Palling with Paul surprise addition to vacation itinerary

I met Paul McCartney in 1984. I was 19 and, shall we say, not a winner in the game of life. (Even McCartney knew enough to ditch his mullet haircut by then.)

I convinced my not-exactly-winner friends to dress as George Harrison and Ringo Starr to my John Lennon for a picture crossing Abbey Road, like the album cover. It had to be fate because sitting on a curb when we arrived was a guy dressed like McCartney (wearing a suit and no shoes).

After what I thought would be the Beatles highlight of the trip, the fake McCartney asked if we wanted to see the real McCartney's old house, the one he owned before moving to Scotland in 1969. It was walking distance.

Dozens of Beatles classics were penned at 7 Cavendish Ave., including "Penny Lane," "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be." Often, Lennon would stop by to help with a spare lyric before they strolled to Abbey Road Studios together.

The house was not impressive -- at least the top of it wasn't. A high wall needed scaling if a photo of the whole thing was to be taken. And it was to be taken. This was important to me, to have a picture of the whole house McCartney didn't live in anymore.

As I pulled myself up, my hands met the thwack of a broomstick. A woman was at the other end, alerted by our noise. She threatened to thwack again. I dropped to the pavement.

The front gate cracked to reveal my assailant. She wore a housekeeper's uniform. She felt bad. She saw that we were harmless. McCartney would return at 7 p.m., she said.

"But don't say I told you!"

The gate slammed.

This was a crazy person, we thought, or someone playing a joke. McCartney doesn't live here anymore. Of course, none of us trusted our Beatles knowledge enough to chance it. Whatever it was we had planned for that evening was replaced by stalking.

At 6:45 p.m., we reconvened. The fake McCartney announced that the real McCartney drove a green Mercedes. We scanned up and down Cavendish. Twenty minutes later, one finally appeared to be en route when a familiar voice interrupted our stakeout.

"You looking for me?" it asked.

McCartney had opened his gate to grab his paper. (We weren't watching the house.)

Calling this moment surreal does little justice to its surrealism. When I planned this tour of Beatles landmarks, I had no idea one would be a Beatle.

What transpired was like a McCartney interview, only in reverse.

"Where you from?" he asked.

In person, the world's most successful living entertainer seemed shorter than he should -- which I suppose all legends under seven feet do. But he exuded two things that were no surprise: a charm so warm it bordered on flakiness, and the aroma of burned marijuana.

"Hummina-hummina, Long Island," I replied, like Ralph Kramden shooting a TV ad.

"Me and Linda summer out there, you know," McCartney said.

Hummina-hummina, I knew.

All my young life I had dreamed about meeting a Beatle but I couldn't think of anything to say while it was happening. ("We're not worthy" hadn't been invented yet.)

"Is this your first time in England?" our new best friend asked. Relaxed, he leaned on the high wall I was thwacked off of. His son, James, then 7, crawled on his back.

Why the hell Paul McCartney was talking to us, I couldn't say. But he seemed bent on uncovering every tidbit possible to know about Corey Levitan and his pals.

We started snapping before the question, "Do you want photos?" entirely left his lips. McCartney made sure we all got at least one proving to our friends and families that we weren't the biggest liars of all time. Each looked the same: McCartney, all cool and stoned, with his arm around different deer in the headlights.

Our meeting ended after about 10 minutes, when a woman -- perhaps Linda or the thwacker -- called his name from the house.

"Gotta go!" McCartney said, waving and winking, as though announcing the final song to a concert audience.

When the flight home hit turbulence, I was convinced that what had happened was a bone thrown by God before the plane crash.

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0456.