“Yeah?” Arlene asked. The tone of her voice in that one word tells me she understood that I was upset. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Of course,” I said in my most masculine voice. “It’s just an old building. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“I know, but I see what this has all come to mean to you,” she replied. “Buddy has been in your life for many months, Gary.”
I needed to change the subject or I was going to break down. “You should see this town, Arlene. It’s charming and the lake is beautiful. We could live here if it were closer to a major airport.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come with you,” she said, ignoring my observation about Clear Lake. “I should’ve come along.”
“I love being with you, but no. I realize I need to do this alone. I’d be embarrassed if you were with me.” There was a long pause while I tried to regain my composure. “I need to vent this . . . whatever this is. I don’t understand how I got . . . how I ended up here . We went to a concert with your mom. Now I’m in Clear Lake, Iowa. That song . . . I don’t know.” My voice cracked again. “Here I am months later on a tour of old Iowa ballrooms. Now I’m going to take a walk into a muddy cornfield. Why? This is nuts. Why should I care about any of this like I do?”
“Gary, come home. You’re very tired,” said Arlene. “We’ll talk about it tonight and we’ll get out the calendar and find a time when I can go with you. I miss you.”
“I miss you too and I’ll see you in a few hours,” I replied. “I have one more stop to make, then I’ll head for home.” I took a deep sigh and exhaled slowly and softly.
“Are you sure you want to go there?” Arlene knows me so well. She knows me better than I know myself.
“Yeah. I’ll make it quick and head for home,” I lied. She knew I would linger, ponder. A quick visit to the crash site was never in the cards.
“Okay. I love you,” she replied. “Don’t text while driving.”
“I love you, too. And I would never text while driving!” I laughed.
I clicked my phone off and was about to put my car into drive and head north when I remembered I had an app on my iPhone called “Roadside America.” I pulled it up and clicked it for local attractions. Up popped “Buddy Holly Crash Site.” I clicked on the map and it gave me directions straight there.