Meet The Beatles

Meet The Beatles

In the fall of 1963 I was 14 and a freshman at Walt Whitman High School.  A new extension had just been completed basically doubling the size of the school.  We were going to be the first freshman class to attend the high school.  Even though we would be the youngest kids in the school I was happy to be in the high school.  

The prior school year I had met my friend Eddie who I would spend a lot of time with and much of that time we listened to and talked about music.  We both really liked what was referred to as “Soul Music”.  I had grown 10 inches in the past year, 9 of those during the previous school year.  That's right, I started 8th grade at 5' 0”.  I started 9th at 5' 10”.  I got detention that year for wearing pants too short at school.  Public schools still had dress codes back then.  Short tight pants were a style that was discouraged by the school system.  Those that dressed that way were considered “hoods” and juvenile delinquents by the school system, as well as the public at large.  However, that was the style of choice for teenagers.  To us, that was the “cool” look.  I wasn't cool enough to be either.  I also wasn't a jock and I didn't qualify as a toadie either.  So on the “cool meter” I was probably just barely on the cool side of nerd or loser.  But, I was outgrowing my clothes faster than my parents were able to replace them.  I tried to talk my way out of detention by blaming it all on my Mom.  (OK maybe I was really more of a loser than I care to remember.)  Our school disciplinarian didn't buy it.  It turned out that I might have actually had a point because just a few years later, when I was in the military, my parents were frequently the blame for my “bad” behavior.  The trouble was while they may have been to blame, it was only me who received the punishment.  Mom and Dad, just want to let you know that I did a lot of KP (Kitchen Patrol),  Latrine Duty, and Guard Duty on your behalf...  

My freshman homeroom that year was in the new part of the school as was my locker as well as most of my classes.  Having most my classes in the same section of the school was a good thing because someone had decided that the bathrooms in the new extension should be placed in reverse order than those in the older half of the school.  That apparently wasn't enough as they changed the tile color as well.  So in the old part of the school the tile color for the bathrooms were blue for the boys and green for the girls but in the new part it was green for the boys and a sort of salmon/pink for the girls.  While most my classes were in the new section I still did have a couple in the old section.  So I had to be on my toes when there and remember which side of the school I was on when it came time for a smoke.  Needless to say I got reasonably comfortable walking partially into the girls bathroom on the old side of the school.

At the beginning of the school year I was 14 and discovered I had developed Osgood-Schlatter Disease.  A fancy name for a cartilage problem near the knee.  Growing those 10 inches the previous year probably didn't help.  The easiest solution was for me to refrain from or at least greatly limit physical activities, i.e. no sports for a year.  That was a big blow as at that point in my life I pretty much engaged in some sort of athletic activity daily.  I loved playing sports but I was nothing special.  This was my freshman year and because of old “Osgood” I would not be able to go out for any of the school's freshman teams.  It might seem like losing the opportunity to play on the freshman teams is no big thing.  However, to have any hope of making any of the subsequent high school teams it was important to make a freshman team because then there would be a record, a kind of scouting report on me for the next level.  I was in a larger high school, between 3000 and 4000 kids.  There would be over 100 kids trying out for all of the major sports teams.  The coaches knew the top athletes, the rest of us needed to get noticed and the most common way was to have played on a team previously.  This was a bummer for me.

However it was something else that happened that school year to make it special.  The Beatles came to America leading the “British Invasion” and unlike last time (War  of 1812) the British didn't just capture our capitol but captured the whole darn country.  The Beatles themselves arrived in early February of 1964 but their visit was preceded by their music.  In December of 1963  “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was being played on the radio garnering a huge response from the listeners.  Although it had been released in Britain in November no one could buy it here because it wasn't available in the US until December 26.  Once it got here it exploded on to the pop charts reaching #1 in the beginning of January.  The “Meet The Beatles” album, on Capitol Records was then released in January of 1964.  That album is an iconic album for just about everyone of my generation and most of us know this as the 1st Beatles album.  The real first American Beatles album was “Introducing the Beatles”.  It was released on the Vee-Jay label, a small record company, 10 days prior.  (If you have this album it's worth a few bucks.)  There had also been a few Beatles songs previously released as singles in the U.S in 1963 well before “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.  “Please Please Me”, “From Me To You”, and “She Loves You” were all released on small labels, either Vee-Jay or Swan.  As such, they didn't get played by the disc jockeys, probably a “payola” thing or rather a lack of it.  The result was they didn't get much traction.  It was Capitol's released  of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” that brought the Beatles to the attention to just about all of us.  

I freely admit that I was not immediately taken by the Beatles.  I have never been a big fan of “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.  My sister and my good friend Eddie both loved the Beatles from the get-go.  Eddie bought the album as soon as it came out and my sister shortly after.  I liked the album well enough as I would listen to it with Eddie or borrow my sister's album.  I eventually purchased it as well, but I was not yet a big fan.  Their hair was different for the time and it didn't appeal to me particularly.  Their fashion style was interesting but didn't connect with me and I was never a fan of those Beatles boots.  All the groups wore some sort of suit then which was a type of clothing I did my best to avoid.  Give me the old leather jacket, tee shirt, and jeans.  By the release of the Beatles' second album that April (which was actually half covers and was cleverly titled “The Beatles' Second Album”) I had become a fan and finally got onboard the Beatles Bus.  The first Beatles album was a turning point for me as prior to this I had mostly bought “singles”, 45's.  The Beatles changed all that.  From that point forward I started buying albums and stopped buying 45's.

The 1964 invasion wasn't just the Beatles, no, they were just playing the part of the Marines for a complete and total British music invasion.  The flood gates opened as the Dave Clark Five showed up with “Glad All Over”  and then I don't remember the order but there was the the Kinks, Herman's Hermits, The Searchers, Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Zombies, Gerry and the Pacemakers and more.  The airwaves were full of songs from the UK.  It  was a crazy time.  British groups were trying to be American (Nashville Teens – “Tobacco Road”) and American bands trying to  be British (The Buckinghams - “Kind of a Drag”).  The music was changed forever and became a part of the now famous (some might say infamous) 60's cultural revolution.  I turned 15 a couple of weeks after the Beatles came to the USA.  It was the perfect age for the time.  I often hear disparaging comments about the 60's.  All I can say is you shoulda been there whether you were there or not....