Say what you will about Yoko Ono and her involvement with the Beatles’ break-up, but I still say she’s one of the kindest of all celebrities when it comes to appreciating her (and John Lennon’s) fans. She has consistently been full of surprises in the dealings I have had with her. As a mega-Beatles fan, I decided that one of the last autograph requests I would make during the Summer of 1985 was to Yoko Ono. On August 16, I sent only a self-address-stamped-envelope to Yoko – as I had no photos to send.
During these Summer collecting days, during which I didn’t have a heck of a lot to do, I would often obsessively wait for the mailman to arrive to see if his delivery would yield any items to add to my autograph collection. On the afternoon of Friday, August 23, I was pedaling my bike around the driveway, balancing on the tiny cement driveway border, when the mailman pulled up and inserted the mail into the box. Coming up from behind the mailbox, I noticed a long yellow tube protruding it. When I uncapped the tube, I found a medium-sized poster of Yoko that had been hand signed to me. She had also enclosed the postcard seen above…and had even returned my unused S.A.S.E.
As much as I appreciated the poster, I later decided that I would try for something smaller that I could fit in my autograph photo album. On May 23, 1986, I sent along a 45rpm record sleeve in the hopes of getting it signed. Oddly, a different 45rpm record sleeve than the one I had sent (seen directly below) was returned to me instead of mine on June 27. This was from the John Lennon single “Nobody Told Me,” which was backed by one of Yoko’s songs. Obviously a secretarial error, but this one was actually better than mine.
Then..over ten years later, I acquired a very nice 8 x 10 color photo that I sent to Yoko once again. This was during my mega-two-year-long collecting spree of 1998 and ’99. This was one of my first requests of the time period, sent around July of ’98. As you can see below, she did sign it. In addition, I somehow made it onto her Christmas card mailing list – where I remained for three years. Not bad to have one of the ex-Beatles’ wife as a friend, eh? One day, I will share the Christmas cards from Yoko on this site.
This posting concludes the autograph collecting spree of the Summer of 1985. Stay tuned for the spree of Christmas ’85…
Thank you very much for sharing the pics
and your kind regards for Yoko.
I get so tired of seeing
nasty remarks about her
from ugly people.
I too recieved a Christmas card
from her in ’86.
That was nice.
I wish I could meet her some day.
That would be nice.
Johnny Logan
April 12th, 2007