Lake Berryessa - June 20, 2011

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
 A stately pleasure-dome decree:


Where Alph, the sacred river, ran


Through caverns measureless to man


Down to a sunless sea. “Xanadu - Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Where is your pleasure-dome, where do you find your ease? Is your sacred river the mighty Colorado, water source for the Southern West? The Sacramento, as she begins her journey from Redwood Park? Is your palace filled with luxury and every want fulfilled? Or is it a hot afternoon, in a dry place with enough water?

We sat in the scarce shade. Himself was washing his brain and, as I looked at the hot beauty of Lake Berryessa, Coleridge’s couplets came, unbidden, to my mind. We all name our own Xanadu.

Take me for a ride in the car. Take me away from home, if only for a few hours, and my batteries are recharged, my soul renewed. As the cheapest date on Monday, just a tank of gas and a destination, I chose vegetable shopping. We woke late after a lovely Sunday dinner with friends, slowly did our daily work, pulled ourselves together and didn’t leave the house till about 2:30. Our first stop was Larry’s Produce, a big truck farm just outside of Fairfield. My fantasies to the contrary, there were no worthwhile tomatoes, but beautiful peppers and even an edible cantaloupe were ours to be had.

From there, we headed up the lush and very leafy Wooden Valley. This is such a pretty drive, past low fields filled with grapes and those big fans that fight off the spring frost. The road is serpentine and the flora change as we climb, from the deep greens of irrigated farm land to the sparse scrub with narrow, tall pines natural to that place. And then, just before you wonder why you are doing this, Lake Berryessa appears on the right. This reservoir lake is a glorious sapphire set in the golden hills of east Napa County. It is a very democratic place, supporting many little private marinas and public lake-side parks equally. One of the public areas was our final destination, Spanish Flat public picnic area.

There is a concrete boat launch that stretches out into the lake, where the green, shallow water meets the blue, deep. When we first came picnicking at Berryessa, two years ago, the launch was dry all the way out. We sat in the clear heat and ate tomatoes and peaches. This year, the launch is underwater, the first fruits of this long, rainy, snowy winter. This water calls to everyone from the hot valley lands. From Dixon, Vacaville and Travis AFB, folks come with their food and children to frolic in the waters of their own Xanadu. Oh, and dogs. There was a blissed-out black Lab-mix, who desired nothing more than a stick thrown in the water. “Ok, guys, just somebody throw the stick.” Happy dogs are always good at a picnic. Even the very nice, hard working park ranger understood that a water dog wanted to be in the water. That’s hard to do on a leash.

The very best things at a lake picnic are water apes, especially the younger of the breed. They wear water wings of various kinds, they splash, they cry, they laugh and take care of each other. If you want a silent water experience, Lake Berryessa is not for you. But if you want to watch a mad young man (14 years?) try to swim after a dinghy that had escaped from a power boat, this is your place. After watching that boy test himself, a cooler head got in the boat and went after him. The afternoon current was strong, he couldn’t have caught the dinghy, but it was instructive to watch him try. Boys are strange and fascinating, I’ve thought so all my life.

We packed up our melon rinds, picked up some errant trash and headed home. On our way out, we saw three deer and two fawns, still with their white spots, heading up the narrow gullies. Birds sang and we got lost. We turned right rather than left on Highway 128 and headed over the hills to the Silverado Trail. It’s a beautiful drive, especially late on a summer afternoon. The light of the Napa Valley is very specific. On early foggy, spring mornings, it is pewter. And on early summer afternoons, it becomes golden. I appreciate the Napa Valley, it is deeply beautiful and a drive down its eastern side is a treat.

We all find our own pleasure domes. For my best friend, it lies in deep, drippy forests and cool ocean views. For me it is heat in the basin and range. Everyone knows about Lake Berryessa and many dismiss it as too common, too hot and too noisy. I just love it.

In Xanadu did Kubla-Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.

Twain Hart

I speak of a dream. A dream of hills and tall pines, a little lake and a cozy cottage. It is only a dream.

We crossed the great valley to the strains of “Götterdämmerung” and with no offending traffic. If you don’t know about KXSR 91.7 fm, the Groveland repeater for Capital Public Radio, you really should. Once on the eastern side of the Altamont Pass, you get a great public classical music station with a very strong signal that covers the whole central part of the state. We pulled up to the lake cottage before 11pm, all was cozy and very quiet.

