Remember

It's 10 degrees outside today, here in Maine.
I wonder how cold it was 25 years ago on this day in New York City?
As cold as a killers heart? I doubt it.
Back then I lived in Northern Michigan. I remember cleaning the snow off my car while warming it up for my drive to a neighboring town where my job was. It was late. I worked the graveyard shift in a factory.
I remember turning the car radio on and hearing the news bulletin.
A life altering event had occured tonight, one that was about to grip and unite the world in sadness.

"John Lennon was shot dead tonight in front of his New York City apartment."

I remember turning my car off and going back into the housed in shock and calling in sick.
I would not be going to work this night. I was sick to my stomach. Paralyzed in disbelief.
I lost a hero. The world lost a friend. How could this be?
Just typing this brings tears to my eyes. Why do I feel so connected?
It's been 25 years since he died, but it seems like a day.
John and I go back even further.
My first Beatles album was Sgt. Pepper. I was about 12 years old and it was like a great story book to me. I would listen to every word and in my mind I would see this whole movie playing.
It was more than music to me.
That was just the beginning of course, later I would follow all of the Beatles activities in the news, collecting articles from newspapers and magazines. I would spend hours reading their lyrics and trying to analyze each song, looking up every word and British slang that I didn't understand. It was only later, around the time of the break up, that I went back to Beatlemania and caught up with their entire history.
There was no video then, so I would put a cassette recorder in front of the television set so I could record John Lennon on the Tom Snyder Show, or record the news when Paul McCartney got busted taking marijuana into Japan. And then the night when every channel had special news reports on the death of the Beatle.
I guess my point here is that I grew up with Lennon. It was all very personal to me. The Beatles were the soundtrack to my life so far.
I still have a trunk full of books, newspapers, magazines, rare vinyl, and memories of the Fab Four.
From John, In His Own Write, to Yoko's Grapefruit.
Two Virgins, and The Wedding Album."
Headlines like, "John and Yoko attend the Watergate Hearings."
And from the N.Y.Post, "John Lennon Shot Dead."
I don't really know where I want to go with this story unless it's just to say that I remember.
My tears are real.
And though it makes me sad, I remember the happiness.
I remember the controversy of his honesty.
I remember believing that "All You Need Is Love."
I will continue to believe, and I will always remember.
I will remember someone who had the world at his finger tips and all he asked for was that we... "Give Peace A chance."