Baby Boomers remember exactly where they were and what they
were doing when they first heard Elvis or the Beatles, heard of the death of JFK, or when man first walked on the moon.
I remember exactly where I was when, thirty years ago, I learned
the horrible news that John Lennon had been senselessly murdered. I had just gotten out of a marketing
class I was taking at Glendale (Arizona) Community College and was chatting with a friend while waiting for my wife of almost
six months to pick me up.
I was telling
my friend about a concert I was promoting that was going to happen in a couple of months. Oddly enough, it was the first public
solo concert by former Paul McCartney and Wings drummer, Joe English. My gorgeous wife pulled up, rolled the window down and
said, “Did you hear the news? John Lennon was killed tonight!”
What?
Like you, I just knew that there must be some mistake –
it just couldn’t be. A man who preached and promoted peace is shot to death? The irony didn’t escape me.
A lot has been written about John Lennon and his life and death
since that horrible night. Most people have elevated him to sainthood while a few have denigrated him. I
view him not only as not only having been an incredibly gifted musician but also a husband and father.
A husband and father. The two greatest roles a man can hold. Two
roles that John gladly dropped out of the limelight, off the stage and out of the studios in order to plunge wholeheartedly
into. Two roles his “friends” and corporate types questioned his sanity for pursuing.
Apparently having learned from his shortcomings as a father to
his first son, Julian, John didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. And while Lennon’s musical legacy is obvious
and well documented, it’s this sacrifice and effort that left a more important and lasting legacy where and when it
really counts.
While most fans undertake the exercise
of wondering of what could have been, musically, no one knows and, while interesting, it’s pointless.
Instead, why not take the positive message in a lot of John Lennon’s
work and see where we can go with it? Why not “give peace a chance” in our adversarial relationships?
Men, why not look at some of the sacrifices that Lennon made after learning from his mistakes and do what it takes
to learn from ours? Why not take some time from the madness that is dominating more and more of our lives
to “watch the wheels go ‘round”?
In
doing so, we will create many treasure chests of priceless memories for those we love. Most of us work
jobs wherein we create musical or written works that our families can enjoy after we are gone. Somehow
I don’t think the product of our work in our worker-bee jobs will reflect who we really are so we must make the time
to create countless, positive, lasting memories.
If
we can learn this lesson from the life of John Lennon, then I would argue this is the most powerful and lasting legacy he
could leave us along with his music, drawings and writings. For Yoko, Sean and Julian it’s the private
treasure chest of memories he created.
For
them, those memories are what matter most.
