Hi-Ho, Everybody!

(Quick: My title was the often-repeated tagline of a character in a long ago TV show. Anyone know who? Under 50's may have trouble answering.)

So, it's just that kind of day, y'know, hi-ho, everybody! I keep tinkering with one thing or another, whether it's on my Mac here, or the computer at school, or even the iPhone. I keep looking for ways to accomplish certain things and ultimately finding work-arounds; as long as it works, I'm fine. We are very busy in the library -- today we had ten classes scheduled into our eight period school day. And I'm working on next year's orders, and the new website, and the kids are reading like crazy so I put up a sign about summer loan, too. And I'm still waiting to talk to the principal, which takes forever, even though I've sent him emails.

My big excitement today is Lost tonight. Also, and I know this is weird, but I made a very important decision last night, for some reason, and here it is:

The next time, if it ever happens, that Paul McCartney is doing a concert in the New York area, I want to see him.

Why did I think of this last night? Heaven knows; it was in that almost-falling-asleep time when crazy things flit through your head. I decided that it's something I should do before I die, if I have the opportunity, and that I would need to ask my nears and dears so that if I ever hear of a concert being announced, I can call and get the tickets right then and there without checking with anyone.

It's like unfinished business, in a way. I once almost saw The Beatles, when they played Shea Stadium in New York in 1965. I was eleven; it was a huge and heavily advertised concert, and my friend Jessica and I wanted to go. We called Shea and there were tickets available. Her mother said she could go; of course, she and her older sister had been navigating the subways on their own since they were five years old -- they took piano lessons in Queens every Saturday -- so she wasn't worried. My mother, on the other hand, was not sending an eleven year old to certain death, riding the subways back and forth to Queens at night. She did say that I could go, but only on one condition: my sister and her boyfriend had to drive us there.

Jessie and I waited eagerly for my sister and her drippy boyfriend (who had his own car) to come home. If I was eleven, my sister was sixteen, and the boyfriend seventeen. They had already been to Shea Stadium for baseball games, so no problem about his parents letting him go, and drive. The thing was, my sister said no.

I was outraged. We had already offered to pay for both of their tickets to the concert, as well as gas and tolls. We were going to treat them to a Beatles concert! Ehhh, my sister didn't feel like going. Her boyfriend (who turned out to be her current husband many years later), was okay with going, but he deferred to her, whatever she decided was okay with him. Well .... maybe, she didn't know, she wasn't sure, she'd been thinking about washing her hair ... You get the picture. Finally she said to me, hey, I know what: if you can make yourself cry, we'll take you. So I thought of all the horrible things I could possibly think of ... death of all my loved ones, I suppose, although I certainly wasn't including her at the moment. After a short pause, tears came, I think because I was so angry. I cried big drippy tears. I satisfied her requirement. And then she said

I was just kidding. I don't want to go.

I never saw the Beatles, and I LUUUVVVED the Beatles, but I have put this incident behind me, and did so many years ago; I don't even throw it in her face anymore, although I could, and I'd be justified, and she knows it. But I do think that if I ever have the chance to see Paul McCartney, I'll feel somehow that the planets are all aligned and everything is as it should be.



watching FRIENDS :: ENTRY #2043
READING: American Lion: Andrew Jackson by Jon Meacham