24 years ago tonight

I was in a rock band. We weren't very good, though we practiced all the time. During those years we practiced in the basement of St. John's Episcopal Church on Arsenal across from the park. I have some good memories of that basement, including meeting Annette for the first time. But on this night we were just running through some of our standard stuff. Standard stuff, like Beatles and Dylan. So, it's 1980 and we're playing Beatles and Dylan. Any wonder why we weren't getting the good jobs? We always played Beatle songs at practice, and this Monday night we practiced "The Ballad of John & Yoko." After the practice broke up, we all went our separate ways; me going home of course. Dave went to O'connell's to hang out for a while and around ten o'clock he called me, "Hey, did you hear what happened man?" My heart skipped a beat before he said another word. The tone and gravity in his voice was from another world. He sounded so grave that the first conscious thought I had was of nuclear attack from...who? What can I say, I'm a child of the Cold War. But then he said it: "John Lennon was shot. He's dead." I said, "What! That's crazy." "Yeah, Rick just told me." I didn't believe him. It really is crazy. I reached over to my stereo to turn on the radio. The dial was set to KSHE 95 of course; there weren't any other stations back then. As the sound from the radio came up, it was "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." I knew instantly that it was true. John was dead. I remember the rest of the night vividly; I was awake most of it. I cried. Other phone calls were made and received. He was only 40 years old. I'm 45 now, though I was just 20 at the time, and his house-husband routine looked to me grown up and respectable. I remember hearing The Police do "Walking on the Moon" for the first time that night. I always had a good ear for good acts and said to myself that night, "That is one hell of a drummer. They're good." But mostly I remember from that night something I wrote in a journal. At this time of my life I was not particularly religious and certainly not Christian. But I wrote that night, "The human race is sick." By that I meant "not well," and in need of help. Simple enough for an angry broken heart, but it was more than that. It was the only possible explanation for this murder. People are not right. Many years later I would come to believe this as a foundational truth. People are not right and they need help. Well, enough for tonight. Here's some web links for you: John Lennon, the Nature of Sin and the 1980's.