Do You Promise Not To Tell?: The Final Story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club

By Pat Kinzer Mancuso

"Do You Promise Not to Tell? The Final Story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club" is the sequel to Pat Kinzer Mancuso's first book "Do You Want to Know a Secret? The Story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club". The OGHFC was ended abruptly in 1972 when the Beatles decided to shut down all of their fan clubs as the band broke-up in 1970. Pat's fan club newsletter was sighted as the reason as George did not like some of the content. George had given Pat permission to run this fan club by signing the fan club's charter several years prior. Pat was devastated by this accusation and tried for the next 5 decades to find out why. After the first book was published, she was able to put all the pieces together. The second book reveals what apparently happened all those years ago, plus incorporates stories of Pat's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: Jun 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9783347338579

Pat Kinzer Mancuso

Pat Kinzer Mancuso was the President of the Official George Harrison Fan Club from 1964 to 1972. Pat is a former long-time secretary, author of "Do You Want To Know a Secret – The Story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club" and "Do You Promise Not to Tell - The FINAL Story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club", Volunteer Merchandise Assistant for Peter Asher, and retired Travel Agent for Odyssey Travel/Pixie Dust Tours who specialized in trips to Disney locations and England Beatles sites. She lives in Trappe, Pennsylvania with her husband, Tony. She enjoys writing, traveling, scrapbooking, genealogy, reading, and attending Beatles-related concerts with her friends.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I originally wrote the book Do You Want to Know a Secret? The Story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club to get the end of the Club off my chest and into book form. When I first published it in 2005, Larry Kane (author of Ticket to Ride and also a news anchor in the Philadelphia area) told me You’ll never make a lot of money with your book, but you’ll have lots of fun. Just like with a trip, it isn’t only the destination that’s fun; it’s also the journey. That could not have been truer!

In my fan club office (1970)

In my Dream office – (The Beatles Apple office in London) (1971)

That first book, a lot of which encompasses part of my life, is the story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club from 1964 until early 1972. I sometimes wonder how much the Beatles affected the lives of other people—I know they certainly had a big impact on mine! I was the president of the Official George Harrison Fan Club, the only fan club for any of the individual Beatles that was actually sanctioned by one of the Beatles. I guess that gives me my 15 minutes of fame. However, it wasn’t all as glamorous as it sounds. In fact, at times it was very painful. The fan club ended in a bad way, which is the reason I felt the need to tell my side of the story. George might have had his own side to it, and there are fans out there (you know who you are) who have taken George’s side (whatever that may be!) over the years simply because of their dedication to him. That book had only one secret, and that was whatever was inside George’s head—the one secret I desperately wanted him to share with me, but he never chose to do so. It told the story of how being connected to someone famous definitely had its downside, but also had many upsides. Without George Harrison, my life would have been very different. Since the first book was written, so much in my life has changed—mostly for the better. For that reason, I have decided to do a sequel or an extended version of the first book. So, without further ado, I bring you … Do You Promise Not to Tell! After some background information on me, I will tell you what the secret in the first book was. I would never have found out if I hadn’t written the first book!

I hope you enjoy it.

Pat Kinzer Mancuso,

2020

In my travel agency office (2005)

CHAPTER ONE

MY EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY

My father, Guy E. Kinzer, was born on February 3, 1925, in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania. He did not have an official middle name—his birth certificate only listed E. However, the family all knew that E actually stood for Eugene, after Eugene Toomey, a boxer who was famous at the time. Gene’s father was John Michael Kinzer and his mother was Violet Minerva Danner Kinzer. On Dad’s side of the family, I am 100 percent German. Dad’s great grandfather on the Danner side (Frederick Danner) served in the Civil War and was actually held captive at Andersonville Prison. Dad’s parents (my grandparents) divorced when he was only 5 years old. His mother never remarried, but his father soon got married to a woman named Romaine. Neither of his parents had any more children, so Dad was an only child. He remembers growing up mostly on Derry Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His mother worked at Ryder’s Dairy Store on 18th and Walnut Street. Upstairs from the dairy store was an apartment where Helen and Dorothy Kyle lived.

My mother, Dorothy Dottie Kyle Kinzer, was born on August 12, 1924, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Her father was James W. Kyle, Jr., aka Jack Kyle, an insurance salesman and scout for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. Her mother was Helen Rebecca Keller Kyle. Both of them were from Mifflintown, Pennsylvania. They were married in 1922. Jack and Helen separated when my mother was 8 years old. Dottie was also an only child, although she did have some stepsiblings when her father married Betty Burkholder, the woman her father had been having an affair with. Ironically Helen and Betty were best friends (until Helen found out about the affair!). Jack and Helen were divorced on July 25, 1941. Jack was employed by Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company, and Helen was a clerical worker for the State of Pennsylvania. Helen and Dottie lived in a second floor apartment on 18th and Walnut Streets.

