Glad All Over

in september of 64, on a bright sunny saturday moring, i saw on a nearby town tv station that the beatles had landed in the town of walnut ridge, arkansas…on their way to the pigman ranch in nearby alton, missouri. by that afternoon, 4 of us teens from hardy, arkansas,,,,a town about 35 miles from alton, jumped in a 59 ford, pooled our money for gas, and took off to see the beatles. when we arrived at alton, no one had ever heard of the pigman ranch…but finally, after several inquiries, we fond a young man working in a grarge on the town square in alton who knew about the ranch and gave us directions……this is a long story and i will not attempt to tell it all, but after a lot of brain power..we figured a way to get into the guarded ranch and did see the beatlels…at the swmming pool late that afternoon…at first the guard came to arrest us, but john lennon called him off and actually had us come over and we talked with him ….person to person for about 30 munites or more….paul, ringo, their manager, and the guard remaind seated in the pool chairs and never came over…..they hardly gave us a look…..this was a time when they were almost gods and a lot of folks never believed our story, but it is ture…..i have corresponded with bill harry, a childhood friend of john about this and he found it interesting…we have also been filmed for a documentary but have not heard any mroe about it…..i tired ot contacty paul and rigno by email years later just to simply get a confirmation return that they remembered four poor teens from the ozarks who got into the pigman ranch compount that day…but never got a reply…..i will always think so highly of lennon for giving of his time, for his kind consideration, and being a worldly and engaging person who was interested enough to make a great thing happen for us….i recal, as we were members of a band too, he was very interested in our music the cool name of our band the mystics…..as he said…and told us about their career rise…they were staying at the ranch for about a day or so…before ending their tour of the united states….reed pigman owned the airline that chartered them…he also owned the ranch and intvited them to have a bit of recreation in the beautiful ozarks setting before they returned home…..they had planned to stay in a hotel in st. louis, mo, i recall john teling us but the inviet for rest seemed so allurring that they could not pass it up……i spoke about my experience at a seminar held by the british writer who covered their tour, mr. ivor davies, at an annual beatles festival that is held in walunt ridge….that town has a large airstirp where their tour plan coud land…subsequently, they took a smaller craft up to the ranch about 30 or 40 miles north, where there was a smaller landing strip…..i understnad george would not fly on the small plane, so mr. snapp, the dad of a friend of mine, and now the mayor of walunt ridge, drove george and some others up the rance instead….the snapp family still has the red chevy van that took them on this trip….i would love sometime if paul would be able to remember this and confirm..

thanks so much for the story…by the way…we played a lot of carl perkins songs….but i have sang and played blue suade shoes a million time back in the 60s and 70s, when our band was still together.