Damn it! It will be 39 years tomorrow and I still hurt. Oh John why?

[Botany]

[emulatorloo]

1. ...

[Ohioboy]

2. I heard about John's death while on second shift at my job

As soon as I got home I took my guitar to a local bar and played "Imagine" to a roomful of tear eyed bar patrons. It was was the only time I can remember crying in public as an adult.

[catrose]

4. I heard about it in a conversational French class where everyone brought a current event to discuss

It was surreal, translating in my mind, thinking I must be wrong, knowing I was right, wanting to scream, holding it together until the class was over.

[Demovictory9]

23. i was in college. some one had candle burning in dorm hallway

[MuseRider]

3. It will be a memory forever.

I came home from Nursing School exhausted after a long day. I took off my coat, pet the cat and took the dog out. Came inside, grabbed the wrench I had to use to change channels on my old, very busted black and white TV and the first thing that came on was that news. I went back and sat down in my very old and threadbare stuffed pink chair and cried. Hours of TV and crying.

[Botany]

5. I was 21 and it had been snowing and a friend and I smoked some dope and were in an ...

..... old cemetery looking for a really neat old headstone and just when the headlights hit the
headstone Imagine came on the radio and I remember think or crying, "Oh no did something
happen to John?"

BTW almost 40 years later we still haven't done anything about our fucked up gun laws.

[MuseRider]

19. What was it about smoking dope

and cemeteries? We used to do that too, wander around stoned through the graves looking at them, especially the places with very old stones.

Of course most of what we did we did stoned then. I was 27 the day after it happened. I had thought the gun thing would have been way over after this, after Reagan, after so many shootings but it is worse now.

John Lennon, shot to death. It made no sense.

[malaise]

6. John and Bob

within six months - yes it still hurts

[StarfishSaver]

10. Bob?

Forgive me if it's obvious, but I can't think of who you mean.

[malaise]

12. Marley

May 11 1981

[StarfishSaver]

13. Aw.

Duh.

Thanks.

[MuseRider]

20. Good grief

I had forgotten they were so close together. 6 months. Such a sad thing.

[malaise]

21. It's actually closer than that

Five months and a few days - sad is right - two of my all time favorites

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. My favorite John song: Anna

[yonder]

8. I'll never forget the sound of Howard Cosell's voice

coming on towards the end of Monday Night Football and announcing it. What a shock. I was mostly through a bottle of Night Train Lambrusceau (good stuff, not). I drained it and that empty bottle sits on top of the book case, next to an empty bottle of whiskey which my neighbor and I emptied after the news of George's passing.

Such a loss.

[StarfishSaver]

11. Wow! That's exactly how I found out.

Heard it on Monday Night Football ...

[yonder]

14. Without looking it up, I think Oakland was one of the teams playing

but am not sure. I mostly just remember the shock.

[Dave Starsky]

18. Same here. That's how much of the country found out.

Everybody watched MNF.

[yonder]

22. Wow, what a flood. Thanks for this.

[NightHawk63]

24. SAME HERE

Same here

[StarfishSaver]

9. It still breaks my heart

I never got over it.

[Alliepoo]

15. We had gotten home from going out to dinner-

Heard it on the tv. And then the phone calls from friends calling to pass along the sad and awful news. We were all mourning and in shock. What a loss.

[BigmanPigman]

16. I was a HUGE Beatles fan and living in NY, NY

and had just come out of the shower (5 other roommates in art school so you shower when you can). The only phone was down the hall and the line to make calls was endless. I didn't go to any memorial uptown. I dressed in my nicest, prettiest outfits and did my own minute of silence in my apt on Union Sq. After that I wore black every day (including Christmas) for a month. I remember that I had just celebrated Jim Morrison's birthday the day before (Dec., 8th). The music really did seem to be over that night.

[rickyhall]

17. I remember...

The next morning I woke to the radio playing all Beatles. Then the DJ made the announcement. For the first time since early childhood I cried. I thought dad had beaten crying completely out of me. (You know, "MEN don't don't cry.&quot

I hadn't realized how much of an idol he had become to me. The Beatles' music had helped me through some pretty bad times. Those songs and other 60's rock gave me hope & kept me going.

The other day I heard "Fool on the Hill" & instantly pictured Dump in my mind.

[Dennis Donovan]

25. I use Dec 8, 1980 as a milestone in my life - categorizing things as pre and post 12/8/80

Much in the way I use 9/11/01 - things are either pre or post 9/11 in my mind.

I still miss him and still remember the sting of hearing the news.

[DFW]

26. I was near Boston at the time with a friend from London.

He remarked that he didn't seem to have brought much in the way of good fortune for his visit.

[RazzleCat]

27. ooof, getting old, I was an intern at a top 40 radio station when it came over the wire service

I remember having to scramble to put together a retrospective and instant call in show. I did not have any time to process it till well after my shift. I also remember hundreds of calls coming in of persons just sobbing and begging me to tell them it was not true, all with there stories of how he or the Beatles music has affected there life.

[Seedersandleechers]

28. A month before John died

I had a disturbing dream that I was at the Dakota apartments (I had just read a spread in Life magazine that was centered in his apartment). In my dream I kept seeing a shadowy man lurking around with a gun and I was so disturbed by this dream that I told my then husband about it when I woke up. A month later we were stunned when watching TV and the station announced the breaking news.

[PlanetBev]

29. I was on the night shift

Working as a cartoon painter at a Los Angeles animation studio. Heard one co-worker say to another “is he dead?” Of course, I asked “who?”

I got off my shift at 12:30 and turned on Nightline. I didn’t sleep all night.