Mara Kurtz

Word Count 511

When three friends came to my apartment for dinner on the day John Lennon was shot, all we could talk about were the Beatles. 

In the middle of the meal, I got up to show them my treasured Yellow Submarine sitting on the shelf above the fireplace in the living room. 

We spent the rest of the evening rolling the toy back and forth across the coffee table, four periscopes turning, as we opened and closed the two red hatches from which John, Paul, George and Ringo popped up and then descended. They loved it.

The following morning, while cleaning up, I realized that my Yellow Submarine was missing. I searched for hours but couldn't find it anywhere. I called my friends and asked where they remembered seeing it last. Each said something like “Somewhere in the living room” or “Probably on the table.” I continued to look through every room in my house, but it never turned up.

When I called FAO Schwarz, the largest toy store in New York, to see if I could order a new one, they said the original Corgi Beatles Yellow Submarine had been produced fourteen years before and would no longer be available anywhere.

Two years after the "missing submarine dinner,” my new husband and I traveled to England for our honeymoon. Knowing that the Corgi submarine was manufactured in the UK, I visited toy shops in every town. But there were none to be had.

Then, while having tea at the Royal Crescent in Bath one afternoon, I happened to glance at the classifieds in a local paper and saw an ad from a local resident listing a brand new Corgi Beatles Yellow Submarine for sale. Seeing my excitement, my sweet husband insisted we leave the meal and drive to the address immediately.  

Arriving in front of an attractive brick house in a small suburb, we ran up the steps quickly, and I rang the bell. A middle-aged woman wearing a cardigan sweater and plaid skirt, a Corgi at her side, opened the door and looked at us quizzically. I smiled and said, “We’re here about the submarine.” She stepped back quickly and began to close the door, murmuring, “Submarine”? 

Suddenly, I remembered that Great Britain was in the midst of fighting a war in the Falkland Islands and realized that two Americans appearing on her doorstep out of the blue inquiring about a submarine must have seemed crazy.

I immediately apologized for not explaining that we’d come to buy the Yellow Submarine toy she’d advertised and held up the newspaper.

We all laughed, and she invited us into her living room for tea. Then she handed me the Beatles toy in a brand new, unopened box. 

I never figured out what happened to the original Yellow Submarine, but I no longer cared. My new one was perfect.

Like the final words of the wonderful Beatles song:

As we live a life of ease/Every one of us/Has all we need /Sky of blue/And sea of green /In our yellow Submarine.

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Mara is a graphic designer, photographer and illustrator and founder of Mara Kurtz Studio.
Her work has been published in numerous publications including Metropolis, New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel and Leisure, and The Wall Street Journal.
She has been a Professor at Parsons School of Design,The New School, NYU and School of Visual Arts since 1990. She is a graduate of New York University and Parsons School of Design. She received an MA from The New School in 1995.
The Rock Hill Pictures, a book of Mara's documentary photographs, was published in 2012.