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| Sean and his nanny: October 8, 1979 (eek! it was my 3rd birthday!) photo by Pat Deese |
Sorry I never told you about seeing John and Yoko. Actually I never really met them, just saw
them so there’s a not a lot to tell. I
saw them at EMI in August 1968 and 1969.
Most of the time then, John would just help Yoko out of the Rolls, wrap
himself around her just about, and go up the stairs with her. He was Very protective of her because “fans”
(if you can call them that), would call Yoko various uncouth names. He never stopped and talked and I can’t
really blame him. None of them would really. Well, I saw Paul stop a couple times but only
to sign autographs on the run from car to stairs. The crowds were unreal. In 1968 when we were there, I‘d say about 50
or 60 people were waiting around EMI. By
1969,, more fans had begun working and of course the first thing you saved up
for just about was to go to England! So
the crowds by ’69 were closer to 100, and Emi is on a tiny street. With a tinier parking lot crowded with
cars. About the most outstanding thing
that happened was one time when getting out of the Rolls, Yoko caught her foot
and fell forward, colliding into Lynn (my high school friend I was with). Both Yoko and John apologized, while Lynn
looked at John as to say, “Run into me anytime you fool.” But John hadn’t run into her, Yoko had.
The next time I saw John wasn’t until 1974 when we were in
New York for George’s last couple of concerts.
That was funny! We were waiting around
at the club where the after-tour party was with our eyeballs glued to the
doorway to see who would arrive. We’d
found out Paul was in town so we were kinda hoping we’d get a double whammy and
get to see Paul and George. Anyway, I
was busying staring at the doorway when one of my friends said under her breath,
“oh my God, it’s Lennon!” He had arrived
by limo but the limo had pulled over to the curb a fair distance from the club
doorway because of the traffic and parked cars. So they had to walk from there
to the doorway. Anyway, after Tempy, the
friend of mine, made her announcement, I whipped around and said, “Lennon?” I was so shocked! By that time, Mr. Lennon was about a foot
away from me with a big smirk on his face – he’d heard me! I couldn’t have said, “John” right? I had to say Lennon. I felt so stupid. John, meantime, was immensely enjoying
watching everybody whip around and their eyeballs popping out of their
sockets. He said, “Keep cool everybody,
keep cool.” And looked at me and
grinned, and then I knew he’d heard me.
I wanted to crawl under the pavement!
It lasted a split second, it was embarrassing, but God, it was neat!
The only other time I saw him was for another split second
in 1979, the day before his birthday when he took Sean to Tavern on the
Green. We saw him come out of the
doorway, get into his limo, which was parked under the archway, and then when
he came back, he got out of the car and stopped long enough to take some
birthday presents from some fans. Laura,
one of my friends sitting in the car with me, whipped outo f my car, ran up to
him, shook his hand until his arm nearly fell out of its socket., and said “happy
birthday John God I can’t believe this….”
Despite the crowds, he ate it all up, particularly getting the
presents! Laura managed to babble
something about would he mind if she took a photo and when he said no, go
ahead, she took one but she was shaking so hard it’s a tad bit blurred. Knowing Laura, she also probably forgot to focus
too! Poor child. It meant a lot to see him because we’d been
waiting all week and only saw him that once, and after not having seen even a
photo of him for so long. One last thing
– when I first saw “the” license plate number (which we’d industriously
memorized when the limo picked him up and pulled away earlier) in my rearview
mirror and announced John was coming, I opened my door and nearly crammed it
into that limo, which by then was right
beside me. I could just see me putting a
big dent in that limo! Two other friend
of mine (Pat Deese and Ann Tishelman) were in the back seat and we were so
flustered in getting out of the car (I zipped out into a street full of moving
cars without even looking and left my car door wide open!) I
forgot to move the seat lever so that Pat could get out of the back seat. Pat was so flustered she forgot the seat had
a lever, so she contorted her body and squeezed out between the seat and the
car, landing on West 72nd Street on hands and knees, whereupon she
crawled over to the curbside. It must’ve
been hilarious! I laughed for an hour
when she told me about it later.
I’m enclosing the photos my friends and I took. I took a
whole roll just about at EMI, and that particular roll was in the camera that I
LEFT ON THE TRAIN on the way to Liverpool!!!
I was more upset about the film than the cheapo camera, needless to say.
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