The
Beatle’s Ticket To Ride
by Terry
Tannenbaum
The
year was 1965. And as the world turned, and the news filled our daily lives with
a consortium of unresolved issues in civil rights, the mess that was Viet Nam,
politics that guided and governed the space program and, the onset of Culture
Clash, the spark which had ignited the Globe to Beatle mania had arrived. As the
Fab Four reined love songs upon us and inspired million of teens to scream,
twist, and shout, I took it all in
and accepted everything as normalcy. I was just another kid growing up in The
Bronx, impressionable, but not stupid. I knew something wonderful was happening
around me. There was, after all, so much going on around each one of us; so much
by way of change, and challenge, pock marking our spirit with cries from anxious
mothers awaiting letters from their sons at war while each new invention, paten,
design, and discovery made our eyes water with a small hint of reminder as to
our capacity for achievement.
My
older brother, Neal, himself the product of the previous decade’s Leave it to
Beaver morality yet baby boomer idealism was my real idol. I looked up to him
although, for the most part, because we were twelve years apart he paid little
attention to me as he was busy readying himself for adulthood with his main
hobby, cars. There was also street corner stickball and hanging out with friends
on cherry red plastic covered swivel seats at Jack’s corner candy shop where
penny candy illuminated every kid’s sweet sparkling tooth. People knew each
other’s names from years if not generations of neighborhood familiarity.
Neal inherited a convertible
Corvette. It was the first causality of materialism to come out of our
parent’s unreasonable divorce. Dad, who trusted
Neal’s expertise in cars gave it up for a whopping $4,500 and Neal returned
with the American dream machine. Only one problem; Dad couldn’t drive a stick.
Neal gave him a few lessons. I watched from the side of the road as Dad looked
like he had it down easy as an egg cream when he surprised us both several
months later by exclaiming that he “doesn’t like driving the damn thing
because it’s too much work.”
It was just simply the coolest car
that anyone’s big brother could have. It was the sleekest, shiniest, the most
aerodynamic of all the road beasts to come out of that raging decade of design
inspired by fifties art deco, and post war fighter jets. To be invited for a
ride by big brother was a special treat filled with excitement, fear,
anticipation and finally awe.
One of their many monster smash hits
to come out of the moment was the Beatle screamer,
“Ticket To Ride.” There was something about the three minute chart
topper that made my brother crazy. He wasn’t a crazy kind of guy though. He
was actually very straight and logical in an orderly kind
of way. He had little patience for me, the little brother always
under him like a curious pest, forever asking and seeking out reasons in an
unreasonable, unordered world. Neal was studious, good with his hands, things
mechanical came easy to him. Engineering came to mind if Dad was asked to
comment on his bright future. Mom worried about him being drafted.
Me and Neal were nothing alike. My
dad always told me to wake up and get out of the clouds and come down to earth.
Whereas Neal was so good with his hands and could build, fix, repair, and figure
any blueprint or instruction manual, I was always breaking stuff and I
was good at daydreaming. I don’t know how he talked him into it, but,
despite never getting that shifter thing down, Neal convinced Dad to allow him
keep the car he couldn’t drive. Now it was all Neal’s. I loved that Vette.
There was nothing quite like the afternoon rides along the Grand Concourse with
the rag top down and the wind blowing all around me, raising my hands toward the
sun and hearing that supercharged little intro of “Ticket To Ride.”
There was a brotherly trust inherent
in driving with Neal and, an overwhelming feeling of safety. But as the
big block eight, other wise known as the legendary 427 revved up, he
worked the chrome fork shifter and gripped the wooden steering wheel with his
strong hand and I was thrown back into my blue plastic vinyl bucket seat, my
mind’s eye recording every detail of the car’s interior from the dash board,
with it’s cylindrical dials and the layout of the push button radio to the big
round speedometer which, at the time, went up to an unheard of 160 miles per
hour, wow! “Stingray” beneath
my breath.
Maybe it was the words that I sang along to, “ I think I’m going to be sad…I think it’s todayyyyy, yeah!” for it sure felt at times that I was a little sad but, not during those drives as the roar of the engine, the screech of rubber, the short and violent climaxing of gear changes, and the sweet, simple synchronicity of song changed me forever. As they sang, “She’s got a ticket to ride and she don’t care,” I didn’t have a care in the world either. I was growing up in the sixties, during the age of mighty muscle cars, and Beatle music.
Ticket
To Ride by Terry Tannenbaum
ttzero@netzero.com
I am a Native
New Yorker now residing in So. Fla. A graduate of S.U.N.Y. college @
New Paltz where I majored in English/Journalism/Theater. I am currently
developing an original screenplay, a romantic period drama, in a U.C.L.A.
workshop about a Bronx family in crisis