Pictures in the Sand

 

Paul in Jamaica in the late 70s.
Photograph by Linda McCartney 

Pictures in the Sand

Written by David Mannweiler

The Indianapolis News

March 24, 1978

Indianapolis restaurateur Ken Cantanella was so bored that day last month on a Jamaican Beach he started pulling and pushing the sand into a sand castle. 

Two small girls walked up and stopped. "What are you doing?" they asked. " Building a sandcastle. Do you want to help?" asked the manager of the Wall Street, the Exchange, and Uncle Munchies restaurants. The girls joined his work crew.

 "Boy, you have big hands!" one child remarked to Cantanella. "I played football in college, and big hands made it easy to catch a ball or drop it," Cantanella joked. He added that his father had always told him he should play the piano because of his long fingers.

" Our father plays the piano, " one of the girls said. That's nice," Cantanella answered. He plays the organ, too, " she said. That's nice, too," Cantanella repeated, noticing the girls spoke with accents.

 Cantanella asked where they lived. "London." They replied.  Nothing too startling about that.

 Cantanella went back to work on the sandcastle. At that point, a man walked out of the surf and sat down." Hi, girls," he said.  Momentarily blinded by the sun, Cantonella couldn't see the man's face. "When I looked again," he said, "I knew who he was. I was so absolutely petrified, but I was trying hard to be nonchalant."

" How you doin'? "the ever-subtle Cantanella asked.  "Fine". Replied Paul McCartney.

 Anyone who hasn't been totally immersed in building sandcastles for the past 15 years might know Paul McCartney used to sing with The Beatles, an English musical group that made a few bucks and a few record albums.

Up the beach, in a cottage McCartney was renting at Round Hill, Jamaica, the newest McCartney, five-month-old James, started to cry. Daddy McCartney said the baby had stomach problems. Cantanella asked if he had tried Gatorade. "What's Gatorade?" McCartney wondered. Cantanella explained what it was. Said he had several packages of powdered Gatorade back at his rented Villa and promised to give McCartney one the next morning if the baby was still sick. 

The next morning, Cantanella went back to the beach and met Linda McCartney and the three other McCartney children.

While they were splashing on the surf, McCartney said he would bring out a new disco record, "Tonight's the Night" in May. He said he got into the disco sound when he went to Tramps, a London disco.

 Cantanella told McCartney he ought to release the record in Indianapolis during race week because the town is nuts. Then McCartney said," We always wanted to see that race? Would you put us up?" Cantanella managed to squeak, "Sure."

The last night he was in Jamaica, Cantanella invited the McCartneys to dinner, along with two other couples he and his wife had met on the beach. He came, drank Coke and scotch, and smoked a lot, but he was very normal. He breathed like everyone else. Cantanella said there was nothing pretentious about him at all. 

"At one point, Paul and I went into the bedroom to check on James, who was sleeping, and I had to say something to him. I had never acknowledged who he was. Remember? I told him I was a Beatles freak when I was growing up. And I told him, You meant everything to me."

 McCartney stopped him. "Don't say another word," he said. That's exactly what I felt about the Everly Brothers, and that's what I told them when I met them," he said.

So, Paul McCartney at the 500-mile race in May?  "I don't know," Cantanella said, "I really don't know whether to expect them. They said they'd let me know, but at least it's a possibility."