I DON'T REMEMBER WHEN JFK DIED, OR WHERE I WAS WHEN ELVIS PACKED IT IN, BUT EVERY YEAR ABOUT THIS TIME, I CAST MY MIND BACK TO 1980, DECEMBER 8TH, THE DAY JOHN LENNON DIED, IN NEW YORK, AGED 40, AT THE HANDS OF A LUNATIC.
I WAS IN LOS ANGELES AT THE TIME, STAYING IN VENICE BEACH, I WAS IN THE CAR WITH A MATE, ON OUR WAY TO A RESTAURANT, AND HEARD THE NEWS REPORT ON THE RADIO. WE WERE SHOCKED. WHEN WE ARRIVED AT THE VENUE, I TOLD A WAITRESS THE NEWS. SHE SAID, "YEH...THAT SORT OF THING HAPPENS ALL THE TIME." THOSE WORDS HAVE HAUNTED ME TO THIS DAY, AS THEY SAY A LOT ABOUT SOME PEOPLE.
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Those words say a lot about the USA... Murder is their national sport.
I was at Thyra Public School, a little one-room place in the Southern Riviera, coming to my last year of teaching there. The news of Lennon's death arrived with my copy of The Age, delivered by the mail contractor. One of mykids ran out to the mailbox (a weedkiller drum painted with galvo paint, nailed to a fence-post along a dirt road) and brought to me in her small, helpful hand, horror and sorrow, for that day, and a little every day I've thought of it since.
Lennon lives in his music. Perhaps it's greedy of us ever to have wanted him to go on living forever, in the flesh.
SDG
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