The Day the Music Died: Feb. 3, 1959

Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash, Feb. 3, 1959, immortalized in Don McLean’s “American Pie.”

Buddy was 22, Ritchie was 17, and Jay P. Richardson was 28. Pilot Roger Peterson was 21.

Rock and roll belongs to the young.

The night before, Feb. 2, they played at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. The Beech-Craft Bonanza crashed in the early morning hours of Feb. 3. Disoriented by the darkness and snow, Peterson evidently flew the aircraft directly into the snow-covered ground.

I visited the Surf Ballroom, in Clear Lake, one crisp, cold, January morning. Looking in the windows I could see the remains of the show from the night before. I could see where Buddy stood and played his last show. The stage and dance floor hadn’t changed in 40 years.

Traveling to Clear Lake, I had to drive past the small airport in near-by Mason City. And beyond the small runway, I saw snow-covered cornfields stretching into the distance, also unchanged in 40 years. I knew that just a few miles away, perhaps not even as far as I could see, the scars from a small plane crash had long-since healed and disappeared.

The Surf Ballroom still has photos displayed from that final performance, years ago. As I stood outside, looking at the photos, the bitter wind whipped tears from my eyes. I stood where Buddy and Richie and JP stood as they crowded into the car that carried them to the airport, and that cold, cold wind still carried the notes from a song.

Jim Meisner, Jr. is the author of the novel Faith, Hope, and Baseball, available on Amazon, or follow this link to order an autographed copy. He created the Facebook page Faith on the Fringe.