Morning Thanks--the Beatles

I didn't see the Beatles the night they walked out on the stage of the Ed Sullivan Show. I missed that historic appearance--I was in church. 

I knew about it, knew it was coming, heard about it, because it was heralded all over--the amazing Beatles, four mop-haired rock stars from a city called Liverpool and on their way to royal stardom--everyone said so--were scheduled to appear across the nation that Sunday right there on stage with Ed Sullivan. Everyone knew.

But I was in church. I don't remember fighting about my having to go. I don't remember cursing my parents' medieval ways, or thinking I was somehow bereft of a cultural phenom that, as a kid, I shouldn't be missing. I didn't necessarily love being in church, but my understanding of its place in my life made not attending something akin to choosing not to breathe. I'm sure I didn't spend the entire evening worship that night wishing I was in front of the TV.

Just for the record, it was Sunday night, February 4, 1964. I was 13 days away from being 16 years old. For point of reference, I was a month away from being old enough to drive. There was a little motorbike in the garage, probably stuck there for the winter in early February, but useful for me, except on those mornings my eyes might freeze shut if I drove it three or four blocks to school.

I had a shotgun, a little beauty I bought used somewhere--I don't remember where. It was a 16-gauge, double-barreled Remington, and, yes, I wish I still had it, but I  sold it when I went off to college (I didn't realize there were pheasants galore in Iowa!). And I was using it--although I don't remember even wasting a shell that day--on a Saturday some weeks before the Sunday night worship on the stage of Ed Sullivan. 

I had the shotgun in my hands, sitting in the back seat of a car driven by I-don't-remember-who and packed full of high school guys, going out west of town somewhere to hunt fox I think, although I don't remember seeing any, nor even hunting that day. It was a carful of guys, guns in their hands--an image that makes some people shudder, I'm sure. I was in the back seat. For the record, I remember nothing about hunting.

The station, I'm sure, was WOKY, Milwaukee, because absolutely every 17-year-old listened to WOKY. I don't remember the deejay. What I do remember as we rode along to some hunting spot some miles away, is the dee-jay going absolutely bananas about a tune he was going to spin, a tune by this phenom foursome named, of all things, the Beatles.

That's where I was when I first heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand"--backseat of a some kid's car, a double-barreled shotgun in my hand. I love it. 

What did I think of the music? I wasn't converted right then and there. I didn't have a come-to-Beatles moment right there in the backseat. If you would have asked me then, I likely would have said that if they're going to make an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show--that was fine, but I'd likely go to church anyway. Have to.

By the time I left for college, I had every Beatles album and wore them out on my old "stereo," a big box of a thing I took along to college because I couldn't imagine life without it--or them. I loved "Sgt Pepper," and had no trouble understanding that what the Beatles were up to--playing around with genre, with the whole mad business of popular music--was something of an art. They were doing something wild, and who couldn't love "I get by with a little help from friends. . ."

They stepped on to the world stage 60 years ago. I'm soon to be 76 years old. We don't go to church on Sunday nights much anymore--we live a half hour away. We go in the morning for sure. 

All my Beatles albums are long gone. Sometime, if I'm cleaning up down here, I'll ask my smart speaker to play the Beatles. In my mind, they're still wonderful, and I treasure remembering the moment I just tried to describe--the very first time I heard them, jammed into a car full of armed guys, lots of testosterone there in the back seat, on our way west of town in February, 1964. I'm betting I could still spot the place on the road we were taking.

They were a blessing and, really, still are, and, let me just say it outright:  I'm thankful for the Beatles.