"It's Been A Hard Day's Night"

Yesterday's news had a feature about a newly discovered Beatles audition tape.  Apparently, they were told that "they had no future in show business". Talk about being wrong!  I remember first hearing about the Beatles from one of my friend's Mom. She was reading Time Magazine.  She said the the U.S. was going to be invaded by a British group called The Beatles with shaggy

hair.  Not paying full attention, I pictured some very creepy insect that would be attacking rose bushes.  Within days, my friends and I knew each and every Beatle by name and couldn't wait for them to arrive in the United States, which they did, and on a Pan Am jet!

  

  Photo Courtesy of World Wings International.org                     

That Sunday, they made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Immediately after the show ended, my phone rang with a call from one of my best friends, Linda Carol, with the suggestion that we interview them. I told her she was crazy, but I was wrong and here is a picture of her with Paul McCartney.

Soon after, Linda Carol and I started our first little business together.  Shutter and Pen, photojournalists we became.  Celebrities were our forte.  Pro Golfers, movie stars, and musicians, we tried to interview them all. But with the Beatles, we were determined.  On their next trip to New York, we hopped a train and were on our way to interview them.  A photographer snapped my picture and asked for my name and where I was from. Not wanting my father to see it, I only gave my true first name.  The next day, there I was on the cover of the New York Post!

That was as close to the Beatles as we came.  But what fun.  To this day, whenever a Beatles song or something about them is announced, these memories come flooding back.  Matter-of-fact, not that long ago I told one of my grandsons, if I hadn't married Papa, I would have married Paul McCartney.  I think he believed me!