It was 27 years ago today...

On Sunday, December 7, 1980, my family made one of our customary Sunday trips to Renninger's flea market, east of Carlisle on the Pennsylvania turnpike. Little did my parents realize (I think) that I spent most of my allowance that afternoon on a big stack of old copies of PENTHOUSE; I was only 16 years old, but looked older, and I figured out that while newsstands were a crapshoot, most flea market dealers would sell me as many back issues as I wanted... at 50 cents a piece. (There's a lot I could write about THAT habit, but I don't want to digress.)

After we went to the flea market, we stopped at a diner down the road, Zinn's , and when I finished with my dinner, I asked my dad if I could take the car keys and go out to the cold car and listen to the radio (and guard my stash). Mainly, though, I wanted to sit in the driver's seat and tune around.

Autumn 1980 was notable for two big things in my life: the Phillies not only made it to the World Series after years of getting close and falling short, but won the whole thing; and John Lennon was back on the radio with new music. I'd started buying records at age 11, summer 1975; this was shortly after John's most recent studio album, ROCK AND ROLL, came out... so, in other words, the whole five years I'd been conscious of rock and roll, buying new records and exploring old sounds, Lennon had been missing in action.

But earlier in 1980, rumors started circulating: Lennon was planning a comeback; recording new songs; the new songs would be a dialogue between him and his wife, Yoko Ono (a "heartplay"). Finally, in October, a single appeared, on a new label (Geffen Records): following the pattern of John's earliest solo singles, it was one of his songs on the a-side ("[Just Like] Starting Over") and one of Yoko's on the flip ("Kiss Kiss Kiss"). The artsy black and white picture cover showed the two of them face to face, kissing.

From the Geffen Records LP DOUBLE FANTASY, the label stated.

DOUBLE FANTASY. What did THAT mean?

A few weeks later, a new issue of PLAYBOY appeared, with a John Lennon interview as the centerpiece. (Actually, Karen Price was the centerpiece. But again, I don't want to digress.) I had to get that magazine... and on a Thanksgiving weekend shopping trip to Park City Mall in Lancaster, I snagged it. The interview was a revelation: Lennon, it seemed, had spent the last five years taking care of his and Yoko's son Sean, "baking bread and looking after the baby." More than that, Lennon seemed to have reconciled himself with his Beatles past, and with Paul. His affection for his former bandmates was as evident as was his disgust in the landmark LENNON REMEMBERS interview he'd given ROLLING STONE a decade earlier.

Not only were he and Paul on speaking terms, but Paul had actually come over to Lennon's New York apartment at the Dakota with his guitar... and the two of them were together at the Dakota when Lorne Michaels came on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and offered the Beatles $3,200 to reunite on his show. ("Four songs. 'She Loves You, Yeah, yeah, yeah.' That's $800 right there. Split it up any way you want. If you want to give Ringo less, it's up to you.") Lennon revealed that he and Paul almost hopped in a cab to the studio to take Michaels up on the offer, but "we were too tired." And even though it sounded like Lennon wanted to keep his distance ("Finally I said to him, 'Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.' He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door."), still, that they were talking at all made me think that maybe, just maybe, a Beatles reunion might be in the future.

Even if it wasn't, though, there was that new single: "Starting Over" was a rocker, but kind of smooth around the edges, relatively speaking. It was a more mature sounding Lennon; there didn't seem to be any angst; certainly the primal scream I'd heard on "Mother" was missing... nor was there any utopian idealism ala "Imagine" or "Mind Games." It was... well... slight. And it had GIRL BACKGROUND SINGERS. "Starting Over," I thought, teetered on the edge of being Lame... but given what he had to say in the interview about his life with Yoko and their relationship, it seemed honest.

"All we are saying," Lennon said, "is, 'This is what is happening to us.' We are sending postcards." "Starting Over," apparently, was a "postcard" from John to his fans.

Anyway, that Sunday evening, I sat in the cold car in the parking lot of Zinn's Diner, tuning around on AM, hoping to catch Lennon's new single on the radio. When I finally found it, I caught it towards the end. There's a moment, in "(Just Like) Starting Over," where Lennon sings

Although our love is still special
Let's take a chance and fly away
Somewhere...

and the record fades down into a couple beats of silence before a set of triplets on the tom toms brings the band back in full force, and Lennon goes into a falsetto, singing "Starting o-o-verrrrr" and wailing high as the record fades out.

That night, I found the song on a fading, distant AM station just as Lennon sang the line "Although our love is still special" and the signal faded slightly into the static as he sang "Somewhere...." In that moment, I thought I'd lost the signal...

