I’ve been hearing a lot about Buddy Holly during the last few weeks. He finally got his star on the Hollywood “Walk of Fame” last September, on what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday. Since most of you had no opportunity to know Buddy and I did, I’ll tell you about him. Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. I was born the next week at the Broadview Gin, eight miles west of the little house on Sixth Street where Buddy was born. Most of the people who graduated from high school with Buddy and me were born in and around Lubbock County and all of us absorbed that country’s values, its work ethic, its mentality and its idiosyncrasies. One can hardly grow up out there without being molded by the High Plains—influenced by its attitudes, endowed with its creativity. It was, so far as I’m concerned, the prefect place to grow up.
I also think the forties and fifties were the perfect time to grow up. World War Two ended by the time we were ten and the “Korean Conflict” stumbled to a halt before we entered high school. There was unbounded optimism—after all, this country had built the most powerful military/industrial complex in the history of mankind in only five short years. We had simultaneously conquered the Germans and the Japanese by simply “doing whatever it took.” We planted “victory gardens”, did without tires, shoes, gasoline, even sugar in the name of the war effort. The lesson was not wasted on our class—all you had to do was decide what you wanted, then “do whatever it took” to achieve any goal. Buddy learned that—we all did.
Life was simple in Lubbock back then. I didn’t yet know Buddy, but I’m sure his life across town was similar to mine. By the fourth grade, I had wheels; a bicycle which gave me undreamed of freedom and mobility. My friends and I would ride our bikes up real close to the DDT trucks as they sprayed for mosquitoes. That way, the DDT fog would hide our legs while we were in clean, clear air from the waist up. It was neat! A Boy Scout friend and I would ride out to Buffalo Lakes and eat a camp-out lunch and ride back—it was only twelve miles. About the only rule we had was, “Be home by dark.” What could happen?
By the time we were in Junior High, we’d ride our bikes or take the bus downtown to movies on Saturday afternoon. A movie cost five cents admission plus four cents tax—a total of nine cents. Before or after the movie, we’d usually go to the shoe store next to S and Q clothiers and look at our feet in their X-Ray machine. We would wiggle our toes and watch our bones move until the salesman ran us off. Most of us worked—we delivered circulars, carried out groceries, mowed lawns, or sold Ice cream from a big insulated bag that hooked onto our bicycle.
High School was much the same—life was more complicated for us but not nearly the complex, dangerous thing it can be today. Drugs meant cigarettes and alcohol—there was nothing else. Drive-by shootings were not uncommon--someone would drive by and shoot you the finger. Security in the classroom was in the capable hands of the teachers. Girls dressed for school—starched blouses, straight skirts, bobby sox and penny loafers. They were trim, fresh scrubbed and beautiful, with every hair in place. Guys wore blue jeans and sport shirts—the football team wore white tee shirts to show off their physiques—the basket ball boys wore sport shirts—they didn’t have physiques. Most all of us wore our hair in some sort of flat top or crew cut.
Buddy (I knew him by then) was one of the “Hoods”. Hoods tended to grow their hair longer, comb it into “Duck Tails”, and wear their shirts unbuttoned almost to the waist. Buddy was skinny as a rail, but he sometimes wore tee shirts, so he could roll his Lucky Strikes up in the sleeve. The hoods didn’t cause any trouble, they just didn’t participate much in school activities—sports, student council, Latin Club, that sort of thing. Mostly, they marched to a different drummer—not wrong, just different. Buddy was “picking and singing” around town by then. He and Bobby Montgomery were playing country music at the skating rink and on "The Saturday Night Jamboree" from a hanger at the abandoned World War Two glider base north of town. Most of us didn’t go out to those places, but we’d hear them on the radio.
On May 27, 1955, five hundred twenty six people, including Buddy and me, graduated from Lubbock High School. Two years later, in the spring of 1957, Buddy recorded “That’ll Be the Day”, his first big hit. Then, before two more years passed, Buddy paid thirty-six dollars to ride an airplane in a snowstorm, and, according to the song, “the music died.”
All the music did not die. The other 524 graduates of LHS that night have continued to make music in every field of endeavor known to mankind. These people are doctors, lawyers, scientists, mathematicians, architects, engineers and teachers. They are homemakers, entrepreneurs, plumbers, artists, PHD’s, auto mechanics and stock brokers. They went out into the world and paid their dues—they raised families, paid taxes and built careers. A listing of their accomplishments staggers the imagination and begs the question--was it the time or the place that made this magic? Was it Lubbock or the Fifties? Can we ever make it happen again?
I can’t answer those questions. I’m glad Buddy finally got his star out there in Hollywood and wish more of our class had the recognition they deserve. One other thing; it puzzles me that after fifty odd years, I’m the only guy who graduated from Lubbock High School in the fifties who wasn’t Buddy’s very best friend.
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