Gene and Dottie met in Ryder’s Dairy Store when Gene was 14 years old and Dottie was 15. They became friends, and soon they became girlfriend and boyfriend. Helen was not happy at all with this arrangement because she wanted to keep Dottie to herself. Nevertheless, young love won out, and they continued to date despite the fact that whenever Gene called Dottie, Helen hung up the phone! Since World War II was in full gear, Gene dropped out of school and joined the U.S. Army. Before long, he was stationed in England. Dottie and Gene continued to write letters back and forth to each other, and they became engaged. By now, Dottie had graduated from high school. Unfortunately, Gene was rather promiscuous during the war and got involved with an English girl. This infuriated Dottie, who immediately broke their engagement. When the war ended, Gene came back home. Eventually Dottie and Gene got back together, and they were married on February 17, 1946. Gene had several unsuccessful jobs after the war was over, and Dottie worked at an insurance company as a clerk. When they found out Dottie was pregnant (with me), Gene re-enlisted in the Army. He was stationed at Indiantown Gap in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. They got an apartment on Reel Street in Harrisburg. (See Appendix I in the back of this book for more details).

I, Patricia Anne Kinzer, was born on May 28, 1948, in the Harrisburg Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I did not like my name, but my father said he saved me from being named Priscilla. Apparently, my mother named all of her dolls Priscilla. Thank you, Dad! Since Dad was in the Army that made me an Army brat, something of which I have always been proud. My mother quit her insurance job and became a full-time housewife and mother. My parents never had any more children, so I was a spoiled brat and pretty much got whatever I wanted. When I was about 4 years old, we moved to a bigger apartment on 13th Street in Harrisburg. That is where we were living when Dad brought home our first television set. I can still remember the excitement when he set it up, turned it on, adjusted the rabbit ears, and there on the tiny screen (in amazing black and white) was The Howdy Doody Show! I was in love … with Buffalo Bob Smith. Every day I would sit in front of the TV set and eat dinner watching The Howdy Doody Show followed by the Pinky Lee Show. I also came to love Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy. One of my classic temper tantrums was because my mother would not get me a jar of grape jelly with a picture of Hopalong on it. She had a good argument—I did not like grape jelly—but I remember winning that argument because, after all, I was a spoiled brat and an only child.

When I was 6 years old, my father was transferred to Robinson Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. Dad went to Germany for a few months before Mom and I did. It was a horrible summer for me because several times we had to go to Indiantown Gap on the bus to get all kinds of shots. I was terrified of shots and screamed the entire time. For whatever reason, they gave the shots to me in the back of my thighs. Then we got back on the bus, and my legs (that were still weeping) would get stuck on the plastic bus seats. Also traumatic to me was packing for our trip to Stuttgart. We couldn’t take everything with us, and Mom sold some of my big toys. I can recall having a fit when someone came to pick up my toy kitchen set. An even more traumatic thing was giving our dog, Ginger, away to another family up the street from us. Mom and I just cried and cried. My grandfather Kyle drove Mom and me to the Harrisburg bus station in September of 1954. We had to take the bus to New York City where we then set sail on a ship called the U.S.S. Upshur. Neither Mom nor I had ever been on any kind of boat. Mom immediately got seasick before the ship even left the dock. She had taken three things with her on the ship to make my journey more comfortable—a large bar of Hershey’s chocolate, a package of ExLax, and a jar of peanut butter. I was a picky eater, so three times a day when we went to the huge dining room, of course, I would not eat anything they had to offer. I lived off of peanut butter sandwiches. After a couple days of this, I would get constipated, and Mom would give me some Hershey bar and some ExLax (which tasted the same to me!). Those three items made a perfect combination for me! The only things I remember on that trip was going to daily safety drills (where we wore life jackets), Mom getting sick in the bathroom, and playing with an Origami set on the floor with a little girl who, along with her mother, shared a cabin with Mom and me. Of course, I also remember the dining room! I didn’t realize it at the time, but this trip to Germany instilled the travel bug in me.

Living in Germany was wonderful. We all made lots of friends and saw lots of sights like the Neuschwanstein Castle, the Oktoberfest in Munich, numerous other castles, the Black Forest, Garmisch, Hitler’s Hideout in Berschgarten, Dachau, Zurich, Switzerland, and many other places. Dachau was probably the place that made a biggest impact on me. My grandmother Violet was visiting us, and we took her to tourist places on weekends. One day we went to Dachau. I had no clue what this place was and was shocked when both my mother and grandmother started crying when we were in a big garage with ovens. The tour guide showed us a sink in the garage that was hooked up to the ovens. He said this is where soap was made from the fat in the bodies. Then I was jumping on a large cement marker, and my father stopped me and said I couldn’t jump there because it was disrespectful to all the people who were buried in that spot. As simply as he could, he explained the Holocaust to me. I learned so many things about the Nazis and the Holocaust. I’ve been fascinated by the Holocaust ever since. My parents talked a lot about the Iron Curtain, but I was confused because we never saw a big curtain made out of iron! Dad took us to France to see the spot where he was almost killed during World War II. My grandmother Helen came to visit us once at Christmas. My grandmother Violet visited us another time. They never came at the same time because they didn’t like each other. We often saw my favorite cousins Donn and Carmen Swartz because they were both in the Army and stationed in Germany, too.

My first week of first grade in Germany was a nightmare. My school was on the Army base. The first day was only a couple days after we arrived in Stuttgart, and I was traumatized when my parents took me there and then left! I cried and screamed, and I guess my teacher, Miss Wheeler, was used to this. She held me on her lap the entire day; I was fine after that. One thing I remember distinctly was hearing rock ’n roll music for the first time. I was playing in the sandbox at recess, and our teacher was playing a radio for us from an open window. The song was Rock Around the Clock. Within minutes we were all dancing around the perimeter of the sandbox. Who knew the importance this rock ’n roll thing would be during the rest of my life!

