The Beatles Ruined My Life

Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little. Hear me out:

In the summer of 1964, I went to Lompoc, California to spend a week with my friend Julie (before the ‘e’ in her name went missing). We spent hours listening to a record album (before vinyl went missing) called “Meet the Beatles” and together, we stared at the front and back cover, falling in love. (With the moptops, not each other.)

For me, it was George (only because I mismatched the picture on the front to the name on the back—it was really Paul I fell in love with, but I didn’t learn that until much later). Sure, I’d seen them on the Ed Sullivan Show, but it took that special kinda “girlfriend time,” sharing our undying pledges of love, to really cement my first crush.

When A Hard Days Night came out, followed by Help!, I sat in a darkened movie theater crawling inside their lives, wishing desperately to meet them, to know them, to be loved by them.

I think it was the following summer that the rumor started buzzing around my neighborhood. Radio Station KRLA, the hippest station in town, was bringing the Beatles to L.A. for a concert, and Bob Eubanks, the hottest jock in town, was letting them stay at his house. Be still my fluttering heart! Too young for concerts, but not for stalking! Hell, you could see Bob’s house from my best friend’s bedroom window!

Diane’s mom was a trouper. On Saturday evening, she loaded us up in the station wagon and we camped out just down the street from Eubanks’ home. Soon, one of his next door neighbors wandered out, and we recognized a classmate, Kenny. We leapt from the car, demanding to know if he’d met the Beatles.

“Oh sure,” he tells us. “I swam with all four of them this afternoon.”

Omigod, omigod, omigod.

We ply him with questions. Which one is the nicest? Do they look as cute in person? What time do you think they’ll arrive tonight?

He flings the answers casually—as though swimming with the Beatles is the most natural thing in the world.

We, being ten and stupid, believe him.

The rumor has spread and more cars arrive. I don’t remember, but I think the police eventually put in an appearance. Anyway, Mr. Newlywed Game himself finally emerges to inform us the rumors are false. No Beatles tonight.

Desolate, we trudge back to the station wagon and allow ourselves to be driven home.

But, we stay up all night, peering from the window, knowing “older” girls stayed. Around midnight, we swear we hear a scream, and our hearts break. The Beatles must surely be there…without us.

My point is: HELLO unrequited love.

The Beatles taught me all about it. For years afterward, loving someone out of reach seemed entirely natural—almost inevitable. There was the high school senior who didn’t even know my name…the guy at the beach whose gaze I was content to meet day after day without ever speaking…the professor in college (oh, wait…that’s when I discovered the difference between unrequited love and REquited lust.)

Alas, I eventually stopped having crushes which is, after all, what they were. Or, maybe I just got too old.

And yet…and yet…there’s this fixation I have with Mandy Patinkin (I know, I know, my taste runs to the obscure)…and, oh geez, how about ANY ONE of those guys on LOST…?

What? You say I must be dreaming?

Sigh. Some things never change, I guess.

All You Need Is Love….