She didn’t say much after we left the Surf Ballroom that night, Pamela Forrest.

Which meant one of three things. (1) She didn’t like Buddy Holly nearly as much as I did. (2) She was worried ‘bout the long trip back to Black River Falls on the wintry roads of February 3, 1958. (3) She was thinking about Stu Grant, the wealthy young man she’d been in love with since ninth grade, the only problem being that I’d been in love with her since fourth grade.

Or maybe it was my ragtop that made her silent. She knew how much I prized my 1951 red Ford convertible with the custom skirts, the louvered hood and the special weave top. The trouble was, despite the custom convertible top, the Ford could get pretty cold when the night winds blew across the dead Iowa cornfields, and the head-winds were enough to push the car into the next lane every once in a while. There was a bad snowstorm around the area of the ballroom. It took us forty-five minutes to drive out of it.

I had the noisy heater on full tilt and as a consequence I had to turn the radio way up to be heard over the heater. I was playing the rock and roll station out of Oklahoma City, Koma: 100eajjj clear-channel watts of pure pleasure. Gene Vincent was on now, and there was the promise of Little Richard’s new song within the half hour. We had a three-and-a-half hour drive ahead of us, so I was going to need all the rock and roll I could get.

“You think we could change the station?” the lovely Pamela Forrest finally said.

“The station?”