THE BECKONING OF A BEATLE LAND BOOK: "...If the Beatles had been so inclined... they could have done a cinema variation on the Marx Brothers--their twist was being a reverse take on the comedy team.... The Marxes acted surreal in a sane world, while the Beatles attempted to maintain sanity in a world gone mad....".

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: LITERARY SCENE

SHORTLY after COVJD-19 hit, I was flying out of Los Angeles following my annual spring break research trip--a historian's version of a vacation. As flight attendants were sanitizing eveiything in sight, I felt like Will Smith in an unfilmed prologue to "I Am Legend" (2007) --in which he appears to be the only survivor on Manhattan Island following a horrifying plague. Actually, that last phrase is redundant--"plague" more than says enough.

Regardless, while I write to my young grandkids weekly, at that time I started to compose episodes to them about a game changing backpacking trip I took to England one summer. In our family, the Beatles occupy a very high perch, and I thought I could share in little people language what the trip and the Beatles meant to me. They gave me my love of words, and the three-month adventure proved I could depend on myself. Therefore, I hoped to share some modest life lessons.

It was 1970, and the previous 10 years had been an English pop culture decade, from the Beatles and the "British Invasion," to Sean Connery as James Bond. (Okay, Connery was from Scotland, but that is part of the UK.) Country music legend Roger "King of the Road" Miller pretty much said it all in his 1965 Grammy Award-winning song, "England Swings."

However, the initial catalyst was just an exercise to keep me in my grandkids' minds, loosely built around a Beatle-inspired adventure. Of course, like most people. I felt COVE) would be a brief isolation. Now, after more than 30 weekly installments and counting, I wonder if the stories will turn into something to remember me by.

As with most writers. I fully embrace the Nora Ephron family mantra: "Everything is copy!" As the child of scriptwriters (including the 1957 Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy "Desk Set"), and the most talented of her scribbling siblings, nothing was sacred for Ephron, including chronicling a messy divorce from Carl Bernstein (yes, that Bernstein) in the 1983 novel Heartburn, and plucking relationship fodder from friends for her 1989 script, "When Harry Met Sally."

Consequently, I started thinking maybe this could be a book. After all, I hardly was unique in missing my little people. Moreover, in today's helicopter parent/smart phone-obsessed society, many of my college students seemed fascinated by my ancient history travel story. Naturally, they were incredulous that anyone would savor dropping off the grid--make that the pre-grid--and enjoy it.

Yet, while I mock...