As I've written here previously (see my very first post entitled "Ticket To Ride"), I met Evelyn (Evy, or sometimes just Ev) in May 1971. She was with many other friends of hers (also Beatle people), who were standing at the stage door of the Barrymore Theatre in New York City waiting for a glimpse or a few moments of conversation with Jane Asher and Victor Spinetti, who were starring in a play there. What followed for me were many weekends of waiting at that stage door with those girls, and the birth of several lasting friendships. From that point on, Evy and I, (along with two other girls from that original group, JoAnn and Linda), spent many years running around together. The four of us were pretty inseparable as we twice traveled to London together, racked up many Beatle hours waiting for Paul both here and there, and generally enjoyed lots of time in each other's company, laughing all the way. Actually, to be honest it wasn't always laughter. As in any friendship, there are always disagreements that come up. However, because the bond was so strong and we deeply valued each other, we got through the bumps as true friends do.
From the Paul McCartney biography, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles:
"PAUL: One of my sixties memories is about a fan in the street. I ran up to her and pulled her jacket off and said "That's my jacket!" because we'd had a burglary and it was like one of mine. But it actually wasn't mine, there were more in the shop and she'd bought one. She said, "It's the wrong size, it's mine." So "Oh, God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Put her down. And I was talking about it to Neil Aspinall years later and I said, "We jumped out of the taxi and I grabbed her," and he said "Yeah"…."
Now Paul doesn't know it, but that's Evy he's speaking about. The jacket was the very unique blue and green one that he can be seen wearing in many photos from around 1967 or '68. Evy's sister made one for her to look exactly like the jacket Paul had (Evy didn't buy it in a shop), and he did try to take it off her, as he relates in his story. She wore the jacket a lot in the hopes he would see her in it and start a conversation. She always laughed at how that strategy turned out, with him shaking it off her instead. It was a great story. The jacket also looked amazing against her long red hair, which was just the right shade to complement it. That hair was like her trademark, everyone remembered her because of it.
Evy was a very sarcastically funny person, and had a broad creative streak. She would sketch caricatures of Paul or random things on any scrap of paper around her, and I still have a few of them. We both played guitar and sang, and we entertained the other girls and ourselves on those trips to Europe because she thought to bring her guitar with her. Ev and I shared a love not only for the Fabs, but other things as well. When we weren't Beatle-ing, we both appreciated and devoured the music of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, etc., as well as all the old movie musicals, particularly anything starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We were in full agreement that there existed no better examples of style and grace in dance than those two innovators. Often the two of us searched out theatre showings of those films so we could see them on the big screen. We got goose bumps from the work of René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist painter responsible for the famous "The Son Of Man" painting - the one of the gent in a bowler hat with an apple obscuring his face. It was only several years later that Paul expressed his admiration for all of the above as well, and Evy and I made lots of jokes at the time that: (a) he got the idea from us, and (b) there were more reasons to love him than the ones we had already discovered.
By the early '90s our group had begun to separate, just everyday things getting in the way of staying more in touch. The last time our foursome was together in the same place was at JoAnn's funeral in September 1992. JoAnn lost her battle with cancer, but as I've said here before, it really was denial that killed her. She did not get medical attention when she first noticed a lump, and ultimately it was her lack of action that was responsible for her death at the age of 43. In the years that followed, although Linda had fallen off our radar completely by that time (by her choice), Evy and I became even closer than we had been, perhaps because of the tragedy of losing our friend so senselessly. We had many, many discussions about JoAnn, and how ridiculous and unnecessary her passing had been. We both understood how important it was to pay attention to the signs (of which JoAnn had many) when something is wrong.
More years went by, and Evy and I stayed in touch, but less frequently. One of the last times we spoke was around the end of 2003, just before my husband Bob and I moved from New York to Florida. I had come across some old photos of JoAnn's that I thought Evy would like to have, and we kept trying to make plans to get together so I could give her what I'd set aside. We never managed to make that happen before our move, and I wound up mailing everything instead. Time went on, and I spoke with her on a few more occasions after that, but the miles between us and her history of moving frequently made it easy to completely lose touch.
