Top Stories of 2024 #9: The Night I Saw The Beatles
By Sasha Paulsen
As 2024 comes to a close, we are dedicating the final two weeks to a countdown of the year’s most-read stories. Covering a wide range of local topics, these pieces reflect the varied interests of our readers and offer a moment to look back before turning toward 2025. Join us as we revisit the highlights that shaped the year. Original run date: Aug. 18, 2024
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NAPA VALLEY, Calif. —Aug. 19, 1964: Mr. Robinson’s white station wagon was not exactly Cinderella’s golden coach, but not one of us — four short, skinny preteens squashed in the backseat — would have traded places with her. We were headed to our own palace, the Cow Palace in San Francisco. We had the invitations — OK, tickets — to enter the enchanted kingdom of dreams that we thought might come true. We were not going to dance, precisely, but we might swoon, and we were going to see much more magnificent princes than she did: The Beatles on their first stop on their first tour in the USA.
Now, these 60 years later, I wonder what possessed Mr. Robinson to enact the role of fairy godfather and not only procure those rare tickets but also escort us there. I do not remember much else about Vicky Robinson’s dad, not his first name, for example, or what he did for a living. Only that he got us tickets and that at the end of the evening he was still laughing when we got back to Napa.
We were four friends, too: Catherine Way and I had been friends since first grade at Browns Valley School. We remained friends when my family moved across town to Coombsville Road and were reunited when her family moved, too, in the sixth grade. At Mount George I met Chris Biocca and Vicky. We all landed in what was then called “the smart class,” also known as the special class, an experiment comprising students from our school land Vichy. It went to our heads, even if my big brother insisted it was because we were all hopeless morons.
We became a quartet distinguished by the knowledge that everyone except my brother thought we were smart. And we had all watched the first American appearance of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, 1964. Everyone else calls it “The Night That Changed Music Forever.” The four of us call it “The Night That Changed Our Lives.”
This was because we all identified our future husbands. A few bars of “All My Loving” had decided our fate. Chris was going to marry George, the Quiet Beatle; Vicky, whose taste was always original, opted for Ringo, the drummer; John, being married, was not an option, so both Catherine and I, in the manner of friends who shared everything, were going to marry Paul.
I felt I had a secret advantage over Catherine and everyone else who wanted to marry him: I might not be “just 17” — the vast age about which Paul sang “you know what I mean” (I had no idea what he meant) — but I was left-handed. In fact, until I saw him on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and asked my brother why he held guitar backward, I had never seen another left-handed person in my entire life. Not in my family, not in a class. And there was Paul: left-handed. He was also the best-looking.
My memories of that evening are blurred. I recall entering the vast hall of the Cow Palace and finding our seats somewhere near the roof. This didn’t worry me because I had brought my brother’s binoculars. They were hanging around my neck.
I have heard that other bands also performed that night, but I have no idea who they were. I also remember that I was determined not to join the screaming, fainting multitudes exploding in adolescent hormones all around us. I composed myself to wait quietly until The Beatles appeared in case Paul happened to glance up and notice, in the rafters several miles from the stage, the only other left-handed person in the room.
They appeared. The shrieks shook the enormous barn of the Cow Palace. Catherine, sitting next to me, leaped to her feet, screaming, “Paul! Paul!” And she grabbed the binoculars that were still hanging around my neck. Now I wonder: Would I, too, have leapt up and shrieked if I were not being strangled by my best friend? I will never know. At the time, I just thought it was a dastardly way to eliminate the competition. Now I consider it a demonstration of the power of love that makes you forget everything else, such as the fact that the person next to you needs to breathe.
But what a time it was: It had not yet been a year since President Kennedy had been assassinated. We watched again and again on television what we could not comprehend. We had no idea our country was careening off into years of confusion and upheaval that have brought us to the confusion and upheaval reverberating today. But for those minutes in the Cow Palace, we all knew a wild and crazy joy — especially me, when I could breathe again.
And in time, Paul faded, eclipsed by reality, local guys. Also he got married; and I don't even know if his wife was left-handed. When we graduated from Napa High, Catherine went to Davis and I to Berkeley. She was the maid of honor when I got married. My children and I went to her wedding when she met the love of her life on the internet we could not have imagined when television was still a magical thing. The years since 1964 have been rich with adventures, love and loss.
I recently got an email from her asking if I would be free for lunch on Aug. 16. I will have to reply that I am going to a concert that night (New Music at Napa Valley College). “But how about Aug. 19?” I’ll say — and see if she remembers. I won’t be wearing binoculars.
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Sasha Paulsen is a Napa Valley-based novelist and journalist.
What a delicious story, Sasha. Thank you for taking us back to our preteenhoods. I’m glad you weren’t inadvertently strangled by your best friend.