I Want to Be with You Everywhere

Yes, I was wearing a flannel shirt.

W and I were in Atlantic City for the weekend.

We spent about five minutes in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino before we were overwhelmed by the grandness of it all. The lights, the bling, the music, the noise. We stood there in the lobby like a pair of lesbian Country Mice lost in the big city. 

After checking in, we retired to our fancy room, splurged on room service and then headed out to a Fleetwood Mac concert. That’s why we were in town. Fleetwood Mac was the last band on my concert bucket list.

The OG (Original Gypsy).

At 70, Stevie Nicks still has it. She was decked out in a raven black dress and black fringed shaw, clutched a tambourine in one hand and even executed her trademark triple twirl at the end of “Gypsy.”

The band was in fine form and played all its hits.

Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Neil Finn from Crowded House stood in for Lindsey Buckingham, who is not touring with the rest of the band. Fleetwood Mac celebrated Tom Petty in one of its encore songs by playing “Freefall” while a montage of Petty photographs, many of which showed him playing alongside Nicks, played on the big screen.

After the concert, W and I went out for a nice pasta dinner. We ended the night by grabbing some gelato and heading back up to our hotel room. A.C. was just starting to heat up, but what can I say? It was past our bedtime.

The next morning, W found a nice spot for breakfast, and we ate eggs by the bay before heading home.

It was a short getaway, but I feel rested and rejuvenated and in love with my wife.

 

American girls

I loved Tom Petty.

Loved his nasally voice, his scruffy look, his gorgeous lyrics about American girls. His songs about breaking up and making up and everything in between.

I loved that there was no one else like him on the planet.

I have most of his albums. Saw him in concert a couple of times.

I don’t know that I have a favorite Petty song.

Maybe “American Girl.” I’ll turn that up when it comes on the radio.

Maybe “Free Fallin’.” I mean, who doesn’t love to sing that song, car windows rolled down, highway stretched out, at the top of her lungs?

I wonder, when I listened to Petty back in the day, did I want to be that girl? You know the one.

That girl raised on promises.

That good girl, who loved Jesus and America, too.

Or, did I want that girl? Want her to be mine and only mine.

Looking back, it’s muddled. Sometimes, the only thing I can remember is how my heart ached a lot of the time.

But I like to think that, even back then, I knew there was a little more to life somewhere else.

After all it was a great big world.

RIP #TomPetty

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Do you have a favorite Tom Petty song or memory?