30 Years Ago Today

Wednesday, December 8, 2010 10:41:02 AM

30 years ago, I was a freshman in high school. on Monday morning December 9th, 1980my clock radio clicked on and I heard for the first time, “Our fife together is so precious together, We have grown - we have grown” It was the first lines to “(Just Like) Starting Over,” the first single from Double Fantasy John Lennon first album of new material in five years.

My older brothers and sisters had left a pile of Beatles' 45's as a testament to their appreciation to the lads from Liverpool. There had always been the idea of John, Paul, George and Ringo in our house. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was one of the first albums I bought (along with Joe Walsh's But Seriously Folks). Taking it home and listening to it put flesh and blood to that idea that I had known the Beatles all my life.

At age fifteen, John Lennon was only a former Beatle to me, I knew almost nothing of his work after the Beatles broke up.  On December 9, 1980, my joy at learning that John Lennon was still making music turned to sadness and horror as the details of his murder by a mentally ill young man became known. Stalked, hunted, and shot in the lobby his home, The Dakota, in New York City the previous night, Lennon's murder was irony at its cruelest to the excitement he sang about in that first single.

A nurse and I were talkng yesterday about him; she wondered where he would be if hje hadn't died.  I was thinking that world would be a better, less scary place if he were still with us. I thought of some of the things he had said:  "Imagine there's no countries,   Nothing to kill or die for,"  "Give peace a chance,"  "There's nothing you can make that can't be made, No one you can save that can't be saved, Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time- It's easy..."

All we need is love.

Thursday, December 9, 2010 05:31:32 PM