{"id":7792,"date":"2019-05-24T10:54:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T15:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?p=7792"},"modified":"2019-05-24T10:54:57","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T15:54:57","slug":"in-my-life-what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-the-beatles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/in-my-life-what-are-your-earliest-memories-of-the-beatles\/","title":{"rendered":"In My Life — What are your earliest memories of The Beatles?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What are your earliest memories of The Beatles? How did your journey with the Fab Four begin? Jude Kessler, author of\u00a0<\/em>The John Lennon Series<\/strong>, shares her sentimental journey and encourages you<\/strong> to share yours! Our panel of judges will award 3 prizes for the best very brief stories in our Comments section below. The winners will get to expand their stories and be highlighted as our Featured Fest Bloggers in June! <\/em><\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s Jude\u2019s true tale:<\/em><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve told the story at least a hundred times: how 9-year-old Pattie Holly Singer \u2014 clasping an early Beatles 45-rpm photo jacket \u2014 waylaid me en route<\/em> to class at Horseshoe Drive Elementary in Alexandria, Louisiana.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese<\/em> are The Beatles!\u201d she exhaled, her eyes dancing nervously. \u201cEveryone\u2019s<\/em> in love with them!!! You\u2019ve gotta <\/em>pick one to fall in love with\u2026by recess!\u201d That was the beginning of it all, really \u2014 the sojourn into the frenetic and frantic land of Beatlemania.<\/p>\n

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All the rest of my memories that year center on The Beatles. I can\u2019t recall anything else \u201cin my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My father, Dr. Tom Paul Southerland, the Rapides Parish Assistant Superintendent of Schools, was not impressed. Each month, he\u2019d call me into his office and sit me down to begin the standard lecture: \u201cYou\u2019re in love with that John Lennon, and it has to stop<\/em>! He\u2019s a hoodlum, I tell you. A hoodlum<\/em>!\u201d But the more my dad divulged that \u201cfact,\u201d the more I was attracted to the almond-eyed guitar player with his razored wit and deep, gritty voice\u2026the more \u201cThe Leader Beatle\u201d invoked devotion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite my father\u2019s despair over Lennon-mania, though, he saw sense. When \u201cA Hard Day\u2019s Night\u201d came to Alexandria\u2019s Don Theater, late that summer, he offered to take me to the film. He even did some research on it and commented on the cautious drive downtown, \u201cI hear these Beatles are a lot like the Marx Brothers. Some people say they\u2019re the Marx Brothers and the Keystone Cops, all rolled into one. In fact, down at the office, they tell me this movie really shows that side of their comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t remember my response; I\u2019m sure it was polite and agreeable. But in that fat, baby-blue-and-white, four-door Buick, I do remember thinking that I\u2019d seen \u201cYou Bet Your Life\u201d on TV and that John Lennon was nothing whatsoever<\/em> like gruff, bespectacled, OLD Groucho Marx. I saw no <\/em>correlation between Marx and Lennon, and frankly, I couldn\u2019t imagine anyone who could! I bit my lip and sighed and thought my father and I, worlds apart.<\/p>\n

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At the end of film that afternoon, as the credits rolled across the screen (names I would come to know intimately in my adult life\u2026some, like Victor Spinetti, whom I would meet and interview at our own Fest for Beatles Fans), I sat in the darkness and wept. I cried because I\u2019d loved every minute of John\u2019s film. (As Susan Ryan said to me years later, \u201cWhat??!<\/em> The other Beatles were in that movie????\u201d) I sobbed because it had ended all too quickly. And I wept because there was no one there to understand my heart.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWould you like to stay and see it again?\u201d my father leaned over, asking me quietly. I was floored. Stunned!<\/em> The man who had railed against The Beatles for months got it<\/em>!!!! Somehow, he understood. And he was offering to devote two more hours of his life to a film he really didn\u2019t want to see. It was a moment\u2026one of the best of my childhood. My father had unwittingly conspired with The Beatles to create a forever memory.<\/p>\n

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Today, I live about two hours from Alexandria \u2014 or \u201cBeatle Town,\u201d as I call it. Every time I have an occasion to drive through the city or visit friends there, I fly back to 1964. I remember it all. I remember asking for my first Beatles album on my November birthday and getting, instead, a black-and-white LP by The Liverpool Beats singing, \u201cI Want to Hold Your Hand\u201d and \u201cI Saw Her Standing There,\u201d right alongside \u201cJoshua\u201d and \u201cMaybe I Will.\u201d I vividly recall fighting back hot tears over the sound of \u201cHappy birthday to you, happy birthday to you\u2026\u201d and trying to act thrilled over the errant record looming next to my chocolate cake. I also remember climbing into bed that night and writing a very early letter Santa, who surely,<\/em> in just a few short weeks, would right the wrong and deliver the treasure I so craved.<\/p>\n

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On a very chilly and early 25 December 1964, as I tore into the thick, crimson foil encasing Capitol\u2019s \u201cMeet the Beatles,\u201d my introduction to \u201cthe lads\u201d was finally complete. In twelve short months I had found my passion for a lifetime and stepped into my future career. I had selected not only \u201ca Beatle to love,\u201d but had chosen the direction for my college course of study and the path of my professional life. From that day on, it would be all John Lennon, all the time.<\/p>\n

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And yes Virginia, it still is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*********<\/p>\n

Now\u2026it\u2019s your turn. Share your first and earliest Beatles\u2019 story with us in the Comments below\u2026let the memories Shine On.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Jude Southerland Kessler is the author of the John Lennon Series:\u00a0www.johnlennonseries.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Jude is represented by 910 Public Relations —\u00a0@910PubRel<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter and\u00a0910 Public Relations<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are your earliest memories of The Beatles? How did your journey with the Fab Four begin? Jude Kessler, author of\u00a0The John Lennon Series, shares her sentimental journey and encourages you to share yours! Our panel of judges will award […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":7793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[98,117,30],"class_list":["post-7792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beatles-memories","tag-jude-southerland-kessler","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-fest-for-beatles-fans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7794,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7792\/revisions\/7794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}