I walked over to my blue table and found that one of my students had received a walrus, the only one in the class. And it was adorable. "What's his name?" my student asked as I picked the animal up to admire it. I opened the tag and read: "Paul."
Paul?
I stopped, surprised by such a ... normal name. Shouldn't the name be something cutesy, like Choppers? But, suddenly, I whispered: "The walrus was Paul! This has got to be a reference to the Paul McCartney death conspiracy!" I began to sputter some back story, but I quickly trailed off, noting the perplexed look of the parent standing beside me. I realized that this wasn't the right audience for death conspiracy discussions. And then I wished I could tell me dad because my dad would know exactly what I was talking about. In fact, he was the first person to tell me that the walrus was Paul.
I learned all about the Paul McCartney death conspiracy during the summer after eighth grade, back when my dad rented this amazing house in southern hills. The house - owned by an acquaintance named Janet and therefore referred to as "Janet's House" by my dad, my brother, and me- was on Newport, all of the streets in this area seeming to be named after brands of cigarettes. Janet's House had an impressive interior, having come fully furnished in Southwestern decor (the chaise lounge in the living room, for example, featured turquoise wolves howling at the moon). In a previous life, Janet had also operated a kiln in her garage, so all of the shelves out there were stacked with ceramic bowls and figurines (I remember being absolutely determined to paint one of the santa clauses that stood sentry out there, though i never followed through). And my room had a heated water bed, the glories of which I can't fully describe in words, but I can say this: I once brought my chihuahua, Prancie, to Janet's House, and, immediately upon experiencing the ecstasy of the water bed, she looked me in the eye and peed.
Despite its many great features, the greatest thing about Janet's House was the backyard. Looking out the large windows in the back of the house, you could see the amazing swimming pool and hot tub, which were joined by an expansive, tree-covered deck that had stereo speakers underneath it. Those who know me well may doubt that I was impressed by this latter feature, as I am an outspoken non-fan of music generally. But I was nurturing an extreme Beatles obsession at the time, brought about by mine and my best friend's recent acquisition of the Beatles Anthologies; and my dad, a teenager during the Beatles' prime, was quick to encourage my interest in something from his own youth.
Dad hooked up his old record player to the outdoor stereo and brought out some of his old Beatles records. I was particularly fascinated with Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (his copy containing the original mustache cutouts released with the album) and Magical Mystery Tour. I played these records over and over again as I sat in the hot tub or swam in the pool that summer. Unlike my previous compulsive playing of "The Little Drummer Boy," I'm pretty sure dad didn't mind that I played the Beatles music all the time. He would get on a raft in the pool and read in the dappled afternoon sunlight while I sang along to "A Day in the Life." (I also played Eric Clapton's "Layla" a lot that summer, perhaps because we were learning to play it during high school band camp.)
During that Beatles summer, my dad - a lover of trivia - told me all about the Paul McCartney death conspiracy, which (to quote wikipedia for ease of reference) "is an urban legend suggesting that Paul McCartney of the English rock band the Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike." Dad was always a wealth of trivia, much of which I could never remember, but I was fascinated by this because Paul was my favorite Beatle. Was he dead? Was he alive? I had to know! To ease the agony of my fanaticism, dad eventually bought me this book:
If you are interested in an in-depth analysis of the Beatles' music and career through the lens that Paul McCartney is dead, then this is your book! I remember sitting at the counter of Janet's pass-through kitchen, reading this book while eating the delicious buttered raisin-bread toast that dad used to make me during that period. Of course, I can't remember all the details now, but I do remember the titular detail of the book, which was that John Lennon whispers "The walrus was Paul" in the middle of "I am the Walrus," an apparent indicator that the real Paul was dead. I feel like it took me a long time to read that book, but I feel like I had finished it by the time I had my birthday party at the end of August, an incredible swimming party during which we jumped out of the hot tub and directly into the pool (such a daring feat, it seemed, to jump from hot water to cold so quickly). Was this the first or second summer? I honestly can't remember.
Although this period of my life is so vivid in my memory, I don't think dad and Craig lived in Janet's House for much more than a year - I know that he took care of my Mamaw there during the final stages of her bladder cancer, which was during the fall of my freshman year (the howling wolf chaise lounge was moved aside so that Mamaw's hospital bed could fit in the living room). Janet's daughter, a grown woman, ended up moving back to Shreveport in the wake of an ill-fated love affair and needed a place to stay. Dad actually ended up moving into Mamaw's trailer after she died, where, instead of bonding over a sub-deck sound system, we bonded over episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. My Beatles phase carried on throughout my teenage years, though, and I still feel pretty stoked whenever I hear one of their songs on the radio.
You know, when I first began writing this blog, I brainstormed all sorts of possible topics I could write about, but I never once thought I would be writing about the Paul McCartney death conspiracy or my summer at Janet's House. In fact, I hadn't even remembered Janet's House in years. But now I can see the house before me so clearly, the vantage point I had from the record player where I sat with the Sergeant Pepper's album cover opened, reading the lyrics as I listened to the songs. I'm kinda grateful for this random memory of dad's awesomeness, and I look forward to remembering so much more about him over the years.
I only have one more thing to say now:
Dad, if you are reading this, do you think the beanie baby had anything to do with the Beatles death clues? If you were here, I know that we would have googled it together. (On my own, I just found a website full of "new clues," and one fan mentioned the beanie baby thing.)
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