Jaci Dawn

It seems like it was a hundred years ago: I was young, naive, and away from home at college. I was on my second room-mate, a woman named Suzanne from Skokie, Ill. She had a great sense of humor and we did some juvenile things that still bring a chuckle to my heart.

One of our stunts was to pass out rumors that Peter, Paul & Mary (who were no longer a group in 1975) were going to perform in the quad. No one showed up, so it was obvious people were onto the fact it was a rumor (or they just didn’t care). We didn’t care. Another time, we decided to go on the air, live, on the college radio station and sing a song together. The midnight disk-jockey lived in the dorm room next to us and he was thrilled that we were up to such a stupid stunt.

First off, harbor no illusions: my voice is flat. I can hear music just fine, but make my voice obey? HA! I sound eerily like Yoko Ono. That is not particularly flattering. It is also why we chose “Give Peace A Chance” for our debut song. Our only song, actually. Suzanne had a voice as bad as mine and I think the disk-jockey turned us off before he got nasty phone calls in the dead of the night. If anyone was listening, that is.

I loved John Lennon. Of all the Beatles, John was the one I most admired. I didn’t care so much for Yoko Ono, but I loved John Lennon’s quick wit, sarcastic come-backs, and the beauty of the songs he penned. The poetry. From “I Am the Walrus” to “Imagine”, John Lennon was a poet.

The day he was assassinated, I remember crying. I cut the article out of the paper and pasted it into my scrapbook and I wondered why no one else seemed as saddened as I felt that day. The world stood still.

Years later, watching “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, I was gratified to see Mr. Holland stunned by the same news: John Lennon was dead. The world had, indeed, stood still for some of us.

Peace had no chance, there was no Imagine, there was no long-haired hippie dude in white mocking our values. John Lennon made us question things: now he was dead. Assassinated. Murdered. Father, husband, musician. The most fringe element of the old Beatles – gone.

I remember their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. I’m surprised my parents let us watch it. My sister, Denny, and I spent the following week pretending we were the Beatles: she was Paul McCartney and I was John Lennon. Over and over and over again.

Today, John Lennon would have been 70. That is as hard for me to imagine as it is to imagine that in a few weeks I will be (gasp!) 54.

Happy 70th Birthday John. We’re still trying to “Give Peace A Chance” on Earth – but we’re not doing a great job at it.