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Back to school with The Beatles
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Ringo was my favorite Beatle. Well, to be quite frank, he really wasn’t my favorite, but by the time I made up my mind, all the others were taken. A couple of years have passed since I plastered my walls with Ringo posters, punctured all my clothing with Ringo pins and shrieked his name during Ed Sullivan. So I think it’s about time I admit the truth. Secretly, it was always Paul. So not only was I a victim of Beatlemania, I also suffered from the less common “Beatlephrenia”…the inability to stick to one Beatle. 
Through Junior High and High School, 45’s and eight-tracks, and my first go-round in college, I’d been coming to terms with this condition. Against the background of “Yellow Submarine”, “Eleanor Rigby” and “Let It Be”, I began to heal and to accept myself as merely a confused Beatles fanatic. Today, I am whole at last; no longer expecting Paul to call me for a date … although I think we did make eye contact as I sat in the upper deck during his last Stadium concert.
Next month’s Beatles: Rock Band release coinciding with back-to-school season makes me think about the long and winding road that recently took me back to college for the second time. I'd decided to go back to school to finally finish my degree.
With a spring in my step and fabric softener in my jeans, I bounded onto campus and fell right into stride with the other co-eds on the way to classes. I did, however, discover a generation gap, when I told a classmate about my collection of “45’s” and she dove under the desk, because she thought I was packing heat.
Then I discovered that college was not all fun and games as I’d remembered. During my first Science midterm, I was hit with the first sign of trouble. Looking around the room, I noticed that I was the only student in the class without a tattoo or body piercing. But then again, I was also the only one with an AARP calculator on the desk.
My professor passed out the test booklet…seven pages long, to cover only three lectures’ worth of material! Did I have to remember every word he’d ever uttered? I should have taken an extra few doses of my Ginkgo Biloba. All I could remember was “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…”
But I took a deep breath and tried to relax. After finishing page one of the test…the True/False section I was a little calmer but I had to go to the bathroom. During my first college life I could take three or four classes in a row without a break. Now I needed three or four breaks during one class. Not wanting to make a spectacle of myself, I crossed my legs and turned to page two…multiple choice. Calcium and Magnesium sounds like the right answer. No, that’s what I take each night to prevent osteoporosis.
Is the answer Phosphorous and Nitrogen? Could I take a 50/50? I couldn’t phone a friend because I’d left my cell phone in the car. The rest of the test was a blur, except for the last line of the last essay that answered the question about what’s needed to save the planet. I wrote, “All You Need Is Love”, hoping that my professor had a good sense of humor while grading on a curve. Now that I’ve recovered, I think about taking more courses. Maybe this time I'll try The History of Rock and Roll. Do you think I can get the textbook in large print type?
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