That'll be the Day
By:
Lou Macaluso
Winters in Chicago
could be brutal for adults. They
would have to endure icy roads, clearing snow off rooftops, etc., but for kids,
a winter storm meant no school, money for shoveling, snow forts, snowball
fights, and sledding.
Mike, my boyhood friend, and I seemed to share everything,
even birthdays. His birthday was
February 2nd, and mine was February 8th.
The previous year our moms combined our birthday celebrations into one
big party for the neighborhood kids.
Mike’s birthday fell on a Monday this year (1959), so his mom had a gathering of
kids and parents that night for cake, coffee, and so forth.
My mom wanted to combine my birthday party with my younger sister Terri’s
party. Terri turned three years old in late January.
My birthday fell on a Sunday, so Mom decided to have an open house for
family, friends, and neighbors. Some
of the teenagers in the neighborhood said that they would come early because
they had tickets to a dance party at the Aragon Ballroom that evening featuring
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper.
I felt envious that I wasn’t a teenager.
If I was older, I could have gone to this dance party and heard Buddy
Holly sing “That’ll Be the Day.”
I didn’t know much about the Big Bopper except that he had recorded a
“telephone” song called “Chantilly Lace.”
Beth, my older sister, had just bought Ritchie Valens’ two-sided hit
record, “La Bamba” and “Donna,” but I was unfamiliar with him, also. Buddy Holly
was another story. I was a huge Buddy Holly fan. The problem—an eight to
midnight dance party was no place for a little kid, especially on a school
night.
The morning after Mike’s birthday party, snow began to fall
and continued to fall throughout the school day.
The rumor that we’d be sent home early and school would be closed the
next day circulated within the building.
Although the rumor proved to be false, speculating of school cancellation
was fun. Mike and I hurried home and
changed into clothes that would soon be soaked from all the snow games we would
play before dinner.
After spending about an hour building a snow fort, we
noticed that the Riverdale teenagers started arriving home from the buses that
dropped them at 144th Street.
Our fort was built right in the middle of Ivanhoe Terrace, just in the
front of Mike’s house. Mike’s
teenage neighbor, Judy, turned onto Ivanhoe Terrace, and complimented us on our
fort. She picked up The Chicago
Daily News from her doorstep before ascending the steps to her house.
The Chicago Daily News was the last of the afternoon newspapers to
circulate in the Chicago
area.
For a moment Judy just stood still with her mouth wide open
and her eyes transfixed on the front page.
She screamed, “Oh my God!” and ran into her house.
We were startled for a moment but too focused on building
our fort to pay very much attention.
In a little while we heard our moms’ voices calling us to get ready for supper.
We knew we’d catch hell for getting our clothes all wet with snow, but
building a beautiful snow fort was well worth it.
After changing clothes I sat on the living room floor while
my dad reclined in “his chair,” read The Chicago Daily News, and listened to the
TV newscast simultaneously. The news
generally bored me, but one story caught my attention.
Fahey Flynn, the newscaster who was known for his bowties, delivered the
story with three enlarged photographs behind him.
I recognized one of them; it was Buddy Holly.
“Three young rock and roll singers were tragically killed
in a plane crash early this morning.
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson, better known as “The Big
Bopper,” died when their chartered airplane crashed in a cornfield shortly after
leaving a private airport in Clearwater,
Iowa.”
His newscast included film footage of the plane wreckage; I
turned away, but I couldn’t escape the horror.
As Dad read the inside pages of the paper, the front page screamed a
headline: Rockers Killed! An enlarged photo covered about 30 percent of the
front page. The photo showed
details of the twisted metal and body parts.
That’s what had made Judy scream.
I closed my eyes, but I could still see the dead bodies in my head.
I wouldn’t eat dinner and wouldn’t say what was wrong.
Mom thought I was getting sick, but she refused to be sympathetic since
she warned me that playing in the cold outdoors while wearing wet clothes and
not wearing a hat would lead to sickness. She ordered me to go directly to bed.
In my dark attic bedroom, I lay staring at the dim light
from the tabletop radio near the head of my bed.
WLS dedicated their broadcast to the late Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens,
and the Big Bopper. All night the station played only their records.
With the volume turned down low, I fell asleep to Buddy
Holly’s lyrics: “That’ll be the day, hey, hey…when I die.”
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