It's Unbelievable

that John Lennon has been dead 25 years this Thursday.

My God, it seems like it was only yesterday (no pun intended). I will never forget when I first heard about the death. I was driving home from work when I heard it on the radio. I worked the swing shift in the keypunch department at Harry & David. At that time of the year in the Rogue Valley of southern Oregon, it gets damned foggy and is a hazard to drive. Worse still, I had just sprained my ankle, so it was was agony to have to go back to the townhouse and literally drag my ass up and down the stairs. Even worse than that, my niece, with whom I shared the apartment, decided to bail out on me so she could marry her boyfriend, since his father was dying of cancer, and I had to look for another apartment.

So the Lennon death was an important signpost or whatever the hell word it is I am trying to think of during this time in my life. When I hobbled into the apartment, I broke the news to my niece and her boyfriend. Neither had heard about it. We couldn't believe it.

But a hell of a lot has happened since that time. I ended up moving out of the townhouse apartment to another one, and then eventually lost my job and moved down here to Reno. I found a job shortly after arriving, stayed with it for 11 years, took a severance package and left, took a part-time job for eight years while balancing other part-time jobs in order to get a master's degree and teacher certification, got my master's and teaching license, found a teaching job at a private school, got laid off from there but got a district job the same day I was laid off, got laid off from the district job because it was a temporary contract, was unemployed for six months, worked as a substitute teacher for a little over a year, worked as a summer school teacher, and now have a regular teaching job in special ed that I hope I can keep. My niece married the guy, but the marriage went kaput after about five years. He remarried and had a son, and I am not sure if they are together anymore. My niece eventually remarried, kept the husband but lost her job at Kim's which she held for a good 25 years. And of course Lennon is still gone.

In any case, it's all unreal to me. Lennon's death is literally half of my lifetime ago.

For those who witnessed the death, it was even more unforgettable.