There was lots of snow in Germany, which suited me just fine because I loved to play in it. On the Army base, there were a lot of huge hills (sort of like the ones in Valley Forge Park). In the summer, one of my favorite things to do was roll down the hill, and in the winter, I loved going sledding with my Dad.

I learned about German Christmas traditions. I especially liked the tradition where you leave your shoes outside the door on December 5th and the next morning they would be filled with candy by the mysterious Saint Nicholas, who I guess was related to Santa Claus! Germany was where I learned about the German tradition of coal in the stocking. I had a little friend whose mother was German, and her father was a G.I. She was bad one year, and all she got was real coal. Nothing else. I felt so bad for her. I was very happy on my first Christmas in Germany when Santa brought me a new child-size kitchen set to replace the one my mother sold before we left for Germany. Germany was also where I learned that Santa Claus was not real. My friend Susie Farrell, who was a year older than me, told me this awful truth! I told her she was wrong, and we should go to my apartment and ask my mommy! When I told Mom what Susie had told me (Susie was present for this revelation), she started to cry. I thought uh oh. Mom told me Susie was right, and later she read me the Dear Virginia story. I remember saying So, does that mean there is no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy either? Very upsetting, but more so for my mom. Another popular holiday on the Army base was Halloween. Every year, my grandmother Helen would send me a new Halloween costume (ironically, manufactured at the Collegeville Halloween Costume factory). Since there were so many kids in the Army Base (and because it was so safe), we went out in packs—and we didn’t even have to take an adult with us! We got so much candy, we had to come home once or twice to empty our bags out and then continue to another apartment building. I remember once being a princess, and once Bugs Bunny.

Once a week, a German teacher would come to school and teach us to speak and write German. If only I could remember more than counting to ten and how to sing Ten Little Indians in German! For one thing I would’ve enjoyed learning more German because then I would’ve been able to take advantage of our television set. All we had were German channels. In the second grade, we studied Japanese for some reason. While I remember some German, I don’t remember any Japanese!

I left my tonsils in Germany. When I was 7, I got sick a lot with tonsillitis. I remember having to go to the Army hospital’s clinic every day for a week at a time to get the dreaded penicillin shots. Then eventually I had to go to the hospital to have my tonsils removed. I was in the hospital for 3 or 4 days. I shared a room with three other kids (all from one family). We had a horrible nurse who called us all we—as in We are going to have our dinner now and Now we are getting our shots. The night before the surgery, we were given a disgusting dinner of pureed food. I recall it was three lumps of white, brown, and purple. None of us ate it. Instead, we mixed all the food together in the middle of the table and made paste out of it. Our nurse was furious, and she made us go to bed without any dessert! Fortunately, our parents and doctor told us after the surgery, we could all have ice cream. The next morning, the nurse came in, and one by one, we all got suppositories that made us sleepy, and then we were taken (one after the other) to the operating room. The anesthesia of the day was ether. I remember lying on the table, and a nice lady put a mask on my face, and then she said we would recite One Two Buckle My Shoe. Suddenly I smelled something foul, and I never got past Three Four Close the Door. I can still smell the ether to this day! The next thing I remember was waking up with a sore throat, and my parents were there. I told Mom I had to go to the bathroom, so she took me … and I passed out on the floor of the bathroom, which scared my mom to death! Then Mom got yelled at by that Gestapo Nurse. I also remember that none of us kids wanted any ice cream!

Another memorable thing was getting my dog, Inky. I was still upset that we had to leave Ginger in Harrisburg, so my parents decided to get a puppy. One afternoon we went to someone’s apartment where their dog had a litter of puppies. The mother dog was a longhaired dachshund, and the father dog was a black cocker-spaniel. I don’t remember how many puppies there were, but we picked out a female dog and we named her Inky. Inky was my second sister (since my parents didn’t have more children, all of our dogs were considered to be my sisters). I had my first boyfriend in Germany also. He lived downstairs from us. His name was Walter and was a year older than me. We used to pretend we were married, and we played house using my twin boy-and-girl dolls as our children. I also had a spot outside our building where I tried to dig my way to China. Every day, I went out there and dug with a spoon. I made a pretty good dent in it by the time we went back to the States. We lived in Germany for 2½ years. I loved every minute of it. We were lucky, unlike many military families, in that we did not move around a lot, even though my father was in the Army for 22 years.

I was 8½ years old when we returned from Germany (in March 1957). Dad was now stationed at the Valley Forge Army Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, (where he worked as an MP—military policeman) much to the dismay of both of my grandmothers who expected us to live in Harrisburg. We lived briefly in an apartment in Norristown. My mother hated Norristown and the neighborhood. I didn’t mind it too much, as long as I had people to play with during recess at Hancock School. I recall some of the girls inviting me to play jump rope with them, and I remember sitting on some steps playing jacks and marbles. One good thing about the school was that I could come home every day and eat lunch. I ate lunch in front of the TV set watching Chief Halftown, a Philly icon. I actually got to meet him decades later at Dutch Wonderland (an amusement park in Lancaster, Pennsylvania). In September of that year, my parents found an apartment in Collegeville/Lower Providence Township. It was only about 20 minutes from Norristown but was closer to Valley Forge Army Hospital. I truly loved it there. I had other kids to play with, and also trees and bushes, which I didn’t have in Norristown. I entered the Henry K. Boyer Elementary School in September, near the beginning of the school year.

