Hello, little girl

The election will take place in less than three weeks. With it, our excruciating national nightmare will finally end. I think.

So how about a very nice, very uncontroversial, warm and super fuzzy story for this week? It’s a guaranteed feelgood. Here ya go.

I’m midway now in my History of the Beatles class at TMCC, and, as you would expect, the vast majority of my 42 students are a bunch of blazing boomers who are taking the class not really to learn this amazing story from 50 years ago, but more to re-live it. OK, cool. By teaching it, I get to re-live it, too, and it’s an experience that I’m finding to be sublimely satisfying.

But we do, nicely enough, have one young upstart in there, a delightful 12-year old Beatlemaniac named Tatum who somehow heard of the class, and told her mom they were going to take it, that’s that, and don’t gimme no lip. It’s wonderful to have this younger generational vibe in the mix. I know I find it extremely pleasing to see her wriggling in her seat when she’s hearing “Eight Days a Week” or “Norwegian Wood” or whatever.

Back on Oct. 6 and 7, Paul McCartney played two nights in Sacramento, tuning up the band for the stupendous Desert Trip I wrote about last week. Of course, Tatum got mom to spring for tickets, as any self-respecting 12-year-old Beatle fan would. There on the first night, Tatum was in her seat with a big sign that said “I’m 12 Years Old And I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” Good sign, right? Turned out to be a great sign, because Paul sees it during the show, and sends one of his roadies out into the crowd to tap Tatum on the shoulder. At first, she thought she was in some kind of trouble. Then, the roadie says, “No, just come with me.” And sure enough, during his encore, Paul gets Tatum up on stage so that he can actually, in the flesh, hold her trembling hand. The picture of my prize student bursting out in tears as she gets to touch Paulie is absolutely priceless, and you can see it if you access his Instagram account.

I told this tale to my daughter, who summed it up very nicely. “Paul is Da Shit.” Indeed he is.

You’ll recall from last week I impulsively toodled on down to Palm Springs to take The Desert Trip (Oldchella, Dadchella, Geezerpalooza, Rockers With Walkers, etc.). And during Paul’s set, I held up a big sign that read “I’m 63 And I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” Nothing. Zilch. McCartney, obviously, is a hardcore ageist.