The summer I began collecting “The Beatles” cards

I secretly began collecting The Beatles cards in the summer of 1964 and 1965. In February 1964, the Beatles landed at New York City, Kennedy Airport for a whirlwind tour which included their famous debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. A record 73 million people watched them, even though The Washington Post said they were ‘asexual and homely.’

I was ten years old, and I don’t recall watching them on The Ed Sullivan Show, but my best friend, LuLu kept me updated on the Beatle invasion. I do recall that my dad (an avid jazz enthusiast since he was 10 years old) thought the Beatles had no musical talent — playing only two chords repetitively. He didn’t get it and I didn’t let my dad know that I was collecting Beatle cards with my best friend. I thought Paul McCartney was the cutest — certainly not ‘asexual and homely.’

 

That summer, my parents rented the Seaside apartment for two weeks in San Clemente, California, right across from the pier. My best friend’s parents rented one too. After a day at the beach riding the waves on canvas-covered rafts (I think they called them surf riders), we would walk to the little store just across from the pier.

With my saved allowance (which I kept in one of those yellow King Arthur cigar boxes), I purchased several packs of bubblegum containing the Beatles cards. Of course, I didn’t let my dad see them; he would never approve of one of his daughters liking rock n roll. I even remember him saying to his friends, “my daughters will never like rock n roll.” So, I kept it a secret until I hit my teenage years. In retrospect, my dad should have understood. Later he shared with me how he used to sneak out to the forbidden jazz joints. I later got my dad to at least like Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass — hardly rock n roll — but a concession for sure. And one of their albums was risque for that time (a young woman covered in whipped cream for clothing.) If memory serves me well, one of their songs was the theme song for the TV show, The Dating Game. (Later, in my high school years, I tried out to be a contestant on the show with a bunch of friends.)

Since my dad loved jazz, he had piles of albums and only the best “HiFi” — giant JBL speakers and ceiling speakers built into all the rooms of our home. He eventually gave into my collection of rock n roll records — though he did not approve of the Rolling Stones album I purchased that had a real zipper plastered over a pair of jeans on the cover. That disappeared, but the vinyl remained, complete with a scratched-out song. But other than that, he let me boom my music. Oh, and one other album he didn’t approve of — Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay. I get it. I was naive in many ways. My dad would say, “you don’t know what goes on in a boy’s mind.” True. I didn’t. But I found out later.