When I came home from school at the end of the day, I’d see the end of American Bandstand when Dick Clark would say Stayed tuned for the Mouse, and then I watched my latest obsession, the Mickey Mouse Club. I loved the Mouseketeers, and I wanted to BE Annette Funicello. My mother even bought me a Mouseketeer uniform for Christmas from the official Disneyland catalog. It was a blue pleated skirt, a white turtleneck shirt with my name across the front, and a pair of Mickey Ears with my name inscribed on it. Annette was 14 years old when I was 10. I thought she was the most beautiful person in the entire world. My Uncle John (brother of my grandmother Helen) became my hero when four of the Mouseketeers came to Harrisburg on July 9, 1958, to promote a new Disney movie called Light in the Forest. Somehow, Uncle John had connections with someone who worked at a radio station in Harrisburg, and he found out that the Mousekeeters were being interviewed on the radio. He was able to take my parents and me to the radio station to meet Annette Funicello (age 14), Tommy Cole (age 16), Doreen Tracey (age 15), and Jimmie Dodd (age 48). I was beyond excited as I’d never met anybody famous. I remember being taken into a room with a bunch of chairs facing a table where the Mouseketeers would be interviewed. We sat down in the front row. Soon the fabulous foursome came in the room and sat down in the row behind us while they waited to be interviewed. We were the only guests at the station that day. Annette was sitting behind me, and I recall turning around (sitting on my knees) and staring at them and panting. My parents were talking to Jimmie Dodd (the grown-up Mousketeer). The other three Mouseketeers thought I was funny, and they kept laughing at me. Jimmie looked at them and gave them the evil eye, and they stopped laughing. I was so nervous I couldn’t even speak to them. After their interview, the plan was to go to another radio station where only Annette was going to be interviewed. Annette was famous also as a singer. At the time, she had released two songs—How Will I Know My Love? and Don’t Jump to Conclusions. The Mousketeers were being driven in a blue Thunderbird convertible. We followed them in our car, and we went in this other radio station with them. By now I had calmed down a little bit. We all went in the lobby of the station where we had to wait until Annette was called to another room for her interview. I remember there was a table with a bunch of boxes filled with 45 RPM records. Annette, Tommy, and Doreen immediately headed to the boxes and started flipping through the records. I got up and joined them, and I remember chatting a little to Annette. When she was called to this other room to be interviewed, they said I could go with her. She sat in this big overstuffed leather chair, and I sat on the arm of the chair. She and I chatted while she wasn’t on the air. The only thing I remember her saying was that her favorite song was Stupid Cupid by Connie Francis. She was very nice to me, especially considering that I was only a little kid compared to her teenage self! My family was also given complimentary tickets to the movie premiere for Light in the Forest later that night at the Senate Theater. That day was definitely the highlight of my young life.

As mentioned, we moved to the Pearlstine Apartments in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, when I was 9½ years old, and I was enrolled in H. K. Boyer Elementary School (in the 4th grade). It was at Boyer School where I met three girls who were destined to be my best friends—Linda Poper, Linda Folding, and Linda Filopanti. Apparently, the name Linda was very popular in 1948! Linda Filopanti lived the closest to me, and we hung out all the time—after school, on weekends, and in summer.

Linda Poper and I were especially close, despite the fact that I played a dirty trick on her. We both were fans of the Mickey Mouse Club, and after my wonderful experience of meeting the Mousketeers, I decided to make life-size cardboard figures of some of them (Annette, Karen, and Cubby). I set them up on chairs at my kiddy-size table and chairs set, and invited Linda to get off at my bus stop after school one day. I told her that some of the Mouseketeers were visiting at my house and they wanted to meet her. When we got to my apartment and Linda realized she’d been duped by me, she started to cry and called her mother to come pick her up immediately. She didn’t talk to me for a couple weeks after that.

During the summer our school district, Lower Providence School District, reorganized and sent some kids to different schools. I was devastated when I started the fifth grade and found out that Linda Poper was reassigned to another school. I came home from school crying my eyes out. Our parents talked on the phone and this is how we found out what happened. We still saw each other sometimes on weekends. I remember going to Linda’s 10th birthday party, and she also came to mine. We were born two days apart.

When I was in fifth grade, Mom was hired as a school crossing guard at my bus stop, and I was made a member of the school’s safety patrol. It was funny but all three of us were sort of in the military!

