What were you doing when John Lennon was killed?

[Taverner]

I heard about it in the morning from the radio show I listened to every morning. I was a Beatle fan. And I was ten.

All my life, the Beatles were the only rock band my parents listened to - hence, it was the only rock band I listened to.

I remember dancing myself sick to "Hey Jude," hearing the melody to "Ticket to Ride" every time I took a roller coaster and thinking Pepperland, from the movie, must have been the coolest place in the world.

So when I heard that John, the smart Beatle, was gunned down senselessly on the morning of Dec 8, 1980 - I couldn't help but cry.

I ran in and told my parents. My dad was disinterested and my mom felt sad, but life goes on.

That's what I was doing.

What were you doing?

[randr]

1. Watching TV as they broke in for announcement

Sobbing with images of Martin and Bobby in my mind. Still brings me to tears.

[Taverner]

2. Me too...

I am crying now actually

[Tsiyu]

3. Suffering through the worst case of

food poisoning or a bug.

A few hours before, I'd eaten a metal-wrapped TV dinner - Stouffer's Chicken Cacciatore.

And when the bug/poisoning hit, it was not pretty. We lived in a raised ranch with my room downstairs next to the bathroom door (thankfully) and within sight of the den where my brother and cousin were watching TV.

One one of my rapid stumbles out of my door toward the bathroom, my cousin, crying, said "What the hell is wrong with you? John Lennon is dead! You need to come watch this." I was not sure if I wasn't hallucinating.

Some years before that, the two of them had convinced me for about five minutes that they had written and recorded "When I'm Sixty Four." Yeah, they were always pranking me like that. So then I thought they were just messing with me.

It still was weird, the way they were just standing there watching the tube.

It wasn't until the next morning that I realized they were not messing with me, IIRC.

Seems so friggin long ago and then sometimes like yesterday...

[madinmaryland]

4. Studying for a calculus test. I was not a Beatles fan. It was sad that he lost

his life to a murderer.

[applegrove]

5. The radio was always on at our house. I think I remember hearing about it then. On my way

to high school in grade 10.

[KamaAina]

6. Like most of New England, watching the Patsies blow a playoff spot to Miami.

And then Cosell broke in with the news. At the time, pre-Buckner, the lowest point in New England sports history. Not to mention music history.

[Taverner]

11. FTR Cosell said he did the best he could

And he knew this would be a tough day for all Beatles fans...

[nomorenomore08]

7. I didn't exist yet... Not for a few more years...

But the Beatles' music certainly has had an impact on my life. Whether it was owning a cassette tape of 'Sgt. Pepper' back in Kindergarten, or listening to the 'Abbey Road' side-two suite over and over again in college, it's always been there in some form.

[Taverner]

10. Bless you

[Denninmi]

8. In 10th grade. Probably asleep.

Heard about it at the bus stop the next morning, and it was a topic of discussion in several classes.

Sad, sad day.

[Mr.Bill]

9. Watching Monday Night Football

so like much of the nation, I had to endure the indignity of hearing it from Howard Cosell, America's #1 Douchebag.

[Auggie]

32. Me too ...

and my thoughts exactly

[LiberalElite]

12. Night School

Attending college at night. I didn't find out he was dead till the next day.

[silentwarrior]

13. I was living with my grandmother

when the news came on the tv about John.

I lay in bed for weeks listening to our local radio station playing tributes
of his music.

I was born in early 60s and brought up listening to The Beatles music.

Fav all time song "Hey Jude"

[WCGreen]

25. Paul wrote that about John's son...

[Betsy Ross]

14. I was living in Italy, just outside Siena

Heard it on TV, in Italian.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

15. I was eating breakfast getting ready for school

Grade 4 or 5. I still remember I was eating instant oatmeal. Now I hate that stuff, not sure if its related to JL or not.

But on a brighter note, Dec 8th is Jim Morrison's Birthday.

[cliffordu]

16. Sitting at Chuckles Restaurant

in NW Portland Oregon, with a drag queen, a zaftig bartender, and a person who was getting ready to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

Our bartender, Loretta ("Whoretta" to all the youngsters) was back in the kitchen for a minute making a sandwich, heard it on the radio and came back out, crying - bawling - actually - and could barely get the phrase out -

Everyone in that bar wept as if a member of the family had been killed.

Chuckles no longer exists, victim of a parking lot.

Whoretta, Ray, Cherrie and the rest will be with me always.

Like John.

[tonekat]

17. I was living with my parents (still)

And it came on the evening news, my Dad was home, and I said "he was my favorite Beatle!"

As an in the closet trans person at the time, I would have preferred to experience it the way cliffordu did.

[cliffordu]

18. I loved that place. I was sitting there when Saint Helens went -

went and sat in the parking lot with a six pack of beer and a burger, watching the end of the world.

You could see the plume like the devil hisself.

[Kath1]

19. I was watching a football game.

Howard Cosell broke the news. I was in college at the time and couldn't believe, the next day, that people were not as devestated as I was.

[TwilightGardener]

20. I was also ten, in the fourth grade. I don't really remember

much about that day--though I knew who John Lennon was, and the rest of the Beatles, they seemed to belong to the past already by 1980--before my time.

[petronius]

21. I have no idea - I'm not sure I'd even heard of the Beatles when I was 9, it certainly

didn't make an impression. We didn't have a TV, and the only thing I specifically remember my parents listening to was Neil Diamond...

