The day I tried to Long Tall Sally Paul Mccartney
In 1964 I was sent to Mercer Island, Washington for the summer, and my grandparents hoped that their best friend's daughter, Sarah, would keep me out of trouble. When we started plotting an imaginary trip to Vancouver, Canada for a Beatles concert, they knew what a mistake it was to mix us together. The Beatles were set to perform August 12th at the Seattle Center Coliseum and we had not been able to get any tickets. The 14,300 five dollar tickets were sold out in no time and some were even scalped for $30 later on. Instead of tickets, my stepgrandmother came home with a Paul Mccartney “Beatle Bobbin’ Head" doll. It did not take her long to find out that the little rubber doll was not going to cut it with me. An immediate call to Sarah was placed, and we began plotting our next move.
If my grandmother thought that Sarah was the perfect teenager she was greatly mistaken. In whispers, Sarah suggested we get her brother to haul her parent's boat out to the harbor. It was nothing short of a dangerous attempt to get near The Edgewater Inn, where the Beatles were staying. If I was scared to walk 200 feet across the floating bridge, there was little hope I was getting into a boat. I insisted she come up with another plan.
The great day of the Beatles’ arrival, we asked my grandmother to drive us into Seattle to go shopping at 'The Bon'. I have to admit, she really got sucked into that one, and she just smiled at me and clapped her hands. Armed with a ten dollar bill and my “Beatle Boppin' Doll", Sarah and I were driven downtown, and told to meet my grandmother at 5 p.m.
Somehow, we weaseled our way near the entrance of the Edgewater Inn and when the cars with the Beatles inside showed up, they stopped right in front of us. I banged my Paul Mccartney “Beatle Boppin' Doll” on the window and I guess the scenario looked pretty funny to them. Slowly the window of the car inched open, and there in plain sight was Paul Mccartney's head, and it was ‘boppin’ with laughter.
Faster than you can say ‘She Loves Me,’ I reached my hand into that 12 inch space and grabbed some of Paul's hair. In one split second, my arm was pulled out and grabbed by what seemed like millions of girls. They were touching it with wild abandon and trying to wrench it out of my arm socket. Security rushed in and literally saved me from what was going to be a ‘Twist and Shout’ massacre. My arm was beginning to bruise and there were lots of scratches on it, but I was okay and quite shaken.
In my dreams I wanted Paul to exit out of that limo and save me. Was that not what every girl wanted in those days? Instead we were hauled into a police car and my grandmother was called. My mother had died in September of 1963 and my grandparents had been told to handle my sister and me with kid gloves. The gloves were off that night and I was sent to my room without dinner.
My late father always blamed The Beatles for my creative ways. Anything that I did that was different from the norm he would look at me straight in the face and say,
“It’s all that ‘ya ya ya’ business!” Maybe he was right, and one day when I need some of my youth back I think I am going to sit down and listen to nothing but Beatle songs-“when I’m 64!” But wait, I’m 66 now-- what in the neck do I listen to now?