Saturday dawned clear and bright and we finally got to appreciate the lake. It’s a small round spring- and snow-fed bowl with cottages all around. Now it might be informative to define “cottage.” Our little place has two decks, a large living room, good kitchen and two bedrooms. Its true luxury is its inside coziness and outside view. But there are four- and five-bedroom cottages in the neighborhood, and at least one has a pool. Why do you need a pool so close to that pretty lake? Some delicate flowers just can’t stand a little cold water, I suppose.

The kids started to arrive about 9am. There are two slides and a diving platform for the young water apes to enjoy. The first one in was an intrepid nine-year-old boy in long black trunks and swim goggles. He hit that COLD water and came up yelling “I can’t do this!” But, of course, he could, and did, for the rest of the morning. As their parents chatted and read, the children there assembled swam, yelled and thoroughly enjoyed that cold little lake.

We finally pried ourselves away and headed down the hill to Vallecito and Murphys and really good wine. Murphys’ wine community organizes a “wine passport” weekend every June and, quite by accident, we were there for that. You buy a glass and get a passport and go around to all the tasting rooms, getting free tastes and good nosh. A perfect time to go drink wine.

As you wind up the hill to Twisted Oak Winery, in the great metropolitan center of Vallecito CA (pop. 491), you start seeing rubber chickens. Rubber chickens hanging from trees and on road signs and on pinions, flying in the hot breeze. Once you achieve the summit, The Celebrated Jumping Rubber Chicken of Calaveras County welcomes you to a handsome tasting room and outdoor eating area.

First, we tasted the new reds and got our club stuff. Then we went out to the special table set up for members and passporters. I think the guy pouring was the wine maker and I know the tall guy standing next to him was El Jefe, the owner. At the table we found the three varietal wines that make up this winery’s greatest blend, The Spaniard. (As in, “My name is Iñigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”) Garnacha, Tempranillo and Graciano are the grapes of this complex, rich, beautifully balanced steamroller of a wine. The week before our trip, on our actual 20th anniversary, we drank our 2002 Spaniard (its first bottling) and oh, my dears, it was a huge, blackberry and smoke and plum and copper wonder that stayed clear all the way through. To taste the wines that make up this blend was great fun and very informative. As we drank the blood of these grapes, the discussion turned to a new blend whose working name is “Old Chumbucket.” I’m really not kidding, we tasted one iteration of it and they’re just getting started. We were there on the ground floor. There are perks to membership and the carne asada soft tacos were really nice.

Our wine trail led down the hill to Murphys and Milliaire, a different kettle of seeds and stems. There it is, right on Main St., that sweet little yellow filling station is their tasting room. Milliaire is very low key and matter of fact. They may be faking it, but the sweet ladies there act like they remember us from one visit to another. Steve Millier, the winemaker, is a subtle devil. Zinfandel is my drug of choice and its making requires special knowledge. Heat loving but difficult under the best of times, the grapes in each bunch mature at different rates. Perfectly ripe grapes and mushy, overripe grapes and hard green grapes are all on one stem. So weird but Millier can handle them. With three major and who knows how many smaller vineyards, he blends turn-your-teeth-purple, clear-your-mind Zins with spice and greengage plum and yes, copper. (Where are we, again?) His Ghirardelli Zin, yes, that Ghiardelli, is a single-vineyard wine, lightly spiced, with chocolate, a whiff of tobacco and clear, bright blackberry. And their Simply Red is the best plonk on the market for by far the best price.

The food treats were even better at the little yellow filling station than at Twisted Oak.

Out behind the tasting room is a smallish concrete deck that can (barely) hold 6 circular tables. The great beauty of the space is a huge spreading fig tree that protected us from the Calaveras sun. And over in the left hand corner was a man, a charcoal barbecue and oysters. A trio (two singers and a drummer) made sweet music as Murphy’s creek chattered and burbled an obligato, just on the other side of the chain link fence. The oysters, although not Californian, were very good. Just a little hot sauce and oh, yes, give them to me. Milliaire was pouring lovely champagne (take that, you Frenchies) and we could have stayed till sunset.

