Item From the Past: Herbert and Lou Hoover

Over the years, I haven't been too many places in February. Just getting around close to home is enough trouble. On February 14, 1990, I was en route to Chicago on I-55 in central Illinois when I met an ice storm. I thought it wise to leave the road, and found a room at the Normal Motel 6 -- which was indeed normal in every way, besides being in the town of that name. The only memorable thing about that evening was watching an episode of Quantum Leap for the first time, a show that I still have a minor fondness for.

In early February 1997, Yuriko and I went to Springfield, Illinois, for a weekend. Springfield is about three hours from Chicago, and we were careful to pick a weekend without bad weather. We visited the usual places: Lincoln's tomb, Lincoln's old law office, Lincoln's house, the old state capitol where Lincoln cut his teeth, politically speaking. Every other brick in Springfield, it seemed, had his name on it.

We went to eastern Iowa in February 2001 (see BTST February 22, 2004), but I've forgotten just how we decided on that destination. It could have had something to do with Herbert Hoover, who reposes on a small, landscaped hill overlooking his library and museum, just off I-80 near West Branch, Iowa.

Late in the afternoon after visiting the museum, I went up the hill, which was snow covered, to see the grave site. Yuriko and Lilly (then 3) stayed in the car with the heat on. Lou Hoover is next to Herbert, under a similar marble slab.

It Withers Quicker Than the Rose

A radio station I found on the dial not long ago -- a 1950s-70s format, apparently new to the Chicago market, since I hadn't noticed it before -- summoned the ghosts of Buddy Holly et al. over the weekend by proclaiming it the "Day the Music Died Weekend." That doesn't quite sound pleasant, but it only seemed to mean that the station was playing more Buddy Holly et al. than usual.

What's the fascination with their untimely demise? They're hardly the only famed musicians to be killed in airplane crashes, after all. Just off the top of my head, I can think of Glenn Miller (presumably), Pasty Cline, Otis Reading, Jim Croce, much of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kyu Sakamoto, Stevie Ray Vaughan (helicopter), John Denver, and one few people know, but who should be better remembered, Walter Hyatt of Uncle Walt's Band. There are others I didn't think of and even a book about the subject called Falling Stars (Rich Everitt, 2004).

Maybe the Buddy Holly et al. story has lingered because they were pioneers of such an enormously successful genre. Things would have been different in terms of posthumous fame if they'd been popular polka musicians. That said, if I ever pass near enough to Clear Lake, Iowa, I'll take a look at whatever memorials are at the crash site and the Surf Ballroom. I was glad to read today that the pilot of the plane now has a memorial, too.