JOHN LENNON: 35 YEARS AGO JOHN LENNON WAS KILLED: I was At the Arrow Shirt Company

I remember the night well. Oh yes. Thirty five years ago tonight I was working the night shift at the Arrow Shirt Company near Six Flags Over Georgia. It was a Monday evening. The rumors started around the break time close to midnight. Was John Lennon dead?

As most of America watched Monday Night Football, I was spreading cloth for future shirt making. Howard Cosell told the nation that his friend John Lennon had just been murdered outside his Dakota Apartment Building in New York City. 

Suddenly, the game no longer mattered to most people. An era had ended. Part of our youth had died, and the Beatles would never ever reunite. It was a done deal.

On the way home at about 2:35am it was confirmed. The radio was playing hardly anything but Beatles' music. I knew. My driver knew also. The wittiest and most unique of the Beatles was dead.

When I arrived home, my parents were awake as usual and had food on the table for me. I told them that John Lennon had been assassinated. They were also shocked, knowing how much I liked the Beatles and individual Beatles.

I was up all night listening to the old Larry King Radio Show on the Mutual Radio Network. He handled things well, but still he nor anyone else knew what a big deal this death would become.

King disallowed the regular callers with funny names and things from going on the air, out of respect for John. Callers shared their memories of John Lennon and Beatlemania, as did Larry King himself. (He was in Miami when they visited in 1964.)

Women cried, men were sad, and even people too young to recall the Beatles were saddened at this man's death. The world was stunned. The callers to the show were a microcosim of the world.

The second lead story every 30 minutes on the news was a possible breakthrough in the Hostage situation in Iran. That did not even really matter now. Few people cared.

Early the next morning I was in the car driving to Lilburn, Georgia to my girlfriend's house. We went to Northlake Mall and bought Beatles albums (Yes, albums). We were sad. Christy had even read both of John Lennon's books.

Who would have ever thought that our lives would have turned-out this way, way back during that sad week? 

It is 35 years later, and the music still lives on. Regardless, most of the people once closest to me are dead, and I am almost alone in the world.

~ Jimmy Hall is owner and writer at JIMMY HALL WRITING SERVICES (404-580-1501) in Georgia; he writes business plans, resumes, seo web content, letters, and more...