We packed up our wine and headed back to the cottage. I did bring some food but we needed salad stuff and went in search of same. Not knowing the town at all, we blundered around until we finally came upon the grocery store. Don’t think this is some country store with just a few items. Think Andronico’s or Piedmont Grocery or Village Market, north. This place is Rockridge, Oakland, only at the end of long drive, with a lovely lake and snow. We got really nice tomatoes and other elements of a good salad and spent a evening enjoying one of our new wines, dining informally and watching Snow White. Any lake cabin is wonderful, but if it’s filled with books and movies, it’s perfect. We would stay forever, except for those pesky paying guests who come in July and August.

Sunday morning called early. Laundry and cleanup needed doing, so we would be invited back. By 10am the Little Blue Opera House was pulling out of the driveway and heading toward the Valley Floor. In California, with numberless valleys of great beauty, there is just one Valley Floor, and that is Yosemite. Taking the 120 south/east and passing through Chinese Camp, we set our sights on Groveland and the the Northern Gate of Yosemite. This road cuts through perfect Bonanza country, with low rolling hills and wide smooth valleys dotted with green black live oaks. I was expecting Adam, Hoss or Little Joe to ride up any minute. You make that left turn at New Priest Grade, the climb begins. It is pretty steep and twisty, but the original Old Priest Road is very steep, and straighter. Either way it takes a long time to get to the treasure that is the Valley Floor.

Once up this road and into the Park, there are still 45 minutes of drive. The El Portal burn area reminds us of the fire cycle that renews the land here. So we drove and drove and drove, until I almost got bored. But then, we turned a corner and there it was, Yosemite Valley. The Tamarack Falls Overlook is the first view of the Valley. Straight up, to the left, there are the falls themselves (two of them, this watery year), and, to the deep right, the Valley, and

Bridalveil Falls pouring herself down to her mother, the Great Merced. Merced herself was white, in June, still tearing up the Valley Floor as she pleases. All the rest of the way down we saw many little unnamed waterfalls, like little kids, running down the steep hills, running to their mother.

In this year of high water, Yosemite Falls is the voice of the Valley. Even as far away as the horse stables at Upper Pines, you can hear the dense, low, white noise. The closer you get to the base of the Falls, the louder it gets and becomes a physical force to the body. You feel it, right in the solar plexus, but it doesn’t hit you, it grows.

There are two lookout points for Yosemite Falls. One, on the right, brings you to the actual contact point, where the water hits the Valley Floor. I’ve seen it as an adult and don’t care for it. It’s really loud, of course, and, at least for me, quite scary. It’s just too much. But if you take the left hand trail, you come to a secluded viewing area. From this vantage, you can see the lower falls without being beaten up by them. The mature redwoods and pines guard the clear ripply creek that reflects the descending chaos.

I stood, ensorceled by the falling water, when I began to see them: the white horses that Gandalf conjured at the Ford of Bruinen, charging down the granite wall. There is no reason for you to believe me, go and look for yourselves. The heads and shoulders of great white horses, pouring out of Yosemite Falls.

Finally, after a homeric struggle with the temptation to stay, the Little Blue Opera House (LBOH from here after) turned its snout toward Oakdale and home. We pulled in just in time for Philip to wash and change and get to Compline. I unpacked and wondered at all I had seen.

Now, look deep into my eyes, you are becoming sleepy, very sleepy. Just listen to the sound of my voice. Everything I told you about the cabin by the lake is a dream, only a dream. And when you wake, it will have been only be a beautiful dream.

Pippi and Harriet

Pippi and Harriet

(feminist icons)

Always read the publisher page of your favorite books. You will find many interesting things. Beezus and Ramona, by the great Beverly Cleary, was first published the year I was born, 1955. When I read that date so much of my early life made perfect sense. My elder sister is the good daughter, dutiful and hardworking. I am the chaotic slacker. I am Ramona. My sister loved all Ms. Cleary’s books and the first volume of the Ramona chronicle was her very favorite. The old librarian in me just loves a publisher page.

In 1953, the heart of the button-down, commie-fearing Fifties, a harbinger of freedom came to this country from Sweden’s Viking shore. She came not with a sword but a horse and a monkey. With diamond blue eyes and red pigtails, Pippi Longstocking skipped into the hearts of legions of American girls. Her influence cannot be overestimated. In a period of rigid social conformity in the US, Pippi was a beacon of chaos, joy and pancakes for dinner. Here we find a nine year old girl, with her own house, no one to tell her what to do, unlimited funds and good friends next door. If you threaten her friends she will mess you up. But if you are ready for fun and maybe a good story, she is the best time imaginable.

