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Day One: Monthly Letter
Happy New Year! It's time I came clean with you. We've known each other long enough by now and if there's one thing I've learned along the way, it's that, sooner or later, the truth always comes out and drags your secrets along with it. Okay. Here goes: I was a teenage Beatlemaniac! There. I said it and I'm proud. (I can't tell you how many old classmates have found me through this website and said my Beatlemania was what they most remembered about me!) Once upon a time I was one of those goofy teenage girls who lived and breathed all things Beatles, who swooned over Paul McCartney, adored George and Ringo, and entertained a few innocent fantasies about John. See that drawing over there? I drew it just before my fourteenth birthday in the summer of 1964. The girl was based on the drawing they used in an "Ambush" Perfume ad in Glamour magazine and the information in the balloon all relates to the silliness going on in my teenage life at the moment. What a time it was! I was thirteen in February of that year when the Beatles landed on our shores, as innocent as the heroine of a Barbara Cartland romance and brimming over with dreams. I wasn't alone. Less than three months ago, President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas and for weeks the world had seemed a much bigger and scarier place than ever before. And then the Beatles exploded onto the scene and for a little while a 13-year old Catholic schoolgirl from Elmhurst, Queens felt like a celebrity! You see, my Grandma El was born in Liverpool. Yes, Liverpool. I already knew about the Mersey River, about Litherland Park and Bootle. I had pictures of Sea View, the family mansion, and - even more wonderful - Grandma El and her sister Edith still had their Liverpudlian accents! Could it get any better than that? Well, yes! It all started the day I saw the Beatles arrive at the newly renamed JFK Airport. But why try to tell you about it from across the years? Here's what I said at the time, in my own 13-year old voice, to my diary:
In case you don't know it, there are four Beatles. They are Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison. To all American girls and girls all over the world, they are the young gods of pop music. Born in war-time in a scruffy English seaport called Liverpool where my grandmother was born, they lived a hard life, searching for success. Their giddy spiral rise to fame began with their first hit song, "Love Me Do," which sold 100,000 copies in 1962. This was followed by a slew of consecutive #1 hits, rounded off with "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," a million-seller BEFORE release! Already the rage of Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa, the Beatles sought to conquer the United States the way the Redcoats hadn't been able to do. I ended up being quite the celebrity. My ability to write fantasies on demand about the Beatles made me wildly popular with my friends, as did my uncanny ability to forge their autographs on Marita's bare arm with magic marker. (That, I will say, did not endear me to Sister Grace Lawrence.) I also had the great good fortune to have a friend named Annette whose father was Ed Sullivan's favorite cab driver and he managed to make our wildest dreams come true on more than one occasion. I was lucky enough to see the Beatles at Forest Hills in August of that year (Want to see the playlist I wrote up when I got home?) and the Rolling Stones, the Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Dave Clark Five - you name the group, we probably saw them that year. Annette's father frequently got us into the Ed Sullivan show for Sunday dress rehearsals and, occasionally, for the "really big shew" on Sunday night. And yes, I could out-scream the best of them!
I wish you could have been there with me. It was a different time and place. We were very young, very innocent, and even though the world was changing very quickly, it was still a world where young girls could spend their Saturdays roaming around midtown Manhattan hoping to stumble upon a Stone or Searcher at the Carnegie Deli or maybe the barber shop next door. Every generation has its teen idols. For my mother's generation it was Frank Sinatra. For the kids before me it was Elvis. We had the Beatles and we had them when they were fresh-faced and new and as delighted to be here as we were to have them. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. And now down to business:
Warmly, 
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December 2002
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