RIP Tom Petty

Although I was only a casual fan, the music of Tom Petty was part of the soundtrack of my family's life in the late 1980s and early 90s.  Free-Falling, Won't Back Down, and American Girl were favorites of my daughters.  As a mid-range baby boomer Petty and I were contemporaries, so the fact he died of a massive heart attack hits uncomfortably close to home.  Coupled with the death of one of my brother Neil's friends of heart failure at 62 despite a life of absurd healthiness it really brings home the limits of our span on this earth.   The deaths in Las Vegas at the hands of a deranged gunman are in the lightning strike category of life ending events.  Heart attacks on otherwise healthy middle aged men are another story entirely. RIP Tom and Jamie.