Now, add 18 to 20 years to 1953 and you come to the Second Wave of American Feminism, with its nonsensical and perhaps koanic talk of women, men, fish and bicycles. That streak of nonsense, that ribbon of crazy fun, breaking expectations and freeing the mind to all possibilities, can be traced to Pippi Longstocking. Money, a home of your own, loving but absent parents, a horse and a monkey, what else could a girl need? Well, if you aren’t a magical child with superhuman strength, you might need to be of your world and not just in it.

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh was first published in 1964 and is a real breakout. Before Harriet, middle reader books were about perfect families and very small problems. (Ramona doesn’t deal with a problem as hairy as her father losing his job until 1977. This is no criticism of the great Ms Cleary, bless her ears and whiskers.) But Harriet wants to watch unseen and uninvolved. Her home life is not perfect, her working, distant parents want her to take more care of herself. Her beloved babysitter is looking at a life of her own. This a very early modern children’s novel, if not the first. It addresses four themes that have informed middle-reader literature for the last 45 years: school politics, family dynamics, change and self-knowledge. Seeing your own real life on the page is every inch as liberating as your own horse or monkey.

Every day I’m called on to suggest books. There is very good new stuff: The Sisters Grim, The Penderwicks, and the deeply wonderful Ivy and Bean are just a few of the new books and series out there for middle-reading girls. Even as we stand among all these riches, we must never forget the revolutionaries of children’s literature, Harriet, who shows us our real lives and Pippi, who lives the life we want.

An altar in the house of a Protestant

This is an altar,

an altar in the home of a Protestant.

Go figure.

It started with a book about home altars in New Mexico and the wonderful pictures of personal manifestations of faith. I looked with envy at what my Roman brethren were allowed to have in their homes. They got images of saints and candles. But all I got was the knowledge that my iconoclastic Puritan forefathers were so smug in their empty walls. Well, I like candles, to my Baptist’s great chagrin, and I love the great souls who have shaped my faith. So, why can’t I have an altar? I don’t pray to these images. I don’t beg them for intercession with a Savior who is too far beyond my heart’s reach. No, Christ has made his home in my soul and I can make a Protestant altar if I want to. So what is it that I want?

Always looking backward, hoping to understand clearly, I want a history of my faith. The first image of my shrine is El Tepeyac, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

El Tepeyac is the nexus of the Roman Church and Mexico. The mother of God combined with a mountain goddess and became the Mother of the Americas. I fell in love with her early in my faith and searched for an image. I wanted a copy of the tilma of Juan Diego, which hangs in Her shrine in Mexico City and bears Her image with dusky skin, pink dress and standing on a crescent moon. In a church equipment shop in Los Angeles that had Methodist hymnals and thuribles and choir robes and all sorts of stuff, there were also images of saints and martyrs, from novena cards to big banners. There I found Her picture, mounted on wood. She has traveled with me for at least 30 years and Hers was the only religious image in my home for most of that time, Viva Mexico. Then, we came to Oakland and bought our house.

Down in the cellar of our new house, I found an unused shelf: a 3½-foot piece of heavy pine with plain, Puritan supports. With a thick coat of dark blue paint, gold stars and polyurethane, my altar was ready to put up. (The color and stars come from the ceiling of the Siena duomo, from whence came the great Catherine. But more about her later.) Now, I won’t have you think that my Baptist just accepted the idea of a shrine in the house. He most emphatically did not. And, if my grandmother Dorothy were still alive, besides being 111 years old, she would make some caustic comments about popery. But she is in the arms of her Savior and the Baptist has to love me anyway. With grumbles and grouses, the Baptist mounted the altar, perfectly balanced under the high windows in the kitchen. The Lady fills the space between the windows and for a little while she was the only one up there. My sister gave me a lovely wrought iron hanging candle holder and I keep it filled with tall, 5 day votives. (There is usually a Lady light burning, to guide you through the kitchen if you need the loo in the middle of the night.) But who else would be on the altar? A mess of hard-headed Protestants, that’s who.

