![]() ![]() Heather Williams at a Los Angeles teachers' strike action in January. I'm happy that this policy is no longer in place. Tom's Petty's music served as a soundtrack to these tough times, and got me through a lot of seemingly hopeless personal moments as I struggled with my sexuality in a "don't ask, don't tell" military service. Like all good moments when I've gone out on a limb, joining the Coast Guard turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. I joined the military immediately following 9/11, as an impulsive response to a surge of patriotism and the pull to do something. I felt really out of place, and I felt like I was lost, wondering what I had done, if I had made a mistake. I was stationed on a river boat in Iowa, and I was a closeted gay kid from Nebraska. I fell in love with this song and a lot of Tom Petty songs when I joined the U.S. Who hasn't felt beaten, bruised and battered, turned on the radio and belted this tune at the top of their range while driving down a road? Jim Benes as a Coast Guard air crew member on a rescue helicopter in 2005. I played "I Won't Back Down" first, and he was hooked thereafter. ![]() He had never heard of them, but gamely asked to hear a few songs while we drove. I associated every big milestone in my life (and some small ones) with a different song from the band (no pressure, right?). We had gotten to know a little about each other the day before, but my true test of compatibility was coming: Did he know Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and if so, what did he think? I explained as we got in the car this was my favorite band in the whole world. When I saw him, I couldn't formulate a single thought in my brain other than "Wow!" We spent the rest of the day flirting, and by the second day I had volunteered to drive him on an errand he needed to run. I heard his voice before I saw him, and I held my breath as he made his way up the stairs while telling some joke to his colleagues. In 2011, at a small IT security conference in Dayton, she met a German man who - six years later - would become her husband: ![]() The phrase "I won't back down" is engraved on the wedding rings of Niki Vonderwell and her husband, Matthias Luft. There really never had been an easy way out of what I had gone through. And when I saw live for the second and last time at Red Rocks a few months before he passed, I sang just as loudly, surrounded by several thousand fellow fans belting with the same force that I did. When I slept once by myself on the side of a mountain, completely sure that a cougar was going to come by and snack on me, I sang that song from the safety of my hammock. I didn't let being alone keep me from seeing the places I had always dreamed of. I have a lot of favorite songs of his that are lesser known, but there is no greater feeling than crossing the plains of South Dakota, window down, belting "I Won't Back Down." Because I wouldn't. And always, while driving outside cellphone range and social media's reach, there was Tom Petty. The boundless enormity of our country made my previous problems feel so small. We put thousands of miles on my vehicle, and I was happiest when there was a black shimmering strip of highway extending from my hood to the far horizon coupled with endless blue skies. Several years ago, after a harrowing 48 hours in which her house burned down and she finalized her divorce, Sara drove across the country with her young daughter. Sara Register with her daughter, Rhiannon, at a Tom Petty concert at Red Rocks, Colo., during his final tour in 2017. Suicide is an intensely sad option to get out of this broken world, but man, there was no easy way out. I knew he had been sick with mental illness and addiction for many years and suffered at the end of his life with these battles. The line "There ain't no easy way out" took on a new meaning. I felt freaked out this coincidence happened, but the car was so quiet as we all listened without saying a word. As we began driving, this song began to play. My husband, my 1-year-old daughter and I were the last to leave the funeral home. When I was 30, my dad died by suicide with a gunshot through his chest. It was so much fun! I stayed a Tom Petty fan ever since. We would get lost and then find our way out of backroads. My dad would come pick me up on the weekends and we would go for a drive in the country, listening to Tom Petty (and of course this song) loud with the windows down in his old wood-panel van, or in later years, his red Ford Probe. Erica Kufus with her father, Bradley Bundgaard, at her high school graduation in 2000. ![]()
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