Beatlemania on display at Bethel Woods
So just how did Jeffersonville's Rod Mandeville get those original Beatles' bobblehead dolls? They're from 1964, with John, Paul and George holding guitars and Ringo cradling a drum. Simple. Fifty years ago, Mandeville's nephew had a birthday and everybody ate the cake with the bobbleheads on top.
"And at the end, those things were left," says Mandeville, who was 16 in 1964 when the Beatles first came to America. And that Beatles jigsaw puzzle, also from 1964 and apparently direct from England? Mandeville was such a huge Beatles fan at the beginning of Beatlemania, he bought that at the local Woolworth's in Morristown, NJ. He doesn't remember what he paid, but the box says "30p" — 30 pence — which amounts to about 40 cents today. Then there's the black-and- white framed photo of the very skinny, baby-faced Beatles at their first recording session with Ringo. Mandeville got that at a New York City art gallery. But to him, it's more than a just a photo. It's a testament to genius. "They were so amazing," he explains. "Sometimes they wrote a song in the morning, rehearsed it during the day and recorded it at night."
Source: The Herald Record, Bethel, NY