In 5th grade, I started having a crush on a boy in my class named Curtis Loughin. He was very cute, although a bit nerdy because science was his favorite thing in the world. Curtis gave me my first kiss. I was playing hopscotch with some other girls, and when I made it to the end, suddenly Curtis was standing there and gave me a kiss (and then ran away—probably one of his friends put him up to it). In the 6th grade, things got serious. Poor Curtis had another girl who also liked him. Her name was Patty Lattanzi. We hated each other. At the time, Curtis, Linda Folding, Jason Regar, and I had created a newsletter called the Shep Times. It was a pretend thing. Shep (a dog) was actually Linda Folding. The four of us often stayed inside at recess to write this newsletter. Our teacher, Mr. Struthers, loved this because it was actually teaching us writing skills (although we didn’t think of it that way). We became the teacher’s pets. Sometimes Patty Lattanzi would also stay inside, and occasionally we would go after Curtis and try to kiss him. He and Jason ended up hiding in the boys’ bathroom. Sometimes Patty and I would be in the classroom together at recess, and we would each take a blackboard and drew big hearts with Patty K. Loves Curtis L. and Patty L. Loves Curtis L. Then we’d start erasing each other’s work. One time Patty brought something to school wrapped in a newspaper and invited me to take a look. I was horrified when I saw she had a dead pigeon wrapped in the newspaper! I’ve been scared of birds ever since. One day was especially bad. Patty had managed to turn all the other kids in the class against me, even my buddy Linda Filopanti. We were both at the same bus stop (where my mother was the crossing guard). When we got off the bus, I went over to Linda and punched her! Mom broke us up; when we got home, I had some explaining to do! My father ended up calling Mr. Struthers at home and told him about this. He told Dad he would take care of it the next day in school. After the Pledge of Allegiance and The Lord’s Prayer, Mr. Struthers said he was going to try something new. He was going to go around the room asking each of us what was new at our bus stops. Uh oh! When it became my turn, I stood up and said I punched Linda Filopanti yesterday, and Patty Lattanzi turned everyone against me. He said both Pattys had to join him out in the hallway. We went out, glaring at each other, and he asked us to explain. We told him the whole horrid truth, and then he made us apologize to each other, and shake hands. Sheepishly, we went back to the classroom and sat down. After that, Patty decided to take me under her wing, and teach me how to be normal. She said she would bring me cool clothes from her house to wear. So each morning before school, we would go in the girls’ bathroom and I would change into her clothes and she would fix my hair. Mortifying. I was so glad when 6th grade was over. I didn’t realize what she was doing to me would later be referred to as bullying. Interestingly, after high school graduation, I didn’t see Patty again until 2019 when we both showed up at a luncheon of Methacton High School girls! Patty didn’t even remember bullying me and apologized profusely when I reminded her.

In 1960, Dad got reassigned to Korea. This time Mom and I couldn’t go with him. The most memorable thing about this was when my father taught my mother how to drive a car since he would be away. At the time we had a stick-shift car. I’ll never forget the evening we went out for mom’s first driving lesson. As I cowered in the back seat, my short life passed before my eyes, the car jerked back and forth, back and forth, until finally Mom got out of the driver’s seat, and Dad took the driver’s seat and we went home. The next day, we got a new car—a bright red Chevy Corvair with automatic transmission! Mom got her driver’s license shortly thereafter. When school ended that year and I graduated from elementary school, we (along with Nana Helen) took a trip down South to visit Uncle John (Nana Helen’s brother) and Aunt Winifred who lived in Raleigh, North Carolina. I remember it being very hot (we didn’t have air conditioning in the car). We visited Washington, DC, on the way down and stayed with some friends from Germany who were now stationed in that area. I recall visiting the US Mint in Washington, DC, and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. In North Carolina, I met some of my cousins—Nancy, Phil, and Lynn. I was very shy, but my parents made me go to the Y with them and swim in the pool.

By the time I started 7th grade at Rittenhouse Junior High School, my father had already left for Korea. It was a rough time for us financially. Although Mom got a check from the Army every month, it wasn’t enough. Dad couldn’t send us much money either, so Mom got another job working at Raffeo’s, a local supermarket, wrapping meat in the meat department. She didn’t make much money doing this either (50 cents an hour), and I was most upset knowing that she wasn’t there when I came home from school. In fact, one day I couldn’t take it anymore, and I called her boss on the phone and told him it wasn’t fair that he made her work after I got home from school, and that he didn’t pay her enough money! So, he gave her a raise to 75 cents an hour and told me to come to the supermarket after school every day. When I got there, he gave me little jobs to do—like stacking the boxes of Tastycakes. I got seriously addicted to Peanut Butter Tandykakes (an addiction that has followed me all of my life!). Both of my grandmothers came to our apartment on Christmas. Since my grandmothers didn’t like each other, my mom said you could cut the tension with a knife.

When Dad came home from Korea, Mom, Inky, and I drove to the Philadelphia Airport to pick him up. My mother was terrified driving on the Schuylkill Expressway (the only way we knew to get to the airport). I was hanging out the window and yelling her information on what cars were close, if there was a truck coming, etc. By the time we got to the airport, Mom parked the car and sat there and cried. Fortunately, Dad drove the car home. Inky was beyond overjoyed also to see Dad. Finally, everything was okay again, almost. Unfortunately, Dad didn’t get reassigned to Valley Forge … he got reassigned to Harrisburg! After several months of commuting back and forth, he was able to get his orders changed so he could return to Valley Forge. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief— especially me, since I was now in junior high school. In July 1965, Dad finally retired from the Army, in a grand ceremony on the front lawn of the Valley Forge Army Hospital. After a month or so with no job, Dad was hired as a security guard at Gulf Oil Company in Philadelphia. This was great—he was making more money, and he got a pension check from the Army besides!

