I was negative 6 years, 11 months, and 1 day so I can't really tell you, I wasn't even a figment in my mom's imagination at that time.

Quoted from Maccalvr, posted June 11, 2004, 1:20am at here

Wow, touching stories. The one about Yoko made me tear up!

The funny thing was, as we were leaving the concert and crossing over the road, Yoko's limo came tearing round the corner and nearly run us over!

It's weird, your story of that horrible morning is so similar to what I experienced - the world truly united on that day.

I must have collected every newspaper that week. He was on the cover everywhere. I would still have them if my mother didn't throw them out!!! She just didn't get it.  I can't believe it's going to be 25 years this December. Does that mean Sean is 30?? Wow!

I was sleeping.  My wife watched TV and saw the news, she didn't want to wake me up.  The phone rang, it was my best bud, and he told me.  I was still half asleep and it just didn't sink in...I even made some lame jokes.

People started calling me to offer sympathy as if it was a family member.  That's how well known it was that I was Mr Beatle fan.

What can one say?  It was amazing to see the world come together in grief.  For many of my generation, the first-gen's, it was the slamming of the sarcophagus lid on our own mortality.

We were young when the Beatles were young and their whole thrust was YOUTH.  Much of the 60's was the same thing, so when the event occured not only was it abundantly clear that there would never be a reunion, it also took our YOUTH away once and for all, and pushed us forward into the rest of our lives.

Quoted from Maccalvr, posted June 22, 2004, 3:08am at here

I must have collected every newspaper that week. He was on the cover everywhere. I would still have them if my mother didn't throw them out!!! She just didn't get it.  I can't believe it's going to be 25 years this December. Does that mean Sean is 30?? Wow!

I bought every single newspaper too! I still have mine, but they are very yellow and faded now. I can't believe Sean is going to be 30! God, that makes me feel old!

I lived in Long Island, New York (just an hour from New York City). I was 18 at the time and a Beatles/Solo Beatles collector. John was my idol, and I was thrilled that he was back in the music scene again.

I had just graduated high school and had gotten my first job that year. It was around 11pm and I  was getting ready for bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress to go to sleep and get ready for work the next day,  when a longtime friend called me and said John had been shot.

This friend and I always liked to pull jokes on one another, but he told me to turn the TV on and see for myself. It was a bizarre gradual set of developments ... first they weren't sure it was Lennon, then they said it was but they didn't know the extent of the injuries.
My friend and I were on the phone together and he kept saying, "don't worry - maybe he was only shot in the leg or something". Shortly thereafter, I heard he was shot "several times in his chest," and I feared the worst.

Crazy as it sounds, I was such a collector that I grabbed a tape recorder (no VCR then) and recorded the radio. I still have it on tape as a newscaster sounded depressed and shaken when I turned the radio on to hear:

" ---- where he and his wife, Yoko Ono, had a permanent residence."  And then again: "Repeating -- former Beatle, John Lennon, was shot - and KILLED ...errr...errr... critically at this home tonight".

It was my mom's 40th Birthday and I told her I'm sorry, but December 8th will always have a different meaning for me.

Next morning I walked to the bus stop to go to work. These days I would have called in sick, but back then I didn't know what to do. The morning sky was still dark, and as I walked past a candy store, the newspapers were already on a bundle on the sidewalk:

"JOHN LENNON SLAIN HERE. FORMER BEATLE SHOT; NAB SUSPECT".

Complete devastation.

6 more years till I clamped eyes on a rather depressing Hospital room.

i wasn't born until 9 yrs, 1 month and 8 days later, but my parents remember. they were about 20, and they were watching a football game when it was interuppted to say the sad news. they both are big beatles fans, but my dad especially loved them and mostly john...i think he said he cried. :[

I was negative 9 years and 9 months old, but my guitar teacher- a hardcore Beatles fsn told me that when she heard the news she was just waking up and she had a cup of coffee in her hand, and when she heard it on the radio she dropped her coffee and was just in shock. The big-time music school that she went to was closed that day, and people were in the streets just crying and playing old John/Beatles tunes.

I'm glad I wasn't around for that day.

A few people killed themselves after hearing of Johns Death..
I find this surreal..and scary

Quoted from Mairi, posted October 3, 2004, 8:14pm at here

I'm glad I wasn't around for that day.

I suppose. But then if I hadn't been around that day, I wouldn't have been around when he was alive.  But yeah, it's not a day I'd like to repeat. Or week. Or year for that matter.

a few years after that, i woulve been born

Well I guess I'll join in the tradition of saying something like...........

I was negative 7 years and 30 days and I am also glad that I was not around to remember it.

There is a news report on a BBC site about the event, when I watched it I cried and felt awful so I don't know what I'd have been like had I been alive.

I think it's amazing that there seems to be so many that weren't even born when he died that have been touched by his music and words, he was a really intelligent guy.

I was born 6 years later...after johns death ......for the other i wasn't even born....

Hmm... Maybe we should make a thread called 'Where Weren't You'.