So, who are these people? In the central places of honor are my two lodestones of the Protestant Reformation. That thick-necked, bull jawed person on the right is Martin Luther. Painted by his friend, Lucas Cranach the younger, this is the founder of the Protestant Church, warts and all. To his right is his greatest student and theological heartbreak, Philip Melanchthon. This talented lutenist broke with his great teacher over music in church. He also helped to write the Augsburg Confession. Next to Philip is Catherine of Siena. A Roman saint who showed me the road of mysticism and action, I do love her so. On final right is Ulrich Zwingli, primary author of the Augsburg Confession who died at war with other Christians. (Our history is not pretty.)

To Luther’s left, we find Thomas Cranmer, founder of the Anglican Confession, liturgist extraordinaire, true Protestant and martyr. Next to Cranmer is his great contemporary William Tyndale, translator of the Holy Bible and martyr, bless his memory. The sweet image next to him is Teresa of Avila. Like Catherine, she is a lamp to this girl’s feet; if you haven’t read The Interior Castle, you might give it a try. On the ultimate left is John Wesley, who brought the Gospel of Christ to the satanic mills. He was a missionary and true servant of his Lord.

At the lower elevation we find the earlier founders of the faith.

On the left is William Wycliffe, the first translator of the Bible into English. (There are no contemporary portraits of Wycliffe, so we have this Titianesque idealization.) In the center is a prayer of the Venerable Bede (673-735 ce). His direct, existential prayers keep me grounded. On the right is Johannes Hus, the great anabaptist reformer who was martyred at the Council of Constance.

You might notice various crosses scattered around. One came from my father’s last time in Florence, one I inherited from my deeply wonderful mother-in-law and others have come from thither and yon. My friends bring me crosses from their travels. D and K went to the fair Isle of Iona, in the Hebrides, and brought me back a token of that ancient holy place, a small white rock incised with a simple cross. Of such small things great altars are built.

Two altars taught me about the ephemeral nature of shrines. Shrines come out of nowhere, on roadsides or in front of palace gates. And they are in constant flux—a static altar is a dead altar. In the monastery church of S. Florian, in upper Austria, there is a big cork board on a easel, just inside the front door, on the right. This board is covered with photographs of all of the new babies in the congregation. In the sanctuary of Mission San Juan Bautista, just left of the altar rail, there is another cork board, this one filled with pictures of service members. Beautiful young faces in the uniforms of the US Army, Navy and lots of Marines. Both of those cork boards are shrines and always changing

With gifts and acquisitions, the altar in my house is fluid, in my kitchen, the center of the house. The Lady candle is usually lit and the other votives burn bright when friends grace our home. As with all other home shrines, this altar is a statement of faith. It celebrates the great souls who give me strength for the journey. Anyone who comes to our house sees this thing and, to date, it has not offended. In this house there is a whole lot of Mahler, the History of Western Philosophy by Copleston and the Blue Cliff Record. In the house my husband gives me, there is an altar, an altar in the home of an anabaptist Protestant. Go figure.

difficult relatives

Difficult Relatives

(Thomas and Rada)

Once upon a time I got on a bus and failed the test of family. It was the Colorado Blvd. bus taking me home from Pasadena City College and at one stop a short old man got on and paid his fare. I recognized him as my maternal grandfather, Rudolph Davidovitz. He did not return the favor and when the paprika termagant started to berate the poor bus driver for an unscheduled stop, I was a bad, happy girl. The driver finally relented and let my grandfather off, to the great relief of everyone on the bus, especially me. We all have difficult relatives.

There is an holy day in the Protestant liturgical calendar called Reformation Sunday. Celebrated on the Sunday closest to October 31st, it is the day set aside to acknowledge our history and founders. On this day Methodists revel in John Wesley, Baptists insist that they come from the Catacombs and Presbyterians will actually speak the name of John Calvin. Everyone celebrates the founders of their church, except the Anglicans, who are embarrassed. You are ashamed of your father.

I understand, Thomas Cranmer is a hard nut and difficult to love. Liturgist, scholar and reformer, he sinned so much—how can anyone celebrate. He came into Henry VIII’s court on Anne Bolyn’s skirts. Her father, Thomas, brought Cranmer with the family, as its chaplain. Though he came in with Anne, he trumped up the charges that were brought against her, adding reginacide to his résumé. (Don’t depend on Tommy, girls, he will do you dirty if you get in the King’s way.) He stayed to feed the King supporting theology during the Great Dissolution. Cranmer’s second wife had to be hidden away while Henry dithered about the married clergy.