The Collegeville area is where I spent the rest of my life. Living a rather solitary life, with no brothers or sisters, no family, except parents, nearby (Harrisburg is 2 hours from Collegeville), and add being an Army brat to that and you’re left with a lonely child who longed to be around groups of people and lived inside her head—I was always making things up to do. When forced to spend one entire summer living in my grandmother’s second floor apartment in Harrisburg while she recovered from bunion surgery, I constructed an entire hospital (complete with furniture) out of nothing but white paper, scissors, and tape. Another time, I planned an entire Army camp outside, enlisting three younger neighborhood children as soldiers. I was also known for trying to teach my dog Inky to read, attempting to form a band with neighborhood children who had musical instruments none of them could play (I played the bugle!), orchestrated neighborhood carnivals (refrigerator boxes make great amusement park rides!), and organized softball games in the backyard.

But by far, the most constructive thing I ever did was start fan clubs. My first fan club was for Annette Funicello of the Mouseketeers. The kids in my neighborhood were forced to join this club. I spent hours making up membership cards and writing biographies of Annette. When I tired of this, I started a fan club for Lassie. I made Annette an honorary member of this club, although she never knew it because many years later I found her envelope of fan club materials in my mother’s dresser (probably along with all those letters I used to mail to Santa Claus!). When the Mickey Mouse Club ended in 1959, I was devastated. I started to watch the Popeye Theatre with Sally Starr instead, as well as Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Life is just not fair! I do recall meeting Sally Starr at a children’s shoe store once, and I tried to meet the Lone Ranger at the Shrine Circus in Harrisburg. My grandfather Kinzer was a Shriner. He and Dad took me to this circus, and during intermission they went and knocked on his dressing room door, but he didn’t want to see anyone. Feeling sorry for me, my grandfather introduced me to Emmett the Clown instead.

My next obsession, at age 14, was with American Bandstand, a dance show that originated in Philadelphia. Linda Filopanti and I would come home from school every day and watch Dick Clark and the Bandstand Regulars. We also danced in front of the TV. The only people who ever saw me dance was Linda F. and my mother (look out girls … don’t bump into the TV set!). The Bandstand Regulars were just a group of regular kids who lived mostly in Philadelphia. The show was live every day starting around 4:00 pm. Linda and I had our favorite couples—Richie Cartledge and Geri Iannetti, Lorraine Iannetti and Steve Lewis, Michelle Lebowitz and Bobby Baritz, Bruce Kaplan and Carmella Astrella, Bruce Richard and Barbara Warchol. We collected their pictures from magazines and hung them on our bedroom walls and inside our school lockers, we made chewing gum chains (as long as our favorite guy was tall), and we saved our lunch/ice cream money from school and called them from a pay phone near our houses. One time (Linda remembers this, but I do not!) we saved up some money and bought a ring from Woolworth’s. We sent it to Richie and told him to give it to Geri and then flash it on the TV camera so we’d know she got it! Apparently (according to Linda), Geri did indeed flash it so we could see. Eventually the show went from being live to being taped on the weekends (and then shown during the week). My mother called WFIL-TV and requested tickets for us to attend a taping of the show. To our amazement, three tickets arrived in the mail for a date in April of 1963. My parents drove us (Linda Filopani, school friend Jeannette Faulkner, and me) down to 46th and Market Streets in a very bad part of Philadelphia. We were nervous at first, but before we knew it, we were hanging around with the rest of the Bandstand gang. During the course of the show, my father took a picture of us with Bruce Kaplan. Bruce asked for a copy of the picture, but unfortunately it didn’t turn out. I wrote him back and told him. He wrote back to me and asked if I would start a fan club for him. I said yes. On the back of his envelope were a bunch of stickers advertising various other Bandstand fan clubs. Naturally I wrote to all of them and before long I was a member of about 20 fan clubs for Bandstand Regulars.

Linda F. and I were soon going to Bandstand almost every Saturday. Sometimes Linda Poper came with us. When my father couldn’t drive us there, we had to hop on the P & W (Pennsyslvania & Western) train in Norristown, and then change at 69th Street (Upper Darby) and take the Market Street El to 46th Street to the WFIL-TV studio. We had no fear whatsoever! To this day, I have no idea why our parents let two 14-year-old girls do this alone! It wasn’t long before I started the Geri Iannetti Fan Club, followed by the Bruce Richard Fan Club and the Anna Russo Steve Lewis Fan Club. Geri’s younger sister Lorraine and I became fast friends, and we would talk on the phone a lot running up our parents’ phone bills. We saw a lot of rock ‘n roll idols also on Bandstand—such as Little Stevie Wonder, Neil Sedaka, Paul and Paula, Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Ronettes, Jerry Lewis, and the list goes on. The most amazing person we saw was Little Stevie Wonder. That happened on July 8, 1963, a day when my parents were able to take us down to Bandstand. My parents were also allowed to sit on chairs in the back of the studio and watch. That particular day, Stevie (who was 13 years old at the time) arrived with his mother. She sat in the back with my parents (my mother said she was very pleasant, but she cried when Stevie started performing). All we knew about Stevie was that he had the #1 song on Billboard—Fingertips Part 2. When it was time for him to appear, Dick Clark said we all had to sit quietly in the bleachers and not move because Stevie was blind. As we sat mesmerized, they brought out a little stool and then someone escorted Stevie to the stool. He sat there with his bongo drums between his knees and lip-synced to Fingertips Part 2. Part of the way through the song, he dropped the bongos, stood up, and played the harmonica. All we were allowed to do was applaud when he was finished. He was then set up at the autograph booth so he could sign autographs for us. At the time, I was not into autographs, so I didn’t bother to get one. Can you just imagine how much a Braille autograph of Stevie Wonder during his first national TV performance would be worth today?

