It was the summer of 2016 when I took my life -

I like thinking about Tom in the fall

After all, his birthday is every October 20th (1950), and October 2nd (2017) is the day we lost him.

I was thinking about Tom a lot during the summer of 2016 — Warren Zanes’ really great biography had come out the previous year, and his book turned out to be a great companion on my epic road trip around the United States that summer.

It’s not hyperbole — I was 45 and flailing — and flailing isn’t even a strong enough word.

I was dying.

After my dad’s death in 2011, I had become a State Park crusader (the last thing I ever wanted to be), raising money to help out California’s ill-managed latest budget failures - and I succeeded.

Then I cleaned out dad’s house and sold it (per the demands of the will and dad’s many creditors), put everything in storage, and realized I was 40 and had no idea what was next.

First I tried honesty

I tried the new Kickstarter fad and attempted to create a series where I’d travel and talk to others who’d found themselves purpose-less in midlife — finding that lots of people deal with a midlife-ish crisis, but when one is single that midlife crisis can spin you right round, like a record baby, and spit you out to God-knows-where.

To rough places like Nevada City, Santa Monica, Sonoma, Piedmont.

Hey I’m no slouch when it comes to locations from which to ponder.

It wasn’t that the series failed so much as it just became my life. Traveling up and down the state, talking to people but with no clear goal. A few positives like a 2nd documentary film produced for PBS, but mostly just killing time.

Second I tried dating

With no job and no plans you can guess how long these relationships lasted. True the girls were hotter but the results were the same.

Btw all the girls (save one) i've dated are now married with between 2-5 kids. One positive is apparently I’ve got a nose for wife material.

Third I tried nothing

That’s right. I took professor Hilbert’s advice from Stranger Than Fiction and I did nothing.

I waited for life to come looking for me.

For a recruiter to find my resume.
For an organization to hire me for another documentary.
For woman to become a new muse and snap me out of my doldrums.

When nothing is tried you can guess what resulted.

Somewhere near the bottom I remembered my Lewis

I don’t even remember which book it’s from —

but after camping out and sleeping in my car — not because I didn’t have friends or family who wanted to help—it was more that I was just so tired of asking.

I recalled this quote:

Going back is the way??

GOING BACK???

That was the LAST thing I wanted!

Ok fine, but what if I did go back - where would I go back to?

Hmm.

While dad’s death

And caregiving had clearly spun me out—I didn’t regret it and actually it was 100% necessary for us to reconnect and become great friends before he died.

So then I thought what if I could go back to right when he died and have a second chance at what followed?

What should I have done? In other words from an outsider’s perspective, what did I most likely need, as a son who just lost his father?

I thought big picture and realized I probably needed space.

I thought historically and realized I probably needed a quest.

Then I modernized the label and brought it home.

Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that!

And to boot I already had theee most perfect car in the world for such a trip.

So that’s what I did.

I planned the trip I should have taken after dad died.

And I took it.

And now you're up to speed.

Of Petty and Identity

Tom was well into his amazing 40+ year career when he hit his first big identity crisis.

As I mentioned Warren Zanes’ Petty: The Biography was my companion that summer. And I learned not surprisingly, that Petty’s career was not without crisis.

Though the self-titled first album, and the follow up ‘You’re Gonna Get it’ had solidified Tom and Co.’s Byrds-Brit sound as solid radio staple, and the singles and touring had brought a modicum of success to both Petty and the heartbreakers, Petty was faced with one of the harsher realities of success.

He had become a brand.

And as a brand he had to clear up some blurred financial lines, cut a few ties, and draw up a new contract that would both give him more control, as well as reward him for the large part he’d built in creating this engine — an engine that now employed many people and had gotten more than a little messy.

He had to break from the Heartbreakers

What he had to grapple with personally though was losing his identity — or at least seeing it change dramatically.

The determinedly independent kid from Gainesville, Florida who wanted to be Elvis — and stick a big middle finger to anyone who said he couldn’t — especially his dad, now had to be wary of becoming one of the things rock musicians, and artists in general, all agree to despise: just another big bloated company star, cranking out singles and leaving friends and relationships in their wake.

