{"id":8650,"date":"2014-02-04T13:03:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T18:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=8650"},"modified":"2014-02-04T13:14:57","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T18:14:57","slug":"a-decade-aboard-the-yellow-submarine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/02\/04\/a-decade-aboard-the-yellow-submarine\/","title":{"rendered":"A decade aboard the yellow submarine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jon<\/a>

Jon Sklaroff crosses Abbey Road at age 18. These days, he’s the guy who keeps the NCPR office running smoothly.<\/p><\/div>\n

At eighteen, when I went to England to visit family and friends, the one must-do was to go to Abbey Road. Here\u2019s the blurry photo of me on the iconic cross-walk. It was raining, there was a lot of traffic, and my mother took the photo off-angle from the sidewalk\u2014apparently British motorists have a bit of an attitude about tourists taking pictures there.<\/p>\n

REVOLVER, top to bottom, was my favorite Beatles album when I was a kid\u2014including \u201cTaxman,\u201d \u201cGood Day Sunshine\u201d and, of course, \u201cYellow Submarine.\u201d Even if I didn\u2019t understand the content, I still loved the songs.<\/p>\n

For example, \u201cTaxman,\u201d probably because of the intro: \u201cone, two, three, four, one, two\u2026\u201d You knew you were in for something great.<\/p>\n

\u201cYellow Submarine\u201d was at the top of my favorite\u2019s list. If we were at home in the living room or in the car or in a store or wherever, whenever this one came on I had to stop and listen to it. Simpler times for me: a silly kid enjoying a silly song. What could be better?<\/p>\n

Something about listening all the way through REVOLVER was like heaven for me. I remember listening to the album on CD but I know my parents had the entire Beatles collection on vinyl, too (which my sister eventually got a hold of\u2014jealous, I am jealous).<\/p>\n

As I grew up, my tastes changed. I started to eat broccoli, felt differently about girls, and about music. My album favorites changed but I still loved The Beatles.<\/p>\n

My teenage years belonged to the WHITE ALBUM. A fast-paced guitar riff intro on \u201cBack in the U.S.S.R.\u201d fading into \u201cDear Prudence,\u201d which has that slow intro building into great harmonies. \u201cWhile My Guitar Gently Weeps\u201d has those somber tones any high school kid can relate to. The WHITE ALBUM also featured those out-there trippy songs like \u201cPiggies,\u201d \u201cRocky Raccoon,\u201d \u201cHelter Skelter,\u201d and \u201cHappiness is a Warm Gun\u201d\u2026happiness, bang bang, shoot shoot<\/i>.<\/p>\n

For a young man trying to figure out life in turbulent years, my one constant was The Beatles.<\/p>\n

As I entered adulthood\u00a0 ABBEY ROAD became\u2014and still is today\u2014my go to album if I\u2019m throwing one on. Beautifully composed songs that are all over the place: from the spacey \u201cOctopus\u2019s Garden\u201d to the optimistic \u201cHere Comes the Sun.\u201d I love the rapid fire succession of songs from \u201cMean Mr. Mustard\u201d through \u201cCarry That Weight,\u201d five songs each under the two-minute mark. Something about the order of where songs land on each of The Beatles\u2019 albums is magical for me.<\/p>\n

The Beatles run deep in my family. I always get a kick when I hear my mom\u2019s ringtone for a call from my sister set to \u201cMaxwell\u2019s Silver Hammer.\u201d The choice almost speaks for itself: not an indictment of my sister but an example of my family\u2019s sense of humor. I\u2019m always tempted to swipe the paperweight my uncle has in his livingroom, made from his ticket to see The Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965. And, I plan on getting the \u201cLet It Be\u201d poster from my dad when he no longer has any use for it, even if I have to duke it out with my sisters.<\/p>\n

The Beatles are timeless. Even though they broke up fifteen years before I was born, they were and still are forever a part of my life. Listening to them with my family\u2014then and now\u2014is simply bliss.<\/p>\n

As I became an uncle for the first time a couple of years ago\u2014to little Ms. Annie Jane, I\u2019m waiting for the moment to share the family tradition with her. My sister won\u2019t let me have a say in, for example, how Annie interacts with boys (I\u2019d put her in an all-girls school and forbid dating until she\u2019s 30), I do know The Beatles will be something special I can share with her as her uncle.<\/p>\n

My family is my first love, and The Beatles said it first for me, All you need is love.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

\"jonstreetsign_660\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At eighteen, when I went to England to visit family and friends, the one must-do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8650"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8662,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650\/revisions\/8662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}