... but as the tom toms played on the record, the station's signal came back loud and strong and clear, cutting through the static, and the song played through to the end.

Starting oh-oh-vahhhhh
Ooooooooooooo
Ah, ah, ah, ah...

It was one of my favorite radio moments ever.

Two mornings later, a Tuesday, I woke up for school around 6:30, same as usual: Pepper, our dog, came bursting in the room and jumped up on the bed, licking my face to wake me up. Meanwhile my dad was standing at the door, and I'll never forget what he said:

"John Lennon was shot last night."

Shot. Killed.

I think I said the word FUCK! in front of my parents three times that morning; it was the first time I'd ever said it in front of them, and they didn't call me on it. I felt sick, angry, stunned. I couldn't believe it; was he really dead? I turned on the radio to WTPA FM 104 ("Central PA's Best Rock"), which had been pretty much ignoring Lennon's new album, and was stunned --sickened-- to hear the Beatles song the DJ had chosen to play that morning:

"Happiness Is A Warm Gun."

(That station, I'm pretty sure, is still playing the same c 1977 album tracks they played back then, except now, instead of calling themselves an "album rock" station, they call themselves "classic rock.")

On the other album rock station, Starview 92, out of Hanover, the DJ was in tears. I can't remember what he said, can't remember what song he played. I couldn't listen. I had to go to school.

Fuck.

On one of our trips to Renninger's, I'd bought an authentic 1964 Beatles "flasher" button: when you flicked the button a little, the picture on the front switched between a group photo and a close-up of John Lennon, with I LOVE JOHN in type around the perimeter. If ever there was a day to wear that button to school, it was that day. I went to school in a daze; can't remember if I saw any of my friends (I sort of remember seeing my friend Greg and exchanging "I can't believe its" with him)... can't really remember anything except going to homeroom and sitting there in a daze... one of the first times I can really remember feeling so overwhelmed with emotion that I was numb, wondering where the tears were.

That feeling, more than any other, stuck with me that week: I saw video of Beatles fans at tributes, singing "Give Peace A Chance" and "Imagine," holding each other, in tears. In tears.

Where were my tears?

The only thing I really remember from that schoolday is homeroom that morning: sitting in Mr. Hemminger's homeroom at Carlisle High School and, after the announcements, looking across at a girl who I later found out had a secret crush on me. She looked at my button.

"John," she said. "Wasn't he the weird one?"

What a stupid fucking thing to say, I thought as I sat there silent.

(I imagine now that she probably said the same thing to herself for the rest of the day!)

That weekend, there was a candlelight vigil at the square in Carlisle, part of the worldwide "moments of silence" that Yoko requested in her husband's honor. It was a windy, bitingly cold winter afternoon, one of the kind which have long since abandoned central Pennsylvania in December. I went with my friend Greg. The vigil was held near a monument on the grounds of the old county courthouse; the sky was overcast, grey, and ugly tired dirty snow lay on the ground and in the gutters, clinging to the curbs, forming filthy slushy puddles. The small group at the memorial was mostly Dickinson College students; except for Greg, I didn't see anyone I recognized from the high school. We stood there with our candles, cupping our hands around the flames to keep them from going out in the breeze, and I'll never forget a college student stepping up, tears streaming down his cheeks and choking his voice, as he proclaimed "Just as a generation was defined by John F. Kennedy's assassination, so will our generation be defined by this..."

I thought this was a little over the top... still...

Where are my tears?

Twenty-seven years later, when I think of John Lennon and the way he died (shot in front of his wife) and the age he died (three years younger than I am now, as I write this) and the life he missed (his son was only five at the time) and was robbed of... when I hear "Starting Over," or any of the songs from DOUBLE FANTASY (which I couldn't stand to buy a copy of, and didn't add to my collection, until 15 years after he died), or read his optimistic and mature remarks in the PLAYBOY interview... or see pictures of him, circa 1980, confident, a survivor... as I sit here typing this, thinking about all these things, guess what? I've found a couple tears. 27 years later, there they are.

As his "estranged fiance" Paul sang in his song "Here Today," a few years after John died...

But as for me
I still remember how it was before
And I am holding back the tears no more
I love you...

God bless your spirit, John, and may we someday live up to all of your ideals... not just your utopian ideals of peace and brotherhood, but the little ideals, too: finding joy in the eyes of your spouse and your son, fulfillment in your art, and ultimately, the realization that (to paraphrase Captain B.J.Honeycutt) you don't need to change the whole world.

Just your little corner of it.