Who would this new Tom be?

Could he be all things to all people, to his fans, the band, his family?

Answer?

Yes and no.

Though forced to adapt and learn to handle the business side of rock, a person like Tom Petty at his core will never change.

I was reading

This chapter of Zanes’ biography on a bus from Nashville to DC, to begin part II of my epic trip — picking up my convertible where I’d left it to receive a beautiful new top at an upholstery shop in Frederick, Maryland.

I’d just written a post on how I was finally happy.

I was flying high, or at least as high as a jobless artist and purpose-seeker can fly.

I was finally able to let go — like I wanted — of the last five years’ frustrations and stuttered starts, financial dry heaves that though they appeared to be working only had resulted in exhaustion.

I was thinking of all this

When the bus pulled off in Chattanooga, calling it a bus stop would be a stretch, it was really just a patch of sidewalk where the weeds were winning and no businesses dared enter. It was a quick stop, just enough time for a few people to jump on board.

I’d gone down the stairs to stand up a bit and use the restroom, when a desperate passenger’s plight caught my ear.

Apparently he hadn’t purchased a ticket online and the way this bus works they don’t accept cash — you can’t just hop on. Maybe it keeps the riff raff off, though it’s probably just how they lure you in with pricing and then check availability. With just a few minutes to spare before the bus would leave, he pleaded with someone, anyone, to help, offering cash if someone would buy his ticket online and get him on board.

You probably already know what happened.

I bought his ticket and accepted his thanks - his name was Eric and he sat down in the seat next to me.

Eric was a nice enough dude who was just trying to get to a concert in Atlanta. Some French metal band apparently. I thought they were all Norse or Gaelic but it’s been a while.

Eric works at a bar in Chattanooga and dreams of starting his own someday. He doesn’t own a car, rides a bike to work, has a hipster beard and yep, you guessed it, has a big, ugly past involving a dad who left the whole family in the lurch.

Not just left but stopped wanting to be a dad. A real champ.

So it was

That I found myself inside the Marriott Hotel in Atlanta Georgia, having dinner with Eric in a packed sports bar on an NFL Sunday, surrounded by business travelers and post-wedding parties, with lots of Coors Light and Shiner Bock flowing from the bar.

When we had to wrap up and I left him in that sports bar I wasn’t surprised there were a few tears.

He said he knew we were supposed to meet and I couldn’t argue.

In fact I enjoyed the moment too long, forgetting that I was a mile from the bus stop and I ended up in full Samsonite luggage commercial mode, dragging that carry-on sized suitcase through downtown ATL for all it was worth.

I got on the bus as the last passenger.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about Eric.

Not just about Eric but about the how crazy God works.

I thought about leaving Nashville, accepting the most available bus to Atlanta, even though I was headed up to D.C.

I thought about all the things in my life I take as random, and how many times I need to be convinced that they’re not.

I’m sure this isn’t news to my long term friends.

If this is who I am then, why don’t I embrace it more?

Why don’t I look for these conversations and connections, head out on the road for good, become a modern day Apostle Paul or John Steinbeck, spreading my own gospel of fathers, forgiveness, sunshine, and California?

Probably because I’m human.

Because I still need to be reminded of why I’m here, even when it’s staring me in the face, surrounding me on all sides, connecting with those in the margins as well as those who just like to hear stories, and are willing to share their own.

As a kid

My identity was simple, it was my bike.

All day, everyday, my bike was my life. Fixing it, jumping it, customizing it. It was who I was, a troubled kid who had found an outlet.

As an adult my identity has been a hodgepodge of long term friendships, road trips and adventures, film and photography, and endless attempts at stability. In fact way too many to count.

But I also know my identity is connecting people — to each other

and to our stories and common ties.

So I continue.

I picked up my convertible with the brand new top and am visiting Cornell University today, in honor of Grandfather Jack and his doctorate —the son of Fay Devaux Olmsted, engineer at the Olmsted power plant in Utah that I visited way back at the beginning of this amazing trip — which now seems like a lifetime ago.

And I’m finding out the Finger Lakes of New York are beautiful.

I had no idea.

More to come.