So I'll tell this story from Bible School - it's been long enough - they can't take away my certificate or my degree probably...

I attended a very conservative Lutheran Bible School out of high school - strict enough where on the second year, anything that was "secular music" was banned - I, not really knowing how tough the dean was on it, - (we changed deans that year in the men's dorm) - had brought a fine selection of Godless Heathen Devil music - I didn't think much of it and most of my stuff was hippie stuff anyways - Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby Stills and Nash, Neil Young, and so forth

Anyways, somehow it came out that I had the forbidden goods, and somehow It ended up that I gave him my tapes in a box where he stashed them in the closet of his office to be kept safe until that Spring and I had put on the appearance of being a good boy and hunkered down for the Fall Semester...I'm sure my heart was even in it at the time.

except....

a short time later, probably a few weeks later...

I carded that office door, snuck in, got the box, and liberated about 12 tapes.

One of which was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - "Into the Great Wide Open" - (I think another one was Paul Simon's Graceland,)

I remember I had it because at some point that year I stepped on the cassette box, and nearly split the pad of one of my feet open and hobbled for a few days :)

Years later, at another conservative Christian College, I spent about a year walking around with Tom Petty's Wildflowers in my headphones and while it wasn't banned, I somehow felt...like I had been given a treasure in an ocean of mediocre Contemporary Christian Music - I remember shortly after graduating being up all night and listening to the title track in a park at 6am thinking things were going to be ok...they weren't but at least I thought they were at 6am

I realize I have to lose heroes - they were all older than me to begin with - but I wasn't ready to lose this one yet...

R.I.P. Tom Petty