I've thought of Evy many times over the last ten years, but whenever I tried to find her, I was unsuccessful. When I made the decision in May 2013 to start documenting my Beatle adventures with my three buds, I tried very hard to find Evy again, in the hopes that we would write together and make this our project to share the stories. I wanted her recollections and feedback, her point of view and her blessings. Even though I was the one who had thought to document those crazy times, I also wanted to be very careful not to have it be "my show, all about me" - the four of us were always in it together. I was hoping that working with her would insure a proper balance to the storytelling. Of course any opportunity for us to relive our amazing days would be great fun as well. I tried calling the last number I had for her, it was disconnected. I wrote twice to the email address I had with no response. It wasn't until just weeks ago that through Facebook, I happened to find an old friend of ours who was still in touch with Evy. I wrote and asked her to tell Ev that I had been searching for her, and to please pass along my email address and phone. She said she would do that, but our messaging back and forth seemed to be just cryptic enough for me to suspect something might be going on. That was November 12th.
On the morning of Friday, November 29th, the day after Thanksgiving, I awoke to find a message on my phone. It was from the same person I had found and contacted just a few short weeks before. She apologized for having to tell me in this way, but wanted me to know that Evy had been very sick for the last six weeks and had passed away the night before. This friend had been asked by the family not to say anything to anyone about Evy's illness, and of course now I immediately understood why our correspondence seemed to have a peculiar edge to it. She explained that Evy had been feeling ill for quite a while and had back problems, but had not gone to a doctor. When the pain became more severe and traveled to her stomach, she finally went to the hospital. They discovered she had advanced uterine cancer, and although Evy had immediate surgery to remove a huge tumor, her recovery had been difficult and she just wasn't strong enough to fight. She was gone. After lots of tears and more messaging back and forth, I selfishly asked if she had ever known that I was looking for her. I was told she did not, she had been heavily sedated all these weeks since the surgery and never regained consciousness.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans..." - John Lennon, from his song "Beautiful Boy"
There's just so many of those "if only" phrases stuck in my mind - if only the years hadn't flown away from us, if only one or the other of us had made more of an effort to keep in touch, if only I had found a line to Evy back in May or even earlier, instead of now, when it was too late…..Then there are the really important "if only"s - if only she had seen a doctor sooner, if only she had thought about how dangerous it could be to wait, if only she had remembered just one of those conversations we'd had about JoAnn....all of this might have turned out so very differently. It's horribly sad to me that this could have been avoided, that we could have had time to get back in touch and enjoy hearing each other's voices again. The fact that I missed her by a matter of weeks is almost more than I can even comprehend. I try to take comfort in the wonderful memories I have, in the fact that she is no longer in pain, and in the hope that her sweet soul is in a much better place.
John knew it was true. Don't wait. Don't find a reason. Don't even think about it. Don't let the opportunity slip away. Just do it. Make the time. Speak to the people you care about. Get it touch…...
From the Paul McCartney biography, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles:
"PAUL: One of my sixties memories is about a fan in the street. I ran up to her and pulled her jacket off and said "That's my jacket!" because we'd had a burglary and it was like one of mine. But it actually wasn't mine, there were more in the shop and she'd bought one. She said, "It's the wrong size, it's mine." So "Oh, God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Put her down. And I was talking about it to Neil Aspinall years later and I said, "We jumped out of the taxi and I grabbed her," and he said "Yeah"…."
Now Paul doesn't know it, but that's Evy he's speaking about. The jacket was the very unique blue and green one that he can be seen wearing in many photos from around 1967 or '68. Evy's sister made one for her to look exactly like the jacket Paul had (Evy didn't buy it in a shop), and he did try to take it off her, as he relates in his story. She wore the jacket a lot in the hopes he would see her in it and start a conversation. She always laughed at how that strategy turned out, with him shaking it off her instead. It was a great story. The jacket also looked amazing against her long red hair, which was just the right shade to complement it. That hair was like her trademark, everyone remembered her because of it.
Evy was a very sarcastically funny person, and had a broad creative streak. She would sketch caricatures of Paul or random things on any scrap of paper around her, and I still have a few of them. We both played guitar and sang, and we entertained the other girls and ourselves on those trips to Europe because she thought to bring her guitar with her. Ev and I shared a love not only for the Fabs, but other things as well. When we weren't Beatle-ing, we both appreciated and devoured the music of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, etc., as well as all the old movie musicals, particularly anything starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We were in full agreement that there existed no better examples of style and grace in dance than those two innovators. Often the two of us searched out theatre showings of those films so we could see them on the big screen. We got goose bumps from the work of René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist painter responsible for the famous "The Son Of Man" painting - the one of the gent in a bowler hat with an apple obscuring his face. It was only several years later that Paul expressed his admiration for all of the above as well, and Evy and I made lots of jokes at the time that: (a) he got the idea from us, and (b) there were more reasons to love him than the ones we had already discovered.
