The Day The Music Died, 25 years later

In July of 1980 I had the honor of going to the 1980 Democratic convention as a page for the South Dakota delegation. My father was there also as a delegate. It was fun for me as I had a higher security clearance than the delegates, and I also was doing live reports back to a radio station that I worked at {am1520}, here in Sioux Falls.

I got my 15 minutes of fame when I tied several strings to a balloon & sent it up to the upper deck to get Amy Carters autograph & all three networks zoomed in on the secret service grabbing the balloon as a "disturbance near the Carter family...". I found out later I had several agents behind me on the floor of Madison Square ready to take me down. As the agent above me grabbed the note & read it, he leaned over & gave me the "ok sign" {it actually was to the agents behind me that I was not a threat}. He then passed the note down to Amy, she signed it & threw it back down, and then kept the balloon. Dammit, it was my balloon & I wanted to keep it! After turning around & realizing the guys in suits with guns I thought better to
let it be.
Which, in in odd segue, gets me back to why I am writing this post about John Lennon & his death.

During our stay in NYC, there were many gatherings, most that I could not goto due to my age. But there was one for both the North & South Dakota Delegations that was held not only at the Dakota Apartments, but next door to John & Yoko Ono.

As our group got off of the subway & made it across the street to the building, we all were in awe of its beauty. As we got closer & went into the entryway to get admitted I turned to my dad & said "You know for someplace that has this much money, this would be a great place to get mugged or something", while pointing at the empty little doormans vestibule.

Little did I know.

Fast forward five months to Dec. 8th 1980. I was typing a paper on my dads computer in the basement & listening to the radio when I heard the news of John Lennon being shot. I was stunned. Then thirty minutes later they announced that he had died. And the place he was killed at was in the entryway of the Dakota Apartments, exactly where I stood in July telling my dad about how someone could get jumped there.

A cold shiver went through my whole body & I could not do anything but stare at the wall for I don't know how long. I finally got back to my senses, printed my report, talked to my parents for a while, & went to bed.
The next morning I went to the radio station to do the talkshow that we had before school & found the drapes pulled on the big window facing Main Ave. Normally this is wide open so that people can look in on the FM studio & wave at the dj's, give them crap, request songs, etc. I went in to the AM side & saw the morning DJ for the FM station just sobbing.

Ginger is one of, if not the biggest Beatles fan I have ever met & probably ever will. And she is not a someone of fragile persona & at times could make sailors & marines blush. But she sat in the other studio totally broken.

I found out from the others that several people kept calling in with dedications like "hit me with your best shot" and other gun toting kind of songs & artists, and Ginger finally lost it. As I was affected by the situation in a totally different & creepy way, I thought it better that I did not try to say anything to her. A half hour into our show we saw in the other studio Ginger leave & our Gen. Mgr. took over the rest of her shift.

Twenty five years later, and it does not seem that long ago, I still think about the whole thing, me standing in that exact spot, and to a point, knowing something bad would happen.

I just didn't think it would end an era of one of the most influential musical groups, and songwriting teams in the genesis of what was rock & roll.

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John Winston Lennon
Oct. 9, 1940 - Dec. 8, 1980

Blessed Be John
And may you rest well
knowing that you have influenced many people,
and will for the rest of time.

Jon B