A Hard Day's Night

When I was not quite 14 years old, in the summer of 1964, a friend’s father produced something that to this day, I still cannot get over. He gave us 4 tickets to see The Beatles, live, in concert, at the Boston Garden for the evening of Saturday, September 12, 1964. I was about a week into my high school career and to say that I loved The Beatles is a huge understatement. Actually, I still love them. But I don’t scream anymore when I see a photo of them. Honestly. Really, I don’t.

Mr. Caron worked for a company named Bessie Fruit Drinks. If you lived in Rhode Island during the 60s, surely you remember that company as it was advertised heavily on the teen stations of WPRO and WICE. Both AM stations, by the way, as FM had not come into existence yet. Holy cow. That is just the way it was.


My freind's name was Linda and it was really funny because we hung out for only that one summer. Other than that, we both went our separate ways. Her dad worked for the company and they were giving away tickets as a radio promotion. I guess he held aside four for his girl and her friends. What a guy. Talk about our hero.

Another friend named Susie, Linda, me (another Susie) and Linda’s cousin whose name escapes me, all went to the Garden to see the loves of our lives. We were driven somewhere and put on a subway (T line) to the Garden with strict instructions on how to get back.

We had good seats, but I want to tell you that the second the Beatles came on stage, struck a cord and started singing, every kid in the place leapt up, started screaming her head off and ran toward the stage as if in a hypnotic frenzy. It was bedlam. I still don’t know how I made it back to the car but needless to say when we got there, we were one kid short.

The other Susie was missing. We waited until the last T arrived and still no Susie. The dad bringing us home was fit to be tied. It wasn’t even his kid that he lost - someone else’s. Not good, not good at all.

Remember, there were no cell phones then. I know it is hard to believe but somehow we survived. I guess more miracles happened back then as we were more needy and God pitied us because all of a sudden Susie materialized, sheepish, but with a back stage story! So who cared! Let the adults threaten to skin us alive – Susie made it backstage at the show. She, of course, was immediately carted off to a holding tank in the back of the stage and missed the whole show but, WOW! She tried to muscle her way onto the stage. You have to admire her guts. She did look a little shell-shocked as she got out of the taxi or, maybe it was even a police car. Kind of the same thing. We were from the tiny little town of Cumberland, at the time very rural and quaint.

That’s my story. Sometimes I mention it to people and they say ‘ The Beatles never toured in Boston’ Oh, yes, they did. But it was early on and easy to miss. Thank God, I got to see my guys. I love them to this day. And my son loves them almost as much as I do! (PS The date of this blog is just an eerie coincidence.)