25 Years Ago Tonight

I was lying on a couch in the Field lounge, Field being one of the four dorms on Orchard Hill at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, watching Monday Night Football, the Patriots in Miami against the Dolphins. Absurdly, perhaps, I remember distinctly New England coach Ron Erhardt deciding, on a 4th & 1 -- less than 1 -- at the Dolphin 2 yard line, on their opening drive, to kick a goddamned field goal!! I mean, what a dope! Like, Grady-stupid!

And it wasn't long after when Howard Cosell made the announcement:

"An unspeakable tragedy that came to us from ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead on arrival."

The shock and the pain was immediate and overwhelming. I was devastated, and the tears came quickly and easily. Lennon was 40. I was 21.

Few students living on campus that evening would sleep. Candle-lit gatherings formed incongruously about the campus center and along the pond. It was very late and not many would speak but they would hug and they would bawl. The experience was surreal, as is its memory.

And only a moment ago it was.