“Nowhere Boy” A Bit Like You and Me

“A Bit Like You and Me”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

NOWHERE BOY is the haunting story of John Lennon’s troubled teenage years from when he learned some important secrets about his family that had been kept from him since he was five years old to just before the Beatles were formed and the lads from Liverpool made rock ‘n’ roll history.

The story begins about 1956 when John is 16, and he is always getting into trouble in school. One day while he is being disciplined, John is told, “You’re going nowhere,” and John responds in his quick, witty, and irreverent fashion, “There’s nowhere for the geniuses, Sir.”

Then John’s life takes the first of many sudden and drastic changes. He is living with his Uncle George and Aunt Mimi, and Uncle George dies suddenly, leaving John alone with Aunt Mimi, who is a very strict disciplinarian and who constantly tells John to wear his glasses whenever he leaves the house.

Uncle George was more than just an uncle to John, and at the funeral we see a red-haired woman whom John has known as Aunt Julia. Now John is told that he should call the red-haired woman “Mum.”

A friend knows where Julia lives, and he and John go to visit her, which is within walking distance of Aunt Mimi’s. Julia has two little girls, and they all go to Blackpool for a day of fun, where Julia gets a little wild from the excitement.

At the end of the day when John is going back home to Aunt Mimi’s, Julia tells him, “Don’t tell Mimi. Please. This is our secret.” And then she adds, “I love you. You’re my dream. Don’t forget that.”

John slowly begins to learn more of the details behind this complicated relationship, and it is about this time he becomes aware of Elvis Presley and fascinated with the success and popularity of the American singer.

So, Johns asks Aunt Mimi to buy him a guitar, gets some of his mates to join him in forming a rock ‘n’ roll band, and calls the neophyte band “The Quarrymen.”

A friend of a friend named Paul shows up, he knows how to play his left-handed quitar better than John does, teaches John some new chords, and, well, you know the rest.

NOWHERE BOY is, like the song says, a bit like you and me.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”