On this day in 1980 I was young and in my prime. I didn’t care much about the things that worry me now. I didn’t care much about planning for retirement. I didn’t care much about 6 month dental check ups. I didn’t care much about arthritis, knee replacement, eye glasses, health insurance, tumors being benign, tumors being malignant, mortgage payments, getting wrinkles, job security, money in the bank, hair loss. I didn’t worry about things like losing a loved one and I certainly didn’t worry about my own demise. Basically I didn’t worry about much of anything. I didn’t care about anything more than which town was next down the road, what I would find there, who I would meet, what kind of songs I would be influenced to write and what kind of bars there would be for me to play them in. I was on the road. I was on the road like Kerouac. I was on the road like Cassidy. I was on the road like Kesey. Hell I even had a bus. A 48 passenger school bus that I had purchased from the, "First Baptist Church Of Polson Montana," and oh yea she was sweet. A big yellow road hog with lights that automatically flashed when you came to a stop. It still said, "School Bus," all over her and I was actually pulled over by cops in three different states for, "Impersonating a school bus." I guess they were afraid that I was going to pull over at 3:00PM, (let’s face it, it wouldn’t have happened at 8:00AM,) load up the vehicle with 40 kids and take them out into the middle of the desert to start a cult or something.
Anyway, I had taken the seats out of my bus when I got her and converted her into a pretty nice camper. She was a virtual house on wheels and I christened her, "The Troll." There was a double bed in the rear with storage underneath. A decent sized cedar closet next to it on the port side. A couch next to the closet in our, “living room.” The starboard side housed the galley, (we called it the kitchen of course,) and it contained a 3 burner, 17 inch propane oven, a sink and a small refrigerator. We were self contained and we were rolling down the highway sucking down about a gallon of fuel for every 7 miles we traveled. What an insult to the planet! But we were young, we were underway, and we were happy. I crossed the Continental Divide in that bus during an ice storm with virtually no brakes. That is no lie and my wife will readily verify that horror story. The vacuum system had failed and I was too far into the soup to stop. Thank god for low gear. But that is another story for another time...........
And on this day in 1980 we rolled into Tucson Arizona. We had headed in that direction because it was warm there in December, which made sense to us. As we drove down one of the main streets into town we saw a large, hand lettered sign hanging off of the side of someone’s house that read, "Goodbye John Lennon." I jokingly said to my wife, "what’s that all about?? Did John go back to England??" We were heading for a park that we knew about in the heart of the town. It’s a really nice park that has a zoo and also pavilions with electricity, (Our main concern at the time,) and as we got nearer to the park it became more and more obvious that something was not right. There were more and more people like us out and about. Now don’t get me wrong, in 1980 in that part of the country at that time of the year there WERE more people like us. But it was obvious that these lost souls, these drop outs from society, these free wheelers, these independent individuals were gathering for a reason.
We slipped into one of the parks’ parking areas and I pulled the lever which opened the double door on the starboard side of, "The Troll." I used to love the way those doors opened. No sooner were they opened when one of the lost souls looked in and said, "are you here for the vigil??"
"What vigil??" I asked.
"For John," he said.
"John who??," I asked. It still hadn’t clicked yet.
"John Lennon. He was murdered last night," he said, in a voice that was almost devoid of emotion and feeling. Almost like he was still in a state of shock and disbelief.
That was when it all came together for us too. The sign. The people. The disenfranchised. The lost souls gathering. Our hearts sank..........
I grabbed one of my guitars and we locked up the bus. With our happy go-lucky Newfoundland dog by our side, (she was just happy to be out of the bus,) we began climbing a small hill. As we reached the crest of the hill and looked beyond, we saw that there on the other side were literally hundreds of people below us. Perhaps even well over a thousand people gathered to morn the death of John Lennon. The thing that I will always carry with me is the silence. There below me from my vantage point on this small hill were hundreds of people and it was quiet. It was so quiet. As we walked down the hill toward the crowd the sound of weeping could be heard. Weeping, crying, and actual sobbing. Everyone, male and female, was just kind of standing around staring at one another with red, teary eyes. Some were so openly consumed with grief that they were visibly shaking. People were hugging each other. People were consoling each other. People were hugging us. We began tearing up. We began crying. The collective consciousness of that group of souls was absolutely amazing!! I will never forget the vibe that I felt at that initial moment of contact.
Then someone asked me if I was there to play some of John’s music and I realized that I was standing there with my guitar in hand. I felt kind of weird. I felt awkward. Hell, I carried my guitar everywhere with me back then and I didn’t have it with me just because of that particular moment in time. "I am," I said, strangely positive that that was in fact why I was there. Or at least aware of the fact that I had better do something.
I knew some Beatles songs and I also knew some of John’s solo tunes. "Working Class Hero," had always been in my repertoire and of course I knew, "Imagine." I sat down and started playing. Soon there were about 100 people all around me, maybe more. Another guitarist showed up and asked if he could join me. A little while later another guitarist joined us. The three of us played Beatles and John Lennon songs for hours while hundreds of people sat and stood around us holding hands, hugging, swaying together, crying, wondering why..........
Soon it started to get late and the crowds began to disperse. Some folks asked us if we would like to have dinner at their house and we accepted. We had taco salads and Mexican beer and after dinner we played music into the wee hours of the night/morning. Mostly Lennon and Beatles songs but as the Mexican beer and the stress of the day took its toll we did venture into other musical territory. Some good and some not so good. As the sun was coming up though we did one last version of, "Imagine." We all cried. We all hugged. We all said that we would stay in touch but we knew that we wouldn’t. Hell I couldn’t even tell you the names of any of the people that I was with that evening. But they mean more to me than you could ever imagine. They mean more to me than almost anyone that I have met through the day to day existence that has become my life. They mean more because they were pure. We all were. Pure and innocent. And Mark David Chapman took away that innocence. He put an end to the idealism that we all held on to. It would have ended on its own. Things were going in that direction anyway. Hell, Ronald Reagan had just been elected president!!! The world was about to go to hell in a hand basket. But Mark David Chapman stole our innocence and our idealism prematurely and for that I will never forgive him.
I will never forget that time of my life. My freedom. My passion. My innocence. My youth. And I will never forget that the beginning of the end to it all happened on this day in 1980. Goodbye John, I still miss you...........and I will forever............
Bruce Myers
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