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On February 13, 1964, The Beatles invaded South
Florida. I was at Miami International Airport the day they arrived and took
the above picture with my mom & dad's Brownie camera!
We had plenty of
advance notice that The Beatles were coming, so we made
plans to skip school that day. Leaving home
at the usual time, my parents thought my brother and I
were off to school! A little later, we met up with our friend Stan McConkey
(Class of 66), jumped into his little Renault Dauphine
and headed south to Miami. Expecting a large
crowd, we decided to go straight to the airport to secure "front row seats". As I recall, The Beatles were
due to arrive sometime around 3 o'clock in the
afternoon, so we had the whole day to kill. We
bummed around the airport for a while and were later
arrested by airport security for vagrancy! We were
detained for an hour or so, then released.
By this time it was evident that something big was
happening. A huge crowd was building and we knew we had to
position ourselves if we wanted a good view. Working
our way through the crowd, we made it to the upper deck of the concourse.
After a long wait,
the big moment finally arrived. A huge jetliner pulled up
not far from where we were! A a ramp was wheeled
in position, the door opened and out popped The Beatles!
They stood at the top landing of the ramp and waved to the crowd for
a brief moment (as seen in the photograph) and were then whisked away in a waiting limousine. Having only caught
a glimpse of them, I was very disappointed. I expected
them to parade back and forth on the tarmac for everyone to see!
Anyway, I did get to see them and was witness to an
event of great significance. Our trip back to
Fort Lauderdale was a hurried one and as you might
guess, we were stopped for speeding! After all
was said and done we arrived home two hours late.
We obviously had some explaining to do! I don't
remember getting into trouble - my parents were really cool about it.
More than
forty years have passed since that day in February. I'm glad
we did what we did! If we hadn't, I
would never have gotten to see The Fab Four - my favorite musical group of
all time! I have two companion
photos to the one above. This is the best one. |
