He would've been 80 today! 🕯

[Floyd R. Turbo]

[CincyDem]

1. Do you remember exactly we're you were on 12/8/80?

Watching MNF when a Howard Cosell announced it. I will always remember the exact spot I was standing.

Only other event seared into my memory like thst was 9/11.

[Zoonart]

3. Exactly how I got the news.

I feel exactly the same way. I immediately got involved with the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (the Brady group),
and the next December, helped put on a benefit concert at the Ripley Music Hall In Philly.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

4. I was watching Bob Geldof on a local talk show. He was saying that Lennon had become a bitter person

following the Beatles breakup. The host was given a note, which he read aloud, saying that Lennon had been shot and killed in New York. It was surreal!

[LeftInTX]

12. OMG

[Silver Gaia]

7. Yes. I will never forget.

We were living in the back hills of Tennessee in an old farmhouse with no electricity and an Ashley woodstove for heat. I had a kerosene lamp for light and a battery operated am/fm radio tuned into a Nashville rock & roll station. That's where I heard the news. I was 9 months pregnant. I grieved so hard. John meant the world to me. The loss was almost unbearable. Two days later, I went into labor and my beautiful daughter was delivered into my arms by a local midwife. The lesson in this was not lost on me, and was etched deep. I will never forget.

[LeftInTX]

11. I was working and did not own a TV at the time.

I drove to work and they played a John Lennon song and said, "The Late John Lennon"...I was like, "What?"

I worked with a group of awful people. I asked around and they would not respond to me. I found out more after I got out of work.

[Zoonart]

2. Johnny, we miss ye.

[Mad_Dem_X]

5. I would have loved to hear his thoughts

on what is going on in the world today.

Happy Birthday, John.

[Botany]

6. It still hurts. "I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go 'round and 'round."

[Fla Dem]

8. "Imagine" that. Hard to believe. Was it a dream?

Lyrics
So long ago
Was it in a dream?
Was it just a dream?
I know, yes I know
It seemed so very real
Seemed so real to me

Took a walk down the street
Through the heat whispered trees
I thought I could hear
Hear
Hear
Hear

Somebody call out my name (John)
As it started to rain
Two spirits dancing so strange
Ah! Bowakawa, pousse pousse
Ah! Bowakawa, pousse pousse
Ah! Bowakawa, pousse pousse

Dream, dream away
Magic in the air
Was magic in the air?
I believe, yes I believe
More I cannot say
What more can I say?

On a river of sound
Through the mirror go round, round
I thought I could feel
Feel
Feel
Feel
Music touching my soul
Something warm, sudden cold
The spirit dance was unfolding
Ah! Bowakawa, pousse pousse
Ah! Bowakawa, pousse pousse
Ah! Bowakawa, pousse pousse

[Bradshaw3]

9. I remember him talking about the impetus behind Imagine

He was on the Tom Snyder show. He said he knew that such a dream wasn't close to being reality at that time but compared it to da Vinci drawing sketches of a flying machine 500 years before the first airplane. You have to imagine it first, even though it may take half a millenium to happen. I thought it showed he wasn't just a naive dreamer, but a true artist who was shining a light on the path where humanity could go one day.

I still miss John and Imagine still brings tears to my eye. Thanks for posting.

[electric_blue68]

10. I was listening to the rock radio station...

(of 2) I usually listened to when the DJ got and then broke the news. Then as events unfolded they started to take calls from the audience for hours.

I'm a born and bred NYC'r so it made doubly tragic.
But the most surreal thing was that when I was a kid my parent would take me to the dentist-

that was near the other end of the same street as
The Dakota for a bunch of years. We'd get off the local subway stop, turn the corner and going westward we'd pass by the entrance way. Like 20+ yrs earlier.

Went the Central Park memorial gathering several days later. It's still a sad memory, and painful if dwelled upon.