They called me Beatle ...

Milk and honey

So you like the Beatles and/or their music? Me too. I first became aware of the now legends in early summer of 1963 when I was hired to help a weird person move. He actually was not in any sense weird; he was a genuine Beatnik and professor from the local college. He came into my regular barbershop on a Saturday morning looking to hire a few guys to help him carry boxes and furniture from a truck to his new "digs" as he called his house. I happened be getting a trim that morning and figured to help the guy for a few extra bucks; I was making $50 per week at my factory job and the promise of $10 for a morning's labor was too hard to resist. Ten bucks would buy an 18 gallon tankful of gasoline for my new Chevy convertible, a carton of smokes, and leave enough for a date at a drive-in movie and a bit of pin-ball money. Back to the Beatles. The guy had a box full of magazines and on top was a cover with a photo of four strange looking musician-type guys from some place in England. I picked it up and the dude noticed me looking at the photo and said something to the effect that "those spirits are going to be big soon" and he told me to keep the mag if I wanted it. The guys in the photo had funky hairdos and it wasn't many weeks afterward when the AM radio began playing their I Want to Hold Your Hand song. Before it hit the airwaves, I had already decided I wanted the look and I have not been back to a barbershop since that fateful Saturday. Problem; to go from nerdish crew-cut hair to Beatle shag meant I had endure a period where my hair looked like the Caesar style that was popular with gay men at the time. Of course I was an ignorant country boy and knew but little about being "queer" as it was called in that era. Soon however, I was being called a "fag" and "fagot" and other names and was even propositioned by a guy while in downtown JC. The local whores stopped smiling when they saw me walking or driving down the street and instead presented me with a glower and a pat on their backside along with a middle-finger salute. I was threatened with mayhem on more than one occasion and was sucker-punched at the roller-skating rink. My boss threatened to fire me and my co-workers shunned me. One good thing; the girl I was dating said I was "cuter than ever" and that was enough to strengthen my resolve to keep my hair long. Ah! February 1964 rolled around and I was ready. The Beatles were on the very popular Sunday evening Ed Sullivan variety show on CBS tv and millions of Americans were introduced to the future of not only popular music, but to a changing lifestyle and world that came of age at Woodstock in 1969. Most Americans past the age of thirty were aghast at the Beatle look; the band and their fans were sent to eternal hell from pulpits around the nation, and some AM stations refused to further play their music. The revolution was on! Times were good as many of my co-workers resumed accepting me and they even nicknamed me "Beatle". Prostitutes again waved and smiled as I went by and their salute turned to thumbs-up as they invitingly patted their crotches instead of their asses. Sweet vindication! During this time I went from shy and ignorant country bumpkin to a much wiser but still shy young man of the world.

Yep, they called me "Beatle" and though I've worn many nicknames since then, it is the one of which I am proudest.
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Have a Wednesday all day long!
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