John Lennon and Howard Cosell

Today I am invoking my Howard Cosell Rule because of an event that led to its creation.

On this date in 1980, Cosell was, along with Don Meredith and Frank Gifford (before he was married to Kathie Lee), calling a Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots.  It was near the end of the fourth quarter. Patriots’ kicker John Smith took to the field to kick the potential game-winning field goal.

“Remember, this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses,” Cosell intoned. “An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News.” With that, he announced the murder of John Lennon.

“Hard to go back to the game after that news flash,” he said with uncharacteristic understatement.

Imagine There's A White Bicycle

In a terrible irony, John Lennon was murdered the day after Pearl Harbor Day.

That was 41 years ago today.  I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that it shook some of us in the way that the "surprise" attack roused Americans and the world. 

In another terrible irony, the man responsible for "Imagine" and other songs calling for peace and unity was cut down by a lone gunman who claimed to be inspired by a fictional character who probably would have listened to Lennon's (and the Beatles') music and probably wouldn't have committed violence simply because he turned all of his anger inward.

(Of course, Lennon's murder points up to one of the ways in which the US gets things backwards.  In other countries, everyone has access to health care--which includes mental health services-- but very few people who aren't police officers or military personnel have access to firearms.)

Anyway, apart from his music and being married to the woman blamed for the breakup of the Beatles (I think she was a catalyst, not a cause), he and she were known for their "bed-ins" for peace.  At their second, in Amsterdam, they were given a white bike that was part of the Provo plan. 

 

Think of Provo as a kind of Dutch proto-Occupy Wall Street:  It began as a counter-culture movement during the mid-1960s.  It had a cultural wing,  which staged "happenings" and an activist wing that provoked (hence the name) the police through non-violent means. 

There was also a political faction that actually won a seat on Amsterdam's city council and had a number of goals to make their city and country more liveable and what we would now call "green." Those goals included the closing of central Amsterdam to motorized traffic.  That, of course, is probably Provo's most recognizable and lasting legacy:  One could say that the "White Bicycle" plan set the Dutch capital on its path to becoming the cycling haven it is today.

That, I believe, is something of which John Lennon would have approved.

John, 40 Years Later

Some things really can make you feel old.

I know, it isn't all about me.  At least, what I'm about to relate isn't.  But I write this blog, ostensibly about bicycling, and end up talking about myself.  Then again, what blogger doesn't talk about him/her/themself?

So here goes:  Forty years ago, John Lennon was murdered by someone who claimed --like other actual and would-be murderers and assassins--to have been inspired by Holden Caulfield (who was, not a killer, but a teenage rebel who feels disgust for almost everything in the adult world) of Catcher in the Rye.

Four decades ago? Four decades ago!  At the time, I had lived barely half that amount of time.  On the other hand, John had lived as long (having turned 40 two months earlier) when he was shot.

In an earlier post, I relayed one of his fondest memories:  of getting a bike as a kid. He rode it everywhere and didn't leave it outside at night, as other people  in his neighborhood did.  His wheels accompanied him to bed, he said.

Of course, what is better-known is someone who accompanied him to bed:

Yes, a bicycle accompanied him and Yoko during their first "Bed-In For Peace" in Amsterdam.  I don't know whether they had a bike during their second Bed-In, in Montreal, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Here they are in 1972, stopping for what has long been a quintessential New York experience, but one that is disappearing.  Those iconic Sabrett's hot dog carts are being replaced by Halal food trucks and carts that serve kebabs and chicken or lamb with rice, as well trucks and carts offering other tacos, pizza and other "street foods."

(As best as I can tell, John is riding a Bottechia ten-speed and Yoko is on a Dunelt or Rudge three-speed. At least, I'm sure it's a three-speed but not a Raleigh.)

John, apparently, never gave up his love for cycling, even when he and the Beatles were touring and turning out an album or two every year.  

Tell me:  Does that look like '60's England, or what?

It certainly looks like John, expressing his kind of joy.

Remembering Him As He Remembered His Bicycle

 As a kid I had a dream: I wanted my own bicycle.  When I got the bike, I must have been the happiest boy in (his hometown), maybe the world.  I lived for that bike.  Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night.  Not me.  I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.

I omitted the name of this person's hometown because I didn't want to give away his identity just yet.  I'll give you a related clue:  The international airport of his hometown is named after him.

Oh, and he would have been 80 years old today.

He is, of course, John Lennon.  It's hard to believe he's been gone for almost as long as he was alive:  He was murdred on 8 December 1980, two months after turning 40.

That he was shot to death by someone who claimed to be inspired by Catcher In The Rye is a tragic irony on several levels.  For one, Lennon preached peace in his songs and his everyday life. For another, Catcher is as much about youthful alienation as anything else. (Not for nothing was Mark David Chapman  not the first, nor the last, killer to claim the novel as his muse, as it were.) While some of John's, and the Beatle's, songs expressed anger or sadness, they were never disengaged from the lives of the speakers, or the writers or performers, of those songs.

I mean, how alienated can someone be if, late in an  all-too-brief life in which he accomplished so much, he could count getting a bicycle as a child as one of his happiest and most important memories.

Happy birthday and R.I.P., John!

(The airport is officially known as Liverpool-John Lennon International Airport, International Air Transport Association Code LPL.)

Imagine!

Who said this?:

 "As a kid I had a dream – I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed."

One clue might be "Liverpool".  I mean the one in England, not the one in upstate New York (where the locals joke that their town is so named because it has the same kind of weather as the British port city).  When you think of people from Liverpool, who comes to mind first?

OK, you can be forgiven for saying "William Gladstone" or "Clive Barker"--or, for that matter, Kate Sheppard or Peter Shaffer.  But if you're of my generation and know even less than I do about British or women's history, there is only one answer you can give.

That answer is, of course, The Beatles.  And who was the most literate and articulate of the "Fab Four".  You guessed it:  John Lennon.

 

Somehow it's not a surprise that he had such a dream, or was so happy that it was realized.  He had his flaws, but in the end, I think he really meant what he wrote in "Imagine". 



Ironically and tragically, a deranged man with a gun ended his life, thirty-five years ago today.  

The ensuing years have not lessened the shock of his murder.  I often find myself playing his songs in my mind--or even humming or singing them--as I ride and do other things.  It's appropriate, I think:  If more people, especially in developed countries, rode bikes to work, school, shop, or simply for fun, we might come closer to having the sort of world he envisioned.