If you’re of a certain age, brace yourself. Beatles’ drummer, Ringo Starr, turned 77 years old over this past summer. If you’re of a different “certain age” and don’t know who Ringo Starr is, a bit of advice. Never say that you don’t know who Ringo Starr is in front of the first “certain group.” Just saying.

Even among those of us who cut our teeth on Yellow Submarine, there are things we don’t know about Ringo. But first, we need to hear him sing. Scroll down to see him sing an epic tune:

Now that that’s out of our system,  here a few things you might not know about the man:

• Ringo was a left handed drummer who played a right handed kit, and they were always Ludwig drums;
• He nearly died – twice. Much of his youth was spent in hospitals and sanatoriums because of pleurisy, tuberculosis, and a burst appendix that put him in a coma for ten weeks;
• Ringo nearly became a Texan. A year before he joined the Beatles, he and a pal tried to emigrate to America. They wrote to the state of Texas about leaving England, but because there were too many forms to complete, they ditched the idea;
• He was the last person to join the Beatles, the first Beatle to leave the group, the first Beatle to smoke pot (but the only Beatle never busted for drugs) .

But as we are National Purebred Dog Day, our personal favorite is that Ringo Starr was a Poodle and Airedale Terrier owner. When the Beatles stopped touring, Ringo bought a big Tudor mansion in Surrey, England that was named, “Sunny Heights.” It provided plenty of room for Maureen (Ringo’s first wife) and Ringo’s nine cats, a Poodle named “Tiger,”and two Airedales named Daisy and Donovan

Image of Ringo seen with “Daisy” and “Donovan” at Sunny Heights in Weybridge,Surrey in 1966. The photo is from ‘Beatle Book’ photographer, Leslie Bryce