December 8th, 1980 was the start of a busy week for me, even though I was a 14 year kid at the time. I was involved in the music department at my High School, Waukegan East, a member of one of the choir groups. In addition to preparing for the holiday concert the following week, we also were in the final preparation for the Madrigal Feast, which was a RenFair-like Christmas celebration held every year at our school. The only part I had that year was being a jester, but I was still nervious about performing.
I don't rememmber much of the day now but I know that I went to bed early, probably aorund 10PM, since my bus to school picked us up at 7:15am. I usually sleped with the radio on, tuned to Newsradio 78 (don't ask why, but I found it soothing). It was football season still, so I fell alseep listening to Monday Night Football.
I was woken up the next morning not by my alarm clock, but by my younger brother around 6:30am. He had a smartass way of telling me stupid stuff to get my goat when I was waking up and I hated that.
"Wake up," Eric said as he opened the door to my bedroom, "John Lennon was killed last night."
I looked at him like he was nuts. I was just starting to get into the Beatles, checking out their albums and reading about them. In fact, we were going to perform one of their songs from the Beatles For Sale album, "Every Little Thing" in our concert the next week.
Eric left and I shook myself awake with my ear to the radio that was still on when the announcer started the new news cycle by saying that Lennon had been assasinated. Only the events of 9/11 would be more shocking to me than hearing that news.
The whole day was one of a numb feeling. I walked through the day like I was a daze, shocked that someone so important to the last couple of generations was murdered. I do remember during choir practice that morning when Mr. Johansson, our director, mentioned about how gun laws allowed someone like Mark David Chapman to pull off such a ugly stunt.
The whole week was just absolutly sad. Beatles music all over the radio, TV stations showing specials on Lennon's life and showing all those archived footage of those four young men, all in their early 20's, ttaking the world by storm and spreding the word of love to everyone with their music. It seemed so unfair that a guy who was filled with so much hate could destroy someone who ment so much to people.
My emotions finally overwhelmed me othat Sunday. About 90 minutes before we were supposed to do the feast, the 10-minute vigil requested by Yoko took place. About ten of us went to a secluded spot and went silent with out thoughts and prayers. About halfway through, I started crying, realizing that this amanzing person was no longer with us.
As I have gotten older and read more about Lennon, I grew to respect him. He was a flawed person, like all of us, but he had the passion, intelligence, charm and determination that made him a spokesperson for my parent's generation. I often wonder how our life would be if John had lived, with the events of the Reagan era, the fall of Communism, the rise of the cyberculture and the War on Terror passed. I'm sure he would have had some opinions that he wouldn't have shy about letting all of us know about. I'm sure he would have used his activism in order to fight for the concept of peace he always belived in.
John Lennon has been dead a quarter century, but his legacy still lives with us and will always do so as long as we all belive that love and peace is the way to go. Those things are needed more than ever.