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| The San Francisco Ukulele Rebellion Gang at Battery Crosby! |
Mother's Day at Battery Crosby
I almost forgot it was Mother’s
Day until the bouncy, young girl gripped my soul, smiling and dancing as I sang
and played that Beatles song on my 8-string ukulele.
I made the trek to San Francisco via BART and bus as I’d done almost every Sunday with my ukulele, backpack and even a Hawaiian maraca my son had gotten me for Mom’s Day. I had made plans to meet up with various grown children later in the day – but meanwhile I was on a mission to play my ukulele with the San Francisco Ukulele Rebellion folks. We played ukuleles at a coffee shop every other Sunday for a couple of hours and on the other Sundays we met at various locations around San Francisco – at Golden Gate Park, out near the beach and this time Battery Crosby. I’d never been to Battery Crosby, so I met Dean at his flat in the upper Haight and we rode past Baker’s Beach and up the hill and parked. Then we walked down a short path with the entire Golden Gate stretched out before us – bits of fog rolling in past the Golden Gate Bridge and the brown rolling Marin Headlands across the Bay – Baker’s beach stretched out to the left of us. I knew that beach well – I used to walk down there with my dog daily as a teenager.
The trails to the batteries and the bluffs, cement structures built before World War II to defend the west coast, have recently been added. We were aware of the ocean just on the other side of the wall, but we had our own little amphitheatre and all we needed were ukuleles. This makeshift amphitheatre was built with the intention of housing artillery and defending the west coast – yet we had transformed it into a beautiful, peaceful place by playing our ukuleles.
We played and sang for at least a couple of hours. A family with the bouncy little girl stood above looking down and applauded every time we finished a song. The rest of our gang had wandered off to check out the beautiful view from way up on the bluff above us, but I’d stayed behind to sing a couple more songs – just for that little girl who loved the music so much.
“Play another!” the young girl said. My friends had all left, but how could I resist. Of course I had to.
So I strummed my ukulele and started with the intro to the Beatles song, “She Loves You.” Even my little grandson loves that song, often running around the house singing, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” I figured this little girl and her little brother would dig it. The beginning riff of the song sounded eternally beautiful as it echoed throughout the makeshift cement battery.
“She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!” I sang, switched from the E minor chord to the A 7, “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” I could hear her tiny voice echo me as I sang. She looked down with those big eyes of hers, swayed to the music and smiled as she sang along.
And suddenly, I couldn’t sing anymore, the words simply would not come out I remembered.
I fell in love with my life one Sunday in February. The year was 1964, and I was not quite seven years old when the Beatles arrived right into our flat on Second Avenue in San Francisco.
I remember my Mom getting all excited about the Ed Sullivan Show - something about the Beatles? All of us kids, me, my little brother Michael and little sister Jennifer, sat in our pajamas in the wood paneled den of the old Victorian railroad flat we lived in, watching the big screen black and white TV and waiting.
"Kids, what you're going to see is history." said my Mom excitedly, "Nothing will ever be the same after tonight." She paced back and forth, sat down and then got up again.
And, it never was the same again.
For that night the Beatles arrived right there in our den on Second Avenue in San Francisco – four guys with weird bowl haircuts (at least that's what they looked like to us) played music that would change the world.
As they started to play, my mother, beautiful and so young looking and dramatic, like an overgrown kid, gasped and yelled and clapped. "Oh, look kids.... It's THEM.... IT'S THE BEATLES..... AAAAHHHH....
They had arrived.
I was fascinated, and found myself tapping and swaying to the music right along with my Mom, getting caught up in the spell of the Beatles, John, Paul, George and Ringo. And before it was over, my mother and I held each other and swayed to the music, singing, practically yelling, "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah..." over and over again while my brother and sister stared at us, their mouths wide open in wonder.
I don't remember having anything in common with my Mother until that night. We were hooked. By the time I was seven, I knew every Beatles song by heart. We screamed whenever the Beatles showed up on TV. We screamed when the Beatles were mentioned on the radio. We sang along with all the Beatles songs and listened to Beatles records over and over again. We woke up with the Beatles and slept with the Beatles. I kissed my Beatles dolls that sat on my dresser, each of them, every night.
Mom passed away 15 years ago, after John Lennon and before George. I surround myself with the Beatles to this day, passing their music down to my kids and my grandson, their pictures intermingled with family photos wherever I am, their music always close by, and whenever I play or hear a Beatles song, I fall in love with my life all over again.
Some of my ukulele rebellion friends sang for me, their voices echoing from above as I strummed the chords on my ukulele choked up, unable to sing, feeling the salty cool air against my face as I remembered.
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