It was really big news in my high school when John Lennon and Yoko Ono had their Bed-In. They holed up in a New York hotel in their pajamas and were threatening not to leave their bed until Nixon ended the Vietnam war. And the nearest I remember they weren’t cutting their hair either.
It was a Peace-In that was all over the news. And John Lennon was the perfect anti-hero. He wrote beautiful complicated lyrics. He was anti-war, pro-drugs, and a champion of women’s rights.
I don’t spend a lot of time debating with myself if his pro-drug stance may have influenced the overdose deaths of several of my friends.
John Lennon was an extraordinary guy. And he was a man of his times and perhaps a doorway to our times.
I was sober by the time Lennon was killed by a crazed fan. And I will always remember that, as the sun was setting, I was driving by my ex-boyfriend’s house. I had just kicked him out the week before. Between the angsty break-up and the death of a hero, I wanted to drink.
I’m fairly certain I would have thrown away my sobriety that night.