Henry Tudor dithered because he was a Roman Catholic. He didn’t want a new church. He simply coveted the prerogatives that the French king had enjoyed since the 12th century. Henry wanted to appoint bishops and cardinals and keep most of the Church’s money in country. This Catholic king liked to fill his court with scholars and was a great supporter of higher education. Henry appreciated the scholar Cranmer and either didn’t care or didn’t notice that this priest was a real, live Protestant. For all of his faults, Thomas Cranmer was the greatest liturgist in the history of the Protestant church, perhaps in the history of the Church Temporal. He collected everything and, even as he watched great sanctuaries and their libraries burn, he kept what he needed to forge a liturgy for a new and reformed church. And, Thomas survived Henry.

Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, brought both of the princesses to court but only after they acknowledged their illigitimacy. (Henry was a pip of a father.) She died after giving Henry his legitmate son and poor little Edward VI came to the throne at his father’s death, age nine. (Without a mother, Edward clung to his older sisters. Truly, the one thing those two redheads had in common was love for their little brother.) Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury when Henry died and made sure the boy had a Protestant education. The little king authorized his confessor to write and disseminate the first Book of Common Prayer. Never in robust health, Edward died very young (17) but his legacy is huge. The Boy gave all of us the order of worship that we have carried into our many, new, dissenting churches, bless him.

The Boy went to his Savior and Mary came to the throne of Great Britain. I have sympathy for Mary Tudor. Her father branded her a bastard, not once, but twice, and her Spanish family did not save her. By the time Mary came to the throne, she was nuts. She truly believed that burning heretics would please the Prince of Peace. One of those heretics was Thomas Cranmer. Mary couldn’t murder her sister Elizabeth but she did burn her brother’s confessor. Cranmer was tortured to the point of recantation and signed a confession of error.

But Mary Tudor did not believe his submission to the Roman rule of the English church and Thomas Cranmer took up the martyr’s cross. On March 21, 1556, Thomas Cranmer followed his friends Latimer and Ridley through the fire to their Lord. The story of his martyrdom is as gruesome as it is uplifting. Elizabeth was still in the Tower when she got the news of Cranmer’s death, “they burnt that old man.”

“That old man” is the father of the Anglican Church, not Henry Tudor but Thomas Cranmer. Scholar, politician, liar and saint, he plumbed our bitter, self-serving depths and showed us one way to the Cross. Once upon a time I got on a bus and failed the test of family. The Episcopal Church is always on that bus. This year, just for once, do not ignore the bad old man. Look him in the eyes, and nod, and say, “Hello Papa.”

it's been a hard days night

“The guitar is all very well John, but you’ll never make a living out of it.”

—attributed to both his mother Julia and his aunt Mimi

You, 44 year old Nicholas, mourn John Lennon. You spoke to me, last week, surprised that he had been gone for 30 years. But, my dear, you were not there. It has been most of your lifetime since Lennon was murdered. I was there at the beginning of American Beatlemania and here is how it went. A Hard Days Night, was released in the US on August 11th, 1964. I was going into 4th grade, and we were living in Orange.

Orange California today is a sprawling mess, too big and way overdeveloped. When we lived on S. Orange St in ’63–’64, it was a very pretty old town. The streets were wide and very flat, a perfect place to learn how to ride a bike. Julie and I went to Palmyra Grammar School, where, in 6th grade, she first started to play the flute. We walked or rode everywhere, including to the old movie palace that was on the town square (which is actually a traffic circle with a tiny park at its center.) We saw all our movies there, including The Man with the X-ray Eyes, with dear old Ray Milland, that scared the bejeebies out of us. But what I can’t conjure is what the feature was when we saw the trailer for A Hard Days Night.

