I remember I was working the Crew Boats out of Morgan City, Louisiana, and I was just in from a run out into the Gulf. I was somewhere in Texas-- Port Aransas, Cameron Pass, I don't remember --and was on a pay phone talking to my Mom. On a side note-- I can't imagine how some men can go through their days, weeks and months, without missing their mothers, or wanting to make sure that connection is well-tended, but that's me. Anyway, it was my mother who told me John Lennon had been murdered. Not assassinated, which implies political motives. Just Murdered.

I didn't cry-- that I remember, but it did strike me that any hope of a Beatles reunion was now dead. John was not the most important of the Beatles, though perhaps the most influential-- I recognize the brilliance of John's vision, but I much preferred McCartney's pseudo-optimism and Harrison's fatalism. I know, color me strange, but as even a single Beatle lay dead on any street, in any bed, in any hospital, the dream of a Beatles reunion is, quite effectively, dead.

John's music is certainly not my favorite of the four, though he was on the road to redeeming himself with 'Double Fantasy'. The depressing Mother, the brash Woman is the Nigger of the World, and the horrid, though good-intentioned, Give Peace a Chance, just couldn't compare to Harrison's Isn't it a Pity, or McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed. But Imagine! A Beautiful song indeed, but completely wrapped up in eastern and soviet communist failures-- though I'm quite sure that was not his intention. Imagine describes an impossible Utopia. Furthermore, I can't imagine a world without God, and Heaven... I am after all human.

What I'm particularly amazed of is how few people seem to realize the importance The Beatles music has had on Music today. Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash round out my list of Most Influential. Where would music be today without John, Paul, George or Ringo?

But that's where I was. And this is where I am.