They were bigger than the Monkees would ever be.

They were bigger than anything or anyone.

They were and are the Beatles.

Behind the couch in the living room, I wasn’t looking for bugs. I was listening to Beatles. It was 1964 and it was “Meet the Beatles!” time. Leaning against the back of the sofa and warmed by the bright sun shining through the cold glassed sliding door that separated me and the music from the frigid outside of Iowa winter, USA, I was in a happy daydreamland of Beatles lyrical fun.

Mom wandered through and peered over at me on the floor. “I like them,” she said. “I like the sound.” That was it. I mean that cemented the whole thing. They were in. Moms do not like teenager music. She did and that meant it was more than just kid music.

It was, it was in time and it was needed.

Just two months before, on Friday, November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. To this day, I can go back in my mind and sit on that hard folding chair in our high school auditorium, stare up at the wall clock above the basketball goal and hear the Principal say the words: “The President is dead.” We were young. We liked Jack Kennedy because he was young and full of energy with his young family and smiles and vacations at the beach. We weren’t politicians. We just liked him, and we were sad. We were all sad.

Then these kids from Liverpool showed up.

And, the girls started to scream and shout.

I mean you could hear the noise in Iowa.

It was “The Ed Sullivan Show.” We watched “The Ed Sullivan Show” every Sunday night. It was what families did together – back then. Our TV screen was black and white and grainy. Ed Sullivan was this ancient character who couldn’t really talk and murmured things like, “Now, on with the show,” but it didn’t sound like “show,” it sounded like “shoe” or “shuuu” or something, and you couldn’t get it out of your head, because the sound was so odd, but you looked forward to hearing it anyway. The show itself was great, with acts from everywhere: jugglers, magicians, pianists, gymnasts and bands. Not just old bands and show bands, but new rock-and-roll bands — which was pretty neat for an old-guy with a speech problem.

Sunday night, February 9, 1964, the new band was the Beatles. I can’t remember the words of their songs, but I can go back in my mind and feel that soft couch, peer at the black-and-white TV screen in the corner of our darkened living room and hear the Beatles. I can hear them standing there in their stiff suits, straight manner and long hair. After the music ends, old Ed walks onto the stage and puts his arms around the smiling lads from Liverpool, thanks them “For a greet shuuu” and waves woodenly to us out in TV land. And, I can remember my Mom smiling back.

Vietnam was starting up.

We needed to smile and laugh and see a crazy bright side to things.

The Beatles did just that with album after album and single after single that soared to the top of the charts and lifted our spirits and warmed our hearts in the escalating cold war that followed the death of our President and claimed so many and so much of ourselves.

It is a strange thing to say, but they never let us down and they left much that we are better for.

The four were just a small group, but their presence and their sounds were larger than life.

Sometimes a simple word is best: The Beatles were fun when fun was needed.

Through the good and hard times, you were fun when fun was needed.

For that, I can say from the bottom of my heart: “Thank you.”

You and your music reached out and held our hands.

Thank you, for showing us a better world.

Through the songs and the tears.

Grandpa Jim