[MrMickeysMom]

22. I was living alone in a tiny apartment, separated for about 3 months...

Very much alone... very confused with so many things... I fixed the relationship issues after that time and started growing up past my adulthood assholery stage.

I imagine I was not the only one...

[hunter]

23. Flunking Organic Chemistry.

Some days I went to school, some days I skipped classes to move furniture.

Turns out organic chemistry isn't the sort of class one can skip. It was a miserable time in my life for various reasons, and Lennon's murder brought further darkness.

[WCGreen]

24. Watching Monday Night Football with my step father.

I was home from college and didn't have a car so I just stayed home to watch with Ed.

I think Cosell was still doing the Color for the team.

I was really upset about the whole thing.

[OriginalGeek]

26. Riding around in a church van with my youth group

We heard it on the radio and I remember one of the leaders (not a youth pastor but I guess an assistant?) cheering and saying "1 down, 3 to go". Rock music was the devil.

I was in my mid-teens and hadn't listened to the Beatles in a long time but I remembered hearing them in my youth before my folks got divorced and my mom went batshit crazy religious fundamentalist.


That was one of the moments that contributed to me questioning and eventually realizing I was an atheist. Fuck those assholes.

[johnsolaris]

27. college & radio

Hi,

I was on my second trip through college having dropped out a few years earlier, but well on my way to graduating. I had gone to bed early since I was working at the local Radio station doing the morning show. I arrived at work to do my shift & the overnight guy gave me the news. I was shocked.

We changed the music to all Beatles for the rest of the day.

[RudynJack]

28. I was in college

Went to a friend's dorm room - she answered the door in tears. Told me what had happened. A very sad day.

[love_katz]

29. I was living at the coast at the time.

Did not have a t.v. then, because you had to have cable or satellite and we were too poor for that.
So, I would've learned the terrible news from either the news paper or the radio. I seem to remember that I heard it from my former husband, when he got home from work.

I remember crying...a lot.

John was my favorite Beetle. I grew up listening to their music, and all the rest of what is now considered Classic Rock.

1980 was a terrible year: Ronnie Raygun became President; Mt. St. Helens violently erupted, killing many animals and about 58 people, blowing down thousands of acres of forests, etc. And, John Lennon was murdered by some scum sucking pig who wanted his 15 minutes of fame. Not a year I would want to live over again.

[MrScorpio]

30. I was doing some artwork and was about to go to work

Everyone at work was upset to hear the news when I got there.

[KWorth]

31. Sitting in my barracks at Ft. Irwin NTC.

Sad day for all.

[treestar]

33. Asleep in a dorm room with the window open

I heard some person from the other side of the dorm screaming it out the window.

Weird experience. He must have heard of it via the media and then decided to announce it to the entire campus.

[Donkees]

34. Living in Manhattan...

...when the news came over the airwaves, I joined the sea of people surrounding The Dakota. He died on my birthday.

[stlsaxman]

35. my band was in the recording studio without me, i was stuck at a "jock party"

watching the football game wishing i was at the studio when Cosell broke the news. All the jocks were like- "Fuck that- GET BACK TO THE GAME..." etc.

I was heartbroken, totally hated sports fans from there on out... now i realize they're into their thing like i was into music, and they're just plain stoopid, anyways.

[In_The_Wind]

36. Making plans for Christmas in Staten Island.

[LWolf]

37. Working the late shift,

the lone waitress in the local bowling alley coffee shop.

[Hayabusa]

38. I was -4 years old, so...

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

39. Watching Monday night football

Howard Cosell told us about it.......

[TeamPooka]

40. I have a solid alibi.

[HeiressofBickworth]

41. I don't know what I was doing at the moment he was killed

The first I heard about it was when the phone rang. It was my brother in Australia calling to ask if it was true that John Lennon had been shot. I first thought he was calling to wish me a Happy Birthday a little early (my BD was the next day -- today). I told him that I didn't have TV or radio on and I didn't know if it was true or not. He never did wish me a Happy Birthday.

[lastlib]

42. Studying for a tax law exam the next day...

...Was so upset, I flunked the exam, messed up another one the next day, wound up not having grades to keep me off academic probation, and dropped out.

Then had to live thru the Reagan Administration. Bad times, never really got over 'em.

[Iggo]

43. At a friend's house scoring some herbage.

We mourned appropriately.

[av8rdave]

44. I was in Air Force Pilot Training

My roommate walked in and told me. I was numb.

[pink-o]

45. I was living in London with my 2 American friends

who saw The Beatles play Candlestick, their last concert. We heard about it on the morning of the 9th, GMT. My one friend went out to get the Guardian and some smokes, then ran home and shook me awake with the horrible news. I had worked a late shift at the Rock Garden (I was a bartender) and never got up before noon. I was really pissed off at my friend, until I focused on the headline she was waving in front of my face. Then I spent the day weeping.

Gotta add: the three of us were home that evening, listening to the BBC, and they played "Across the Universe". Up to that point, I just dismissed that song as Hippy-Dippy jargon, but since then, it'll make me cry just thinking about it. I like to think of John's love, expanding like the galaxies. And as a fellow Atheist, we know it expands like this: each new person to hear his songs will pass them on, will add to those of us who love and cherish his memory.