I must mention here that on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. I was in Johnny Green’s Shorthand Class when the news came over the public address system that our president had been shot. We were all dismissed to our homerooms immediately. When we were back in our homerooms, another announcement came over the PA speaker that President Kennedy had indeed died. Many people were crying by this time. Our school buses were arriving, some parents arrived to retrieve their children, and even some of the teachers were crying. When I got home, it was very quiet in my house. My mother sat on the couch with her eyes glued to the TV set. Inky was sitting on Mom’s lap. My father was at work. When Dad came home, he brought hoagies from Lou’s Hoagie Shop in Norristown because he knew nobody would want to cook dinner. We were off school for a few days. We did nothing but watch television. We sat shocked as Lee Harvey Oswald was killed live on TV in front of us. We watched the gut-wrenching funeral also. I think we went back to school for a day or two and then it was Thanksgiving. The United States was in deep mourning.

One day, to add to our grief, Dick Clark announced to us at a taping that he was taking American Bandstand and moving to California where he would have better access to guest stars. California surf music was now in, and South Philly street corner music was on its way out. All of us were in a state of shock. How could Dick do this to us?? Didn’t Philadelphia give birth to Bandstand? Dick’s show made nationwide stars out of many of the Regular dancers. Now they were being cast aside, back to their hum-drum lives as normal Philadelphia high school students. The last taping in Philadelphia would take place on January 11, 1964. Dick’s announcement was met by silence and shock—and then everybody rushed madly to get tickets for the last show during the next commercial. I asked Linda if she wanted to go, and she initially said no. Thinking that her mind had temporarily gone blank or something, I rushed over and got tickets for the two of us. The last taping was a very sad occasion. To most of us, it seemed as if Dick Clark was ruining our lives, splitting up friendships, etc. At one point during the taping, Dick played a song called I Want to Hold Your Hand by the Beatles. None of us really knew it. I’d never heard it before. Linda and I were sitting in the bleachers talking to a girl named Helen Jones. When this song came on, Helen whipped a clipping out of her purse from Newsweek magazine. It was a picture of the Beatles and a little article saying how they were causing something called Beatlemania in England. Also during the show, Dick played She Loves You also by the Beatles. Of course, the Regulars danced that day like their lives depended on it. The last bit at the end of the show had to be done over three times because everybody was having fits and trying to break through the plywood map of the United States used at the beginning and the end of every show. Then it was all over, and we got our coats and headed out to the parking lot where there were many tearful goodbyes.

CHAPTER TWO

I LOVE THEM, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH! FEBRUARY 1964

I was still grieving for American Bandstand when the Beatles took the United States by storm. Since I desperately needed to fill the void in my life, I enthusiastically embraced the Beatles and Beatlemania. It was actually pretty amazing how things seemed to change almost overnight. In the week or two following my last day at Bandstand, radio stations started playing Beatles music constantly with an occasional song by Peter & Gordon, the Dave Clark 5, Gerry & the Pacemakers, and the Rolling Stones to balance things out. By February 1, the Beatles took over the #1 spot on Billboard, where they stayed until May 9th. This whole new era was now called the British Invasion. The second British Invasion act to hit #1 was Peter & Gordon. The Beatles were all over the TV news; girls were screaming at various airports around the world where they appeared. The Beatles adorned the covers of magazines and newspapers. I, of course, purchased their records (and magazines!). I spent many hours on the phone with friends, studying the black and white cover of I Want to Hold Your Hand and trying to decide which Beatle was the cutest. The best thing was that the Beatles were soon coming to New York City to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. Prior to this time, the Ed Sullivan Show was known for the type of variety acts and singers that our parents liked. Of course, he DID have Elvis on his show years ago—and older siblings of my friends remembered this event with great enthusiasm. But it was a stupid show now—why would anyone watch a show that often featured a puppet mouse named Toppo Giorgo?

Around this time, I had finally decided to give up on my crush, Curtis Loughin. This was not because of the Beatles (not yet at least), but because I was now in love with a 11th grader, Jimmy Kilgannon. I didn’t even know Jimmy, but it didn’t matter. The day I decided I was over Curtis, I wrote him a note, told him this news, and gave it to a guy named John who was in Curt’s homeroom. John promised to give it to him. I knew Curt would be overjoyed because ever since the 5th grade, I’d been sending him birthday and holiday cards that were so full of sap (To My Darling on His Birthday and other such nonsense!). Linda Poper and I were now in the same school again (Rittenhouse Jr. High School). Linda Folding was also at Rittenhouse but we didn’t see much of each other. The following year, Linda Folding’s family moved to Phoenixville, and she attended the Phoenixville High School. During the 7th grade, our new school, Methacton High School, was being built. We moved into Methacton at the beginning of 8th grade. Linda had a crush on a guy named Denis Rees who was a friend of her older brother, Charlie. Linda and I both kept a daily log of what Denis and Curt (and later Jimmy) wore to school.

