The "Ed Sullivan" TV show was playing in the background this hot Sunday August evening, 1964 when suddenly the kitchen wall phone rang and started a mini stampede of kids to answer, each expecting the call to be for themselves. "Who is this?" asked the kid..."Who?!". It was the long distance operator: "This is a person-to-person phone call from the offices of Pat Boone in Hollywood, California, asking for Chris Barnes". Mom took the phone while the two extensions in the house were quickly grabbed with a hand muffling the mouth piece. "They want Chris!" they yelled as I ran to the phone in our parents room pulling the phone away from whoever was holding it. "Yes, this is Chris Barnes..."Congratulations, Chris... you are a winner in the "Beatle Buddies' Club" contest...you have a won a trip for two to Hollywood California and tickets to see the Beatles in Las Vegas". By this point my mother was taking over the conversation and getting the information as my mind swirled with this amazing news and trying to make sense of it all but deep in my heart not feeling exactly surprised.
Several weeks before three friends and I were riding our bikes through the orchard areas north of the town of Yakima, Washington. Straight rows of apple, pear and cherry trees lined lonely roads leading to small burgs tucked here and there and where a small grocery store catered to the sparse population of homes, pickers, and warehouse workers. My friends and I were in need of a cold pop on a hot day. Behind the counter, high on the wall was a strange sight in this remote little store...a poster of the Beatles. It was wrapped in cellophane with an attached application to join the "Beatle Buddies' Club". The clerk explained to us that by buying a poster and joining the club you were entered into a contest that might win you a trip to Hollywood and to see the Beatles in person. He further declared that 400 winners were to be selected right here in Washington State itself! "Wow", I thought...those were pretty good odds, especially when it cost $15.00 to buy the poster! My mind did some quick math. I figured the pool of kids who would actually pay the exorbitant amount of $15.00 would be relatively small and to pick 400 winners from that!? Well, it would be like fishing in a barrel. The more I thought about it the more I was convinced that I was going to win a trip to Hollywood. In fact, we all would...let's all buy a poster and we'll go together!! We didn't have that kind of money on us but we will be back, we assured the clerk, slurping down our ice cold pop. When I got home, I counted my meager "savings" culled from birthday money from grandparents, Godparents and some lawn mowing jobs from our next door neighbor...I scraped together the $15.00 ...just, and we all dashed back to the tiny store hoping that they still had the posters, they did and with it the sure fire trip to Hollywood and the Beatles concert.
The summer dragged on slowly, week by week. I forgot that I had yet to actually enter the contest which needed to receive the application by 25th of July...I suddenly realized that it was the 22nd and I had to have the card in the mail absolutely today or forget about the contest. I looked out the window and saw the blue postman's truck had already come and gone and was now several houses down the street! I yelled to my younger sister Stacy..."Here, jump on your bike and rush this down to the mailman and if I win I will take you with me to see the Beatles!". She said "Wow, sure" and off she peddled as fast as she could, caught up with him and handed off the "golden ticket". Days slipped by once again until we were all startled by the phone call that warm Sunday evening. Stacy was jumping up and down excitedly remembering my promise to take her with me should I win. She was crushed when mom told her that she was told that because I was a minor, I would have to be accompanied by an adult...and that adult was going to be her! Stacy still holds a grudge to this day over my "false promise" but one I had no control over..."sorry".
After my call from Pat Boone's office, I rang up my friends, fully expecting them to have gotten the same good news but no, not yet...perhaps a little later; maybe I was first on the list. But as it turned out there were no more phone calls to anybody I knew or to anyone else in Washington State for that matter. That clerk it turns out was merely selling posters with a bogus come-on, who knew? I found out later that they had selected 15 winners from across the entire United States for the full Hollywood/ Beatles contest and a further 40 or so from the immediate L.A. area for just the Beatles Las Vegas concert portion. Turns out my math, as usual, was way off and I was merely very lucky. I'll take lucky....I hated math anyway.
The Beatles had hit the U.S.shores the previous fall, 1963 when I entered 7th grade. "She loves you" was the monster hit that stomped through American pop music like a British Godzilla. It was officially "the 60's" now and there was no going back. I was like the millions of other new baby boomer teens who were caught up in the maelstrom known as "Beatlemania". I was now a proud, card carrying, fully paid up member of the "Beatle Buddies' club" as I hung my winning poster on the wall over the head of my bed, with their beat(le)ific gazes beaming down on me. It was a lithograph of a painted rendering of a famous photo of the Fab Four, by an artist named Leo Jansen.
Events moved very quickly. We soon received an air mail, Special Delivery letter from Pat Boone with details about our trip which was to happen in fact very soon. Our 3 night journey was set to begin in just a few days, leaving on the morning of August 19th. I have never quite understood how exactly Pat Boone got involved in the Beatles Buddies' contest. There was never any obvious commercial tie-in other than the purchase of the poster. Pat Boone actually represented the polar opposite bookend of popular music culture, about as far from the Beatles as one could imagine. He was a 50's teen idol that had a squeaky clean, white bread image. He had had a few so-so hits, "Love letters in the sand", e.g. but by '64 was way past the crest of his popularity. He was moving into Las Vegas lounges about this time. By coincidence, my sister Stacy, who would not be going on the trip despite my promise, had had an infatuation with Pat Boone when she was an infant. We would all laugh as she would crawl up to the TV when he had his own show and would kiss the screen.
