Zona

December 8, 1980


I was at work in Ogden, Utah and we had a TV in the back with the Monday night football game on when Howard Cosell announced that John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York.

Stunned does not begin to reach the emotion. I went out back and wept.

I still weep.

I watched the Beatles on the news when they arrived in New York.
I watched the Beatles perform live on Ed Sullivan.
I played in the elementary schoolyard that I was one of the Beatles and the girls would chase me.
I saw "Hard Days Night" on TV
I saw "Let it Be" in a theatre
I watched the press conference for the "bed in for peace".
I grew up watching John Lennon show the world how to be cool, how to be generous, how to be at peace with yourself.

All John Lennon wanted for the world was peace.

A few years ago I was in Pittsburgh on govt business and I drove over to Cleveland to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The John Lennon exhibit was showing. There were instruments and original lyrics written on scrap paper that became words taken into the very souls of millions of people. There were several of John's drawings and paintings as well as other personal effects such as John's "green card". Yoko Ono was very generous with what she shared with us in that exhibit and I thank her for that.

There was one exhibit in particular that stood out. It was a cylinder with thick glass windows and inside was a plain brown grocery bag. I'm paraphrasing here but Yoko's words were on the plaque and this is what she said about that bag.

"One thing I found out is that when your loved one is murdered in New York all that person was wearing is taken off at the morgue and placed in a plain brown bag. The sealed bag is then given to the family. I have never opened the bag".

I wept.