The trailer was in black and white. Nothing was black and white in 1964 in the US except t.v. It opened with the Lads running down an urban residential street, away from a pack of adoring fans. (What were all of those 15- and 16-year-old girls going to do with those four guys if they ever caught them?) And then there was that chord. It is dense and compelling, it wakes up the ears and says, “Listen, something good is coming.” (http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/beatles-hard-days-night-mystery-chord-solved/ And that good thing was running toward us, their gorgeous young selves in natty suits. There had never been anything like them. I was just out of third grade and fell, truly madly deeply in love with all four.

After that unremembered movie, I had enough left over ($1.35?) to buy an early ticket for A Hard Days Night that very afternoon; Julie went back a couple of days later and bought hers. This was good because when we went back, the next week, the lines were insane. Julie kept our place in the pre-sale line and I reconnoitered the just-trying-to-get-in line. Walking out from under the theatre porch, I turned left, walking down Glassell, and saw a line that turned the corner and wound down the long side of the theatre on Main. I was totally knocked out.

We settled down in orchestra section of the theatre to watch the movie. We expected to hear it also, but that was impossible. After that life changing chord, the screaming began. Most of the audience were screaming at the screen, at a movie that had been in the can for over two months. In the immortal words of Norm the road manager, “They’ve gone potty out there.” So my sister and I sat in pie-eyed wonder, watched the images on the screen and wondered what was being said. This all happened 37 years after Al Jolson brought sound to the silver screen.

With subsequent watchings, we finally heard A Hard Day’s Night. It was a treat: glib, hip and funny, shot in a dense black and white by a very young Richard Lester. In 1963 Britain was still in rebuild, with empty lots and strange open space. My younger self thought it was all true. That “clean old man” was Paul’s grandpa and they were just talking, naturally witty and fun. It took me years to appreciate the real work of the movie. But since I’ve seen it more than twenty times, I’ve figured some things out.

Let us start with the story arc. The lads arrive in an unnamed English city where they are to anchor a t.v. variety show being shot in an old music hall. Their handlers, Norm and Shake, try to keep them out of trouble and on time. Paul is shackled to a grandfather in need of a change of scenery and everything comes from that. Grandpa is “a real mixer … and he’ll cost you a fortune in breach of promise suits.” (See how easily the quotes fall out of me?) Paul is pretty and harried, John is sarcastic and in charge and Ringo is by the camera adored. And then there is George, always my favorite, with that low Scouse voice and dreamboat eyes.

This tale of unrecognized fame moves quickly because the movie has only an 87 minute running time. In a hallway, backstage at the theatre, John encounters the deeply delicious Anna Quale and, in less than a minute, the elusive nature of fame is examined. She almost recognizes him but doesn’t want to make of fool of herself. He counters like a nodding acquaintance who delivers the gossip that she knows Him (read: John Lennon), very well. This looking glass dance ends with her saying, “You know, I don’t think you look like him at all,” and flouncing off. John is left to remark to his own reflection, “She looks more like him than I do.”

Escape is an important sub-theme of the movie. They are always trying to get away. George opens a door and falls down his own rabbit hole. An oh-so-tightly-wound advertising exec, perfectly manifested by the uncredited Kenneth Haigh, is waiting for a type to be sent to him. Neither the secretary who ushers our lad into the office, nor the exec, see George Harrison. They only see the type. Not recognizing one of the four most famous men in world, this twit starts to map out a new advertising blitz for his hottest commodity, Susan (a very young Jean Shrimpton in photo only.) “Oh, that posh bird who always gets everything wrong …” The exec can’t handle any suggestion that he isn’t the hippest man on the planet and has George removed.

Goaded by Paul’s grandfather (brilliantly played by Wilfred Bramble), Ringo goes off parading. (Lester insists to this day that Bramble saved the whole production by keeping the non-actor Beatles in line and on mark.) In a cheap overcoat and cap, Ringo Starr walks the rain wet, working-class streets unseen. This vignette on unrecognized fame is both ironic and nostalgic. Ringo tries to find his own identity, separate from his group, but only looks in the places he’s already been. Even the police don’t know him.

Nick, this movie is in my DNA and I thank you for asking me to examine it. On that hot day in Orange, this movie was just a heady celebration of the men who made the music. As I run the film in my head I see what else is there. Early in their mad career, through the auspices of a great young director, John, Paul, George and Ringo held up the mirror to fame and saw some very interesting things. Take a look at A Hard Days Night, watch it carefully. It is great fun, great music and a great warning. Here is fame, here is glory, this is how it works.