For almost three years Sheila Echols had been my counterpart on the other side of the big glass window that separated the control room from the newsroom. Every weekday morning from six until nine we put on our smiles and together we brought the sun up in Pampa, Tx at 1320 AM.  Sheila was primarily responsible for news, but she provided a whole lot more than news. She was so much a part of our morning team that I could have done without the news, but I couldn't have done without her.

We were just getting started and I had a hot Charlie Daniels song on.  You can't wake people up with slow songs.  It's ten toes to the floor and the morning DJ at W.O.L.D. had to get it done.

Sheila looks at me through the big glass window and is almost white and says "Can you throw it to me after this song?" through the intercom.

"You got it", I respond. I knew it had to be a story that was going to be a shocker because Sheila never broke programing with bulletins unless it was major. "Big?" I questioned.

"I don't mess around, boy." was her reply.

At the moment the line went right over my head, but at the end of the record Sheila began.  "Last night in a fiery plane crash just northeast of Dallas television star and singer Ricky Nelson was killed."

Now I knew what the line meant.  Ricky was a star from the very first episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. The wisecracking kid brother, Ricky, was the show's most popular character with his trademark line, "I don't mess around, boy."

I rushed to the music library while Sheila continued to give the rest of the story and we only had two 45's and I knew I didn't have time to pull an album.  It was either "Travelin' Man" or "Garden Party".  I went with "Garden Party".

As Sheila finished the story the record spun.  What was happening in Pampa was happening all over America as news of Nelson's death was being heard by fans getting up on that Wednesday morning after seeing the new year in the night before.

As "Garden Party" played I remember the first time I ever heard it and then when I heard the story behind it.  In 1969 Nelson was booked along with a lot of other oldies singers to perform in Madison Square Garden.  The fans at that concert were expecting the Ricky Nelson of old but he had changed a lot . . . especially over the last six years and they weren't prepared for the Ricky Nelson they saw that day.  They booed him and Nelson walked off the stage.  That inspired the words to the song which would be his last hit to make the charts.

What his fans didn't know was what was going on in Nelson's private life that had made a different person out of the teen idol they knew. In 1962 Rick made what he later said was the biggest mistake of his life – he became engaged to Kristin Harmon, daughter of football legend Tom Harmon and actress Eylse Knox and sister of actor Mark Harmon.  They wed in 1963 in what Life Magazine called  “the Wedding of the Year”.

By all reports Kristan was a spoiled brat and made Nelson's life miserable as well as financially impossible.  In researching this story I found one source who went so far as to call her “bat shit crazy”, plagued with psychological problems and addicted to drugs and alcohol. She spent most of Rick’s dwindling fortune on houses, cars, and lavish furnishings.

After Ozzie died in 1975 Rick initiated divorce proceedings. Kris spent the next ten years, right up until Nelson's death, in a vindictive, financially draining battle whose sole purpose was to make Rick’s life a living hell. Consequently, Rick spent 200-300 days a year on the road performing.
 
According to one source during the Christmas season in 1985, Kris (through her attorney) lied to Rick that he was behind on child support and alimony payments forcing Rick and the Stone Canyon Band back out on the road the day after Christmas. On Monday, December 30th, 1985 Rick Nelson and his band gave their final performance in Guntersville, Alabama. You can see photographs of Rick's last show here.

On Tuesday, December 31st Nelson and eight others took off for Dallas where he was to perform that night for a New Year’s Eve show at the Park Suite. Four hours into the flight, the pilot radioed Fort Worth, "Smoke in the cockpit."

At 5:14 PM the plane disappeared from radar. The DC-3, previously owned by Jerry Lee Lewis, plunged to the ground, severing power lines and slamming into a tree, losing a wing. The two pilots scrambled from the cockpit windows and survived. Nelson, model Helen Blair (now his fiancée) and band members Bobby Neal, Rick Intveld, Andy Chapin and Pat Woodward, together with his road manager Clark
Russell all perished in the flames.

Their bodies were found huddled near the cockpit door. While “free basing” rumors abound, there was no evidence in the NTSB report of drug use by any of the passengers during the flight, though toxicology reports on Rick indicated trace amounts of cocaine in his system. Read the NTSB report here.

The next morning Rick’s son Matthew (one-half of the “rock” group Nelson) was driving home and heard "Garden Party" being played on the radio and was happily singing along when the radio announcer came on afterward and said, “That was a tribute to Rick Nelson, who killed last night in a plane crash." Matthew began screaming hysterically. Ironically both Matthew and twin, Gunnar, were supposed to have accompanied their Dad on the plane, but Rick changed his mind just days before his departure.  Harriet Nelson was also informed of her son’s death from a newscast that afternoon.

At the funeral in Los Angeles Kris caused quite a spectacle. She threw her daughter Tracey Nelson to the ground and began beating her until bystanders intervened.  She reportedly had just been told she was specifically left out of the will and life insurance money, which checked out. On August 22, 1985 just 4 months before his death, Rick made out his will, mincing very few words with regard to his ex wife. "I hereby declare that I am not married at this time and was divorce from Kristin Nelson in 1982 and specifically and intentionally fail to provide for her herein." You can get a copy of Rick's will here

Hopefully the video I posted yesterday takes on a little more meaning today now that you know a little more about what the Nelson children have been through. One source I read quoted a close family member as saying the boys consider their mother to be a murderess.

Sunday night I was thinking about the song Garden Party when I was having a comment conversation with Mario and Schaub.  This was prior to doing the research and discovering what I did about Kris.  Like Matthew I have always found "Garden Party" a song I wanted to happily sing along to.  Like he discovered on his way home that morning, when I dug into this story I discovered a real tragedy.  

When you look at the NTSB report of the accident you see an aircraft that was not well maintained.  You see a man who was a teen idol who spent some miserable years married to someone who changed him so much his fans didn't recognize him when he played at the garden.  You see two boys who think of their mother as a murderess.  You see a mother who beats her daughter at her father's funeral.  You see a woman that was . . . "bat shit crazy".

This will be my last story of 2009.  I want to take a few days and rest and finish some things I have not completed that need to be done before year end.  I also want to move this blog to a friendlier piece of technology called WordPress and it will take me a little time to move all the content over.  There could be a couple of days when this site will be down, but it will soon be back up.

My next planned story will be one week from today on January 4, 2010.

These last six months since the 1969 Pampa High School Class Reunion have been six of the best months of my life. I have finally found something I started looking for over 40 years ago.  I always thought I wanted to be in big time radio.  I now know that wasn't really what I wanted.  When I got my shot at big time radio it wasn't real.  I told Buzzy earlier today that when I used to key a microphone on the Texas State News Network even though there were 170 stations online I never felt anything.

 What is real is when I write something and you write back.   I would rather write a story and get a response from one person even if they are the only one that reads it than have it read by 1,000 people and get no response at all.  And a response doesn't mean patronizing it either.  Last Sunday's responses from Mario and Schaub meant as much and perhaps even more than some of the more flattering responses because they were real and they were right.
 
 So as I say "Good Bye" to 2009 I want to say thank you to Patricia Scott, Mario Garriga, David Schaub, Joe Roth, Bill Irvin, Karen Geyer, Buzzy Green, Judy Stone, Josiah Daniel, Ray Stewart, Connie Stephenson, and Cindy Symington.

Let's have a Petron together.  Here's to 2009.  It's been real.