Editor’s Letter – 10/4/17

Oh, my my, oh, hell yes
Honey, put on that party dress

I’ve loved Tom Petty since I was fourteen.

As somewhat confused high school freshman, I went to work for a Missouri Republican state senator’s campaign for a week or so.  

I travelled around mid-Missouri in minivans with homeschooled kids and their moms. One day, I sat up front and asked if I could play a CD a friend had burned me.

Buy me a drink, sing me a song
Take me as I come 'cause I can't stay long

“That’s heathen music,” said the young boy in the backseat. I changed the song, but knew whatever Petty was singing about, I wanted to be it. I didn’t feel quite right for the rest of the trip.

Tom Petty’s lyrics, the way his music immediately gets into and moves me—I can’t listen to it sitting still, or not singing along—he represents something I’ve tried all my life to grasp: Life is what you make of it. It’s also short.

Those lessons are made more apparent this week not only by his death at 64 young years of age, but also by the too-often reminder that death is around us, and those who would do what they can to cause it aren’t far removed.

Like many of you, I woke up on Monday, October 2, and did one of those regular, first-in-the-morning things—I looked at the news on my phone. The shooting in Las Vegas was already being called “the worst …” in U.S. history.

How many times are we going to read that? Or print it?

I'm tired of screwin' up, tired of going down
Tired of myself, tired of this town

Rest in peace, Tom. And rest in peace, all of those whose lives were cut short by a madman. May we do better as a society to protect people out pursuing life.

It was too cold to cry when I woke up alone
I hit my last number and walked to the road