Getting help with 'petty' problem

By VIRGINIA GRANTIER, Bismarck Tribune

Christmas time, sigh, a beautiful time at the Huber home. Take the tree decorating tradition: While the Tom Petty rock music plays, ornaments are placed on the branches, and then it's time. For the last one. For the official Tom Petty Christmas ornament, a silver tennis ball-sized globe with his image in black and white. It's always, always, the last one -- placed in the middle of the tree.

And in this family of four, there is only person, of course, year after year, who puts Petty in his place. Of course.

"Oh gosh, yes," said Shannon Huber, 39, who not only is the ornament placer and owner, but has a Tom Petty mug that's never used, don't try. Not even her beloved husband, Jon, is even slightly tempted to grab it from its kitchen counter position for use when all other mugs are dirty.

And she owns two guitar picks that she got from a Petty roadie as part of his apology for accidentally hitting her in the head with a crumpled drink cup after a concert. And there is plenty of other stuff -- concert ticket stubs, all his albums, a beach towel and so on.

Huber, a reputed jokester and funster, as well as a serious, devoted addiction counselor, according to her co-workers at Bismarck's Youthworks, admits to quite the Petty habit -- for the fun of it and because she loves his music. And also because of his life story, "I was fascinated (to learn) how hard he had to struggle."

And his lyrics inspired her not to give up when she, a former hard-partier and hard drinker, decided later in life to go to college, and it wasn't easy -- being that she was a widow then, a single working mom, nail technician with limited funds and two years into her sobriety.
She kept not quitting, pushing on, with his lyrics in the background, while she studied, and in the car, the house: "I won't back down. Won't back down. Stand my ground. Got just one life," she recited. Because she didn't back down, she graduated from the University of Mary in 1997.
Now, she's able to bring to youth who have alcohol and drugs problems her real-life understanding of what they're going through.

So when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers come to Bismarck on Tuesday for a Civic Center concert, she'll be there. And she hopes to be able to share how inspirational he was.

The question is, where in there will she be? Currently, she and 13 others, family and friends, have seats in the eighth row even though she hurriedly bought tickets the first day they were available. That's seven rows too far away. Petty is coming to her town and to her, eighth row is the nose-bleed section. Can't have that. So for about five weeks she's been on a mission to try to convince someone she knows to give up either one or both of their second row seats. In return, they can have Row 8 seats and an extra $100 to boot. So far, no go.

Jon Huber, her husband of four years, says that wherever she goes now, the gas station, grocery store, she stops people and asks if they have Petty tickets. He likes Petty, too, but at a different level of like.

Jon Huber recalled how deeply Petty impacts her -- take last year's labor-pain situation.
Last November, Shannon Huber went into labor way too early and doctors tried everything to get it to stop. But after six hours of consistent labor, about three minutes apart, nothing did the trick. Until, that is, at 11:30 p.m., when television host Jay Leno introduced Petty, and Petty started singing his song "The Last DJ," and then talked with Leno. Through it all -- seven or eight minutes, Jon Huber remembers, maybe up to 10 minutes, his wife remembers -- she had not one contraction.

"She was totally relaxed," Jon Huber remembers.

Then, it was over, commercial time, and the contractions started again.

"I told her maybe we should watch his video," he said, and laughed.

After some time in the intensive care unit, their daughter, 7 1/2 months old, is perfect and has already experienced a Petty concert road trip. Mother-in-law Carol Huber, very supportive of Shannon Huber's Petty devotion, agreed to travel with them to Sioux Falls, S.D., and baby-sit during the concert.

Shannon Huber would like hers and Petty's lives to cross, so, by the way, she's looking for backstage passes.

She has already crossed his driveway. While visiting relatives in Encino, Calif., a couple years ago, it was a main goal to also visit the Petty house, located not far away from grandpa's, said Justin Mikkelson, 18.

Shannon Huber stood in the driveway, for about five minutes, thinking deep thoughts:
"Just knowing that he had driven there," she said, and laughed.

She baked a chocolate cake on his Oct. 20 birthday once, brought it into work, again, just for the crazy, wacky fun of it all.

"There's so many good things about her," said co-worker Betty Althoff about Huber's serious side. "She's so understanding, so caring."

And so predictable.

Althoff said Huber got to work at 9 a.m. Thursday. Althoff remembers it was about 9:10 a.m. when the words "Tom Petty" came out of Huber's mouth. They always do, every day, sometimes once, sometimes more. More so now that the first row is still eluding her.

Civic Center Manager Dick Peterson said its his understanding there are still a few front-row tickets here and there -- and Petty himself has a hold on about three or four tickets.
Huber's had dreams, all the same dream. She's just about to meet Petty and something happens, and it doesn't happen. Never happens.

Tom, this is pretty petty -- stop draggin' her, stop draggin' her, stop draggin' her heart around.