Travel from Yakima was not the easiest for connections to Los Angeles. Mom and I left on Wednesday, August 19th on a now long forgotten airline, West Coast Airlines and flew to Portland, Oregon. There we caught a flight to San Francisco on Western Airlines..."The only way to fly" airline and then on to L.A. We were met by a rep.of Pat's and driven to our hotel, the famous Hotel Roosevelt across Hollywood Blvd. from Grauman's Chinese Theater where movie stars imprint their hands in cement. The gentleman gave us some spending money as well to use for meals and other expenses we may encounter. We changed and had our dinner in the hotel restaurant and then walked up and down the boulevard taking in sights. The next morning after breakfast we met up with the other winners from around the U.S. and bused to Universal Studios, which had just opened for the first time this summer. My ticket number is 8910 and the price was $2.50. It was an actual movie studio tour without today's attractions. We watched "McHale's Navy" being taped and toured Doris Day's dressing room e.g. while being whisked around in small trams. We had a quick lunch and then were taken to the airport where we met up with local contest winners. There we boarded a small prop plane and flew to Las Vegas. We landed and exited down the ramp onto the hot black tarmac.
We were surprised to be met by Pat Boone himself as he greeted each person individually in the shade of the airplane wing. There we were photographed and given a special souvenir, a Beatles pen with faces of the Fab Four in silver down the pen clip. Next we were bused to the Las Vegas Convention Center for the Beatles concert. We were shown our seats, in the center and about 20 rows back. We noticed celebrities milling around as we entered including Liberace. The warm up acts were... Jackie DeShannon and The Righteous Brothers, not too shabby. Finally, in came "The Beatles" to a deafening roar. Everybody stood and then climbed onto their seats. The screaming was a total "wall of sound" that effectively kept almost everybody from hearing the singing but one could make out the song by the instruments if you were lucky. They played for over an hour. The song list included: "Can't buy me love", "All my lovin'", "Twist and Shout", "She loves you", "I want to hold your hand", "A hard day's night", "Til there was you", "If I fell", "Roll over Beethoven", "Boys", "Long Tall Sally" according to the notes that my mom kept.
Afterwards, we were bused to the Sahara hotel for what we were told was to be a "Gala Hollywood Party" and dinner. We were lined up inside the casino to go up a staircase to a reserved ballroom. As we stood there next to some slot machines we were told not to play them, especially the kids...against the law, but I reached into my pocket and found a nickel and gave it to mom to use on the closest machine...it won, of course...I was on a lucky roll. Upstairs we were formed into a receiving line to meet the "stars". you may need to Google a few of these... Pat Boone, again, and his wife, Shirley and his kids, Edgar Bergen, the ventriloquist, father of Candice Bergen, Gardner McKay, Toni Bill, April Stevens, Jan Murray, Asa Maynard and Buddy Hackett...Buddy Hackett was obviously there under protest, pouty and holding a drink in his hand, one of several he likely had already downed... he was headlining at the hotel. Mom went right up to him and introduced herself like she was a star, which she was to me at least. I knew she was a big fan of his. He was a bit of a creep and semi-rude but that didn't faze mom at all. She was among equals in her mind and was having the time of her life. We returned to the airport and had a late night flight back to L.A. and were very happy to get back to the hotel...it had been a long and memorable day.
We woke and had a quick breakfast and were bused to Disneyland, "The happiest place on earth" which it certainly was. We were given our book full of A through E tickets and allowed to play at our own leisure and be back at 3 pm. We were then bused back to Los Angeles and a tour of the famous Farmer's Market where we were given money to spend on our evening meals. We returned to our hotel in the early evening and walked down to the famous Schwab's drug store where many movie stars had been discovered. The next morning we were taken to LAX for our return flight home.
Mom kept many of these souvenirs and notes for me that I have saved for over 50 years now of this special time that I could spend with my mother totally by myself without the distraction of so many other voices and faces. It was the only time we ever had like this before or after our entire lives.
School started shortly after our return and I was excited to share the story of my big win with my new 8th grade classmates. I remember I was telling a group of kids that surrounded me at my home room class of the Beatles concert and the rest of the trip and I pulled out that Beatles pen I was given by Pat Boone under the plane's wing in Las Vegas. A voice yelled "Let me see" and I loaned the pen out to the group. There was a murmur and an eventual scattering as the teacher came in...I never saw the pen again...that was that. It turns out I had plenty of other memories to last a lifetime..."yeah, yeah, yeah".
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| The winners arrive in Las Vegas airport...Pat Boone in center...Mom and me near top. |
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| I meet Pat...he hands me my souvenir pen. |
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