The Beatles’ popularity grew; it seemed, by the hour. On January 20, they put out an album called Meet the Beatles. This was only the second LP I ever owned. The first one was the one about the Mickey Mouse Club that I had autographed by the four Mousekeeters I met when I was 10. After school each day, Linda Filopanti and I would walk across the Perkiomen Bridge to downtown Collegeville (past the Collegeville Halloween Costume Factory) and hang out at the Collegeville Drug Store and Soda Fountain, drowning our latest school sorrows in vanilla cokes. The drug store had a great selection of magazines, and we’d always gone there to purchase the latest magazines featuring Bandstand regulars, and I went there for all my fan club–related film developing needs. Now we were buying magazines on the Beatles. We also purchased our Beatle Bubblegum cards there. Wednesday was the big day—it was the day the bubblegum cards arrived. We would pool our allowances and buy a whole box of them and then sit at the soda fountain, open all the packages, and leave the gum and wrappers on the counter for the owner to clean up. The owner, Jim Moyer, was also the fire chief in Collegeville. I wonder if he ever forgave us for the mess we made every Wednesday.

The day after Meet the Beatles came out, we took a copy of it to school. After school, we sat at the soda fountain studying the picture on the cover and deciding who was going to be our favorite Beatle. Linda was three months older than me, so she chose first. She decided 21-year-old Paul McCartney would be her favorite. This was a relief to me because I didn’t think Paul was the most handsome (although he was known as the cute Beatle). I selected the youngest, 20-year-old George Harrison (also known as the quiet Beatle). This was one of those days that would change my life forever. I also liked Ringo Starr, so I decided he would be my second favorite—a backup in case I changed my mind about George for whatever reason.

The week prior to February 9th was a week unlike any other in the United States. The Beatles’ plane, flight number 101 Pan Am Yankee Clipper, was due to touch down at John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK Airport changed its name from Idlewild Airport on December 24, 1963) in New York City on Friday, February 7th, at 1:35 pm. The disc jockeys on the radio had everyone half-crazed with the excitement of Beatlemania. Some 3,000 girls from all over New York City and surrounding vicinity played hooky from school that day to hang out at the airport and wait for the Beatles. Unable to pull in the radio waves of Beatles guru Murray the K, I settled for Cousin Brucie Morrow on WABC radio (also known as W-A-Beatle-C!), also in NYC. Cousin Brucie followed the Beatles’ trip to New York minute by minute from the second they touched down on US soil until the second they left.

The New York Daily News reported (on February 8th):

More than 3,000 shrieking, bug-eyed fans, suffering from a virulent attack of Beatlemania, gave an ear-piercing welcome to the Beatles yesterday as the mop topped singing group arrived from London for a 10-day tour. Blithely deserting their classrooms, the frantic, clamoring kids invaded Kennedy Airport and poured past reinforced police lines to proclaim their love for the rock ’n roll group. Spurred on by eager press agents, the fans screamed, waved banners, hung from buildings, and stamped out Yeah, yeah, yeah. The staid old Hotel Plaza in Manhattan, home of dowagers and diplomats and now the Beatles, quailed next under the assault of screaming kids trying to reach, touch, and see their champions. Police came to the rescue, throwing up barricades and calling in the mounted troops. The 50 policemen and women were reinforced by private detectives. Surveying the battlefield around the fountain in the plaza facing Fifth Avenue, a hotel official said grimly, If this keeps up, the Beatles will have to go.

On the morning of February 7th, I walked to my school bus stop with my transistor radio stuck to my ear as though it had miraculously been transplanted there during the night. I didn’t want to miss a thing. I sat next to the bus window and placed my radio against the glass where I had better reception. Unfortunately, when I arrived in school, I had to leave my radio in my locker. After every class, I ran to my locker and checked out the latest Beatle progress. I was half nuts by the time school was dismissed. Of course, school let out around the same time the Beatles touched down, so everywhere you looked you saw a teenage girl with a radio stuck to her ear. My other friend Linda Poper and I listened to the radio all the way home on the bus. Oh my God, the Beatles were here, and we were breathing the same air as THEM!! I ran from the bus stop, radio still stuck to my ear, and into our apartment. They’re here, they’re here!! I announced to my mother before retreating into my bedroom. Other than to eat dinner and watch the Beatles arrive on the TV news, I spent the entire evening on my bed listening to Cousin Brucie who was by now WITH the Beatles in their hotel suite. When he wasn’t in their hotel suite, he was on the phone to one of them. Girls all over the United States were salivating. Every time he played Do You Want to Know a Secret? (lead singer George), I felt my body dissolving into a puddle on the floor.

I didn’t think I would make it until Sunday night, February 9th. My parents kindly relinquished the living room TV to me and retreated to their bedroom (where they watched the Beatles, too!). 8:00 pm was the magic time. Finally, the reallllly big shoe started. It was obviously not a normal night on the Ed Sullivan Show. The other guests on the show were overshadowed by the girls in the TV audience screaming desperately for the Beatles. Mercifully, Ed didn’t make us wait too long (he probably feared for his life as these were the days of live television!). By the time the Beatles came on my TV screen, I thought I’d died and gone straight to heaven. I screamed the whole time they performed—BOTH times they performed (Ed had the foresight to put them on at the beginning and the end of the program). I had no idea what caused me to scream, but I was exhausted by the time it was over. My parents were hysterical with laughter. I dived for the telephone and spent the rest of the night talking about it to friends. Later, it was documented that during the time when the Beatles were on TV, not one crime was committed in all of New York City. It was also reported that 73,000,000 people watched Ed