Tom Petty died without ever knowing that I exist. Which is kind of a shame, really. Tom Petty was one of those guys I feel like I would've been friends with if we'd have ever met. But we didn't, mostly because we just didn't really run in the same crowds. I've always sort of hung out with people who make five figures, and Tom Petty -- any way you cut the cake -- didn't make five figures. But that doesn't mean I don't feel like I died inside just a tiny bit when Tom Petty's light went out.
I don't miss Tom Petty because Tom Petty was part of my life. I miss Tom Petty because Tom Petty was a little glob of the stuff that animates my memories. Maybe it feels like your memories will wash away when the stuff that holds them together starts to die. That's something to be sad about I guess, but at the same time you feel lucky you have the memories in the first place.
I'm too young to have had contemporary experiences with Damn the Torpedoes, or even Hard Promises or Southern Accents. But I do recall seeing the video for "Don't Come Around Here No More" and being a little creeped out, to be honest. I was like, "I guess cannibalism is TV-appropriate these days," which is actually a fairly elevated thought for a second-grader.
Full Moon Fever came out when we lived in a one-bedroom apartment by the freeway. It was hot that summer and there was nothing to do except hang out at the pool with my mom. I feel like this is how all 10-11 year olds spend their summers, I don't know why you're judging me. We had a radio we'd take to the pool. Sometimes "Runnin' Down a Dream" would come on. I knew that when Tom Petty said, "Me and Del were singin'/Little runaway," that he was talking about either Del Shannon or Del Taco, and I hoped it was the latter. My mom was proud of me for knowing who Del Shannon was. Later, when I married someone named Shannon, my mom smiled knowingly.
I got older. Echo came in 1999. It's a bitter work, alternately defiant and resigned, but wholeheartedly brokenhearted. Love wasn't kind to me then, either. "It's the same sad echo when you talk," Tom said. Yeah, you go girl, I said, optimistic that Tom Petty would understand that it was just a figure of speech, and that I knew that Tom Petty is in fact a boy. It was winter all the time those days. My man Tom understood.
Grandma and Grandpa got me Wildflowers for my 16th birthday, which was kind of strange because usually they gave me picture books about the Bible or blank journals or candy corns, which is what older people think candy is, even though candy corns are in fact dried vomit shaped into small colorful cones of yak. I guess Grandma and Grandpa figured now that I was old enough to have my own job and get fired from it, maybe I should get more grown up presents. That and my cool older cousin Zach told them Wildflowers was A) pretty hip with the kids these days, and B) not Satanic, and that therefore it would make a good gift. It's unlikely that Grandma and Grandpa knew that track 2 (and, arguably, tracks 5 and 10 and 12 and 14) was about drugs. I still love Grandma and Grandpa for gifting me that awesome CD, and I still eschew drugs.
The track "Wildflowers" made it onto my wedding video, which is on a VHS tape. Don't judge me, VHS tapes will make a comeback, like vinyl, and then I'll be so far ahead of the coolness curve and I'll sell some future hipster my wedding video for like $8000. I don't think people do wedding videos any more, or if they do they just do it themselves with a Go Pro and a selfie stick, both of which are the antithesis of love. I am serious -- how many couples do you know who take selfies of themselves on selfie sticks and are still together? Probably a lot, and that largely undermines my point, but I'm pretty sure I'm still right notwithstanding.
Wedding videos used to be a thing though. There's me and Shannon in the video, young, sunny, oblivious, untested, hopeful, free. "You belong among the wildflowers, you belong somewhere close to me," Tom says, as me and Shannon on the video snuggle beside a colorful snatch of flowers in the long ago sun.
It's just a memory. But there's a bridge that takes us back and forth between then and now. My children hear "Wildflowers" sometimes. "You belong with your love on your arm, you belong somewhere you feel free," Tom says. The kids perk up. "Hey! This is that you-love-Mom song." Yes. Yes it is. Thanks, Tom.