Like all things must, nine years ago, George Harrison passed away. I was fourteen years old and the affect on me was as though I had lost a family member. I realize that this sounds rather silly, but you have to understand that at the time I was majorly, majorly into The Beatles. I still have my collection of books and CDs and albums and artwork and newspaper clippings. So to lose another Beatle was pretty rough.
It didn’t help that I had just sent him a fan letter, either.
But I don’t want this to be a sad entry. I want to share some of my funnier memories relating to George and my early teen Beatlemania.
When I was in middle school (~12 years old), my friends Sarah, Kori and Jessica and I took on the nicknames “John”, “Paul”, “George” and “Ringo”. At the time, I was majorly obsessed with John, so I was John. Sarah (Paul) started drawing little us versions of The Beatles and they were passed out among us in class. It’s pretty much the only part of most of my middle school classes that I remember. Heh. I saved them all.
In high school, I thought it would be a good idea to start a Beatles roleplaying game on Yahoo. It was all kinds of disorganized and cheesy, and I just found it today while thinking of George.
I had a writing notebook for all these little silly stories, inspired by the Fab Four, which I shared with my friends as well. That’s become a sort of time capsule. One of the stories from it became my first fully-staged play, even. I also wrote and illustrated a Beatles/Wizard of Oz parody.
Sometimes trying to remember these little moments and things that made me happy isn’t so easy, but then I get a little trigger like remembering George and it all floods back to me. The Beatles are like a snapshot of a time in my life when I was extremely nerdy, but also happy. That’s why I’m not afraid to share any of it. Yeah, it was silly, but it was also a lot of fun.
Do you have anything like that from your past?
