Hey Jude

         ;    I began really getting into music when I was not quite a teenager. My dad had reel-to-reel tapes that we couldn’t listen to due to the player being broken. He had several Beatles albums: “Let It Be,” “The Magical Mystery Tour,” “Sergeant Pepper,” and “Yellow Submarine.” I wanted to hear some of these, but we couldn’t(I was told that I broke the reel-to-reel player climbing on the shelf trying to get something, knocking the reel-to-reel player off  and having it crash to the floor. I was five at the time.). I felt really bad, even years later. So I looked for some Beatles albums when we went to Target one night.

They had “The White Album” on vinyl (something I should have gotten but I didn’t know at the time any of the songs), plus we didn’t have a phonograph at the time. We did have a boombox though, with two cassette players in it. So I looked at the cassettes. “Sergeant Pepper” was there, but I wanted something to make up for the several albums he couldn’t hear anymore. I found what I thought was the jackpot: “The Beatles 20 Greatest Hits.” It had “Love Me Do”, “I Feel Fine,” “She Loves You” and all their early hits. Then on the second side, it started with “Hey Jude.” It probably is my favorite Beatles song, to this day. I listened to the tape over and over (forgetting that it was really for my dad). I made up for it later on a few years ago when I found a mint condition reel-to-reel player at a church auction and he had his reel-to-reels “reeling” again, and I was able to keep my “20 Greatest Hits,” my very first Beatles “album.”