Free Fallin'

Link

She's a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves horses and her boyfriend too

-Free Fallin' by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers-

            When I was in elementary school, my mom had the coolest job. My mother has been lots of things, and it has become easier to just state what she has not been, if anyone were to ask. But when I was young, she worked with my grandmother at the County Fair. For a while she co-managed a building with my grandmother, then went on to “own” a building of her own. The Wine and Roses building, it was called.

            The building itself was huge. I remember it being as long as a football field and twice as wide. It had at least four heavy duty industrial roll-up doors, one on each side. In the middle was a large gazebo that would sell wine by the glass to Fair patrons. The gazebo had a huge long pond running lengthwise down the building on one side.

            To be completely honest, I don’t remember much about the building except being there before the Fair began or being stationed with my homework in the large corner office during the season. The building wasn’t around for very long until it was torn down to make room for a large public grass area, and my mother’s building was moved to another location. Now when I look back, the only experience I remember with complete clarity happened during the set-up period, before the Fair opened.

            My mother would drive straight into the building during set-up, which I always thought was the coolest thing. At the time, she drove a 1991 dark blue Ford F150 with only 3 seats. In the late fall, the air conditioning was faulty and the weather was hot and sticky, so most of the time the windows were rolled down. After only a few years, the foam in the seats was already crunchy and the upholstery, originally a dark blue velvet material, was bleached white in some places. Every time we thumped down on the seats, a cloud of dust would poof into the air, and sneezing would ensue.

            By the time of my memory, the truck had been MODERNIZED! It had a new stereo system that included a 6-CD changer! The CD changer was behind the bench seats, which I have still not figured out how to work. It took colored plastic cartridges that held all 6 of the disks. The only problem with the new amazing CD player was, there was no way you could switch out the CDs for new ones while you were on the road. After a while, we just left the CDs in there, and got used to it.

            One of the CDs left in that silly cartridge was Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever, with the song Free Fallin’ on it. one of those hot fall days, my mother drove her old truck into the building and left me to my own devices while she did…whatever needed to be done out there. She (blessedly) left the keys in the truck for me to listen to some music while I waited. To no one’s surprise, I began listening to Free Fallin’, which had quickly become my favorite song of the moment.

Mom ended up hanging out at the Fair for about 2 hours, and I spent that whole time lying across the crunchy, dusty bench seats. Every time I heard the final notes of the song, I would reach up into the hot sunny haze to blindly press the << button on the radio, to start the song anew.

Today I heard (not for the first time) a John Mayer cover of Free Fallin’ and was instantly taken back to that afternoon in the truck. With my eyes closed, I created my own Free Fallin’ music video, using scenes I knew all too well: driving down the local freeway, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, riding in a rented two-seater airplane over the city. Now, whichever version I happen to hear, I play back those scenes and remember the hot dusty afternoon at the Fair.