What I regret

As I approach my 50th birthday, I look back and find that I have one big regret.

I regret quitting the Beatles before they really took off.

I'll never forget that fall night in 1959 when I toddled into the Casbah Coffee Club in West Derby. John, Paul, George, and Ken Brown, as the Quarrymen, were playing a skiffle number. I think it was George who remarked, "what's a bleedin' 3-year old American kid doing here?" But they needed a drummer and I had a precocious sense of rhythm. All I needed was a pot and a spoon, which Mrs. Best gladly obliged. After rocking with the lads on "Long Tall Sally" and "Too Much Monkey Business," John said "yer in."

Of course, as soon as my mom found out that I had wandered off, she came after me. I don't know how she made it across the Atlantic Ocean so quickly. For that matter, I don't remember how I got to Liverpool either. No matter. I apologized to the lads and quit the group. I was getting sleepy anyway.

It was just as well. I never would have been admitted to any of the Hamburg venues where the Beatles honed their skills. I mean, after they found out that George was underage, they deported him. You can imagine that they would have stopped a 4-year old at the door.

I never hear from Paul, but then I suspect neither does Ken Brown.