By the early '90s our group had begun to separate, just everyday things getting in the way of staying more in touch. The last time our foursome was together in the same place was at JoAnn's funeral in September 1992. JoAnn lost her battle with cancer, but as I've said here before, it really was denial that killed her. She did not get medical attention when she first noticed a lump, and ultimately it was her lack of action that was responsible for her death at the age of 43. In the years that followed, although Linda had fallen off our radar completely by that time (by her choice), Evy and I became even closer than we had been, perhaps because of the tragedy of losing our friend so senselessly. We had many, many discussions about JoAnn, and how ridiculous and unnecessary her passing had been. We both understood how important it was to pay attention to the signs (of which JoAnn had many) when something is wrong.
More years went by, and Evy and I stayed in touch, but less frequently. One of the last times we spoke was around the end of 2003, just before my husband Bob and I moved from New York to Florida. I had come across some old photos of JoAnn's that I thought Evy would like to have, and we kept trying to make plans to get together so I could give her what I'd set aside. We never managed to make that happen before our move, and I wound up mailing everything instead. Time went on, and I spoke with her on a few more occasions after that, but the miles between us and her history of moving frequently made it easy to completely lose touch.
I've thought of Evy many times over the last ten years, but whenever I tried to find her, I was unsuccessful. When I made the decision in May 2013 to start documenting my Beatle adventures with my three buds, I tried very hard to find Evy again, in the hopes that we would write together and make this our project to share the stories. I wanted her recollections and feedback, her point of view and her blessings. Even though I was the one who had thought to document those crazy times, I also wanted to be very careful not to have it be "my show, all about me" - the four of us were always in it together. I was hoping that working with her would insure a proper balance to the storytelling. Of course any opportunity for us to relive our amazing days would be great fun as well. I tried calling the last number I had for her, it was disconnected. I wrote twice to the email address I had with no response. It wasn't until just weeks ago that through Facebook, I happened to find an old friend of ours who was still in touch with Evy. I wrote and asked her to tell Ev that I had been searching for her, and to please pass along my email address and phone. She said she would do that, but our messaging back and forth seemed to be just cryptic enough for me to suspect something might be going on. That was November 12th.
On the morning of Friday, November 29th, the day after Thanksgiving, I awoke to find a message on my phone. It was from the same person I had found and contacted just a few short weeks before. She apologized for having to tell me in this way, but wanted me to know that Evy had been very sick for the last six weeks and had passed away the night before. This friend had been asked by the family not to say anything to anyone about Evy's illness, and of course now I immediately understood why our correspondence seemed to have a peculiar edge to it. She explained that Evy had been feeling ill for quite a while and had back problems, but had not gone to a doctor. When the pain became more severe and traveled to her stomach, she finally went to the hospital. They discovered she had advanced uterine cancer, and although Evy had immediate surgery to remove a huge tumor, her recovery had been difficult and she just wasn't strong enough to fight. She was gone. After lots of tears and more messaging back and forth, I selfishly asked if she had ever known that I was looking for her. I was told she did not, she had been heavily sedated all these weeks since the surgery and never regained consciousness.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans..." - John Lennon, from his song "Beautiful Boy"
There's just so many of those "if only" phrases stuck in my mind - if only the years hadn't flown away from us, if only one or the other of us had made more of an effort to keep in touch, if only I had found a line to Evy back in May or even earlier, instead of now, when it was too late…..Then there are the really important "if only"s - if only she had seen a doctor sooner, if only she had thought about how dangerous it could be to wait, if only she had remembered just one of those conversations we'd had about JoAnn....all of this might have turned out so very differently. It's horribly sad to me that this could have been avoided, that we could have had time to get back in touch and enjoy hearing each other's voices again. The fact that I missed her by a matter of weeks is almost more than I can even comprehend. I try to take comfort in the wonderful memories I have, in the fact that she is no longer in pain, and in the hope that her sweet soul is in a much better place.
John knew it was true. Don't wait. Don't find a reason. Don't even think about it. Don't let the opportunity slip away. Just do it. Make the time. Speak to the people you care about. Get it touch…...
I'll be back in January with more of the usual stuff, but until then - have yourself a peaceful and joyous holiday season, filled with laughter and lots of love…..and Happy 2014!
That's all for now…..Thanks for reading, see ya next time!
That's all for now…..Thanks for reading, see ya next time!