Friday, November 18, 2005

John Lennon & JFK: Memories Marked by the Time of the Assassins

by Thomas Dimopoulos

The verse is committed to memory.
'We shall not forget that yesterday you glorified each one of our ages,' wrote Arthur Rimbaud, one of my favorite poets, in one of my favorite poems.
'We know how to give our whole life every day. Now is the time of the Assassins.'

In a few days , the question will be asked like it has every year since the startling crack of gunfire, the sight of a fallen body and the doom-filled scent of change hung in the air
that Friday in November 42 years ago: Where were you when John F. Kennedy died?

We will hear that the nation cried and that the flags flew at half-staff, how the church bells mournfully rang and we will be reminded of local scenes of that day when thousands of this city's residents walked with heads solemnly bowed to memorial services, passing closed Broadway businesses whose dark, midday windows shaped an eerie contrast to their glittering storefronts decorated for the holiday season.

It was the time of the assassin.

A few weeks from today, we will be reminded that 25 years have passed since the day Mark David Chapman sat on the floor of his apartment in Hawaii and stared at the front cover of
The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' album. Most music fans played the game
of trying to spot the images of Bob Dylan and Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.

Chapman looked at the faces on the cover and decided to kill John Lennon.

We will read how Chapman came to New York City and stalked the ex-Beatle. And we see
once again the pictures of Chapman getting Lennon's autograph shortly before he murdered
the musician in front of the upper west side building on a late Monday night in Manhattan.

Somebody will remember, how two days later, more than 1,000 local fans gathered on the
steps of the State Capitol in Albany to burn candles, hold hands and sing 'Give Peace a Chance' during a 45-minute vigil to the slain musician. And we will be told that today the murderer
is 50 years old, lives in a small cell at Attica Correctional Institution, and as the Dec. 8 anniversary nears we will hear the question: Where were you when John Lennon died?

As anniversaries go, history remembers a long list in the time of the assassin.

Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in 44 B.C.; .Caligula assassinated by his guards in 41 A.D., and Claudius I poisoned by his wife, 13 years later.

Henry IV relinquished the Kingdom of France when assassinated in Paris in 1610,
and Mahatma Gandhi, a man of peace, was killed by gunfire on his way to a prayer meeting
in 1948.
Bullets also claimed the lives of U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield
and William McKinley, before JFK was shot Nov. 22, 1963.

In the time since, there have been theories about how different the world would look today
had Kennedy lived. Despite the promise of a new youthful vigor ruling the West Wing, many have concluded that things probably wouldn't be all that different.
The real changes, some say, would have happened if JFK's brother- Robert F. Kennedy - had survived the attempt on his life in 1968. That too, was the time of the assassin.

James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr. in April. Two months later, Sirhan Sirhan fired
a .22 caliber revolver eight times into the crowd at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles,
killing Robert Kennedy, moments after the senator celebrated winning the California Democratic presidential primary.

Consider that if RFK lived and won the White House a few months later, Richard Nixon
would never have taken office as the 37th President of the U.S.

Kennedy ran on an anti-war platform in 1968. You could imagine the Vietnam War would
have had a different resolution. Watergate would be known as nothing more today than a hotel.

Two of the biggest conflicted events that have colored the American Dream in the past
35 years, gone. Never happened.

You can fantasize what the planet would look like today. Where would you be living?
What would you be doing? How would the country and the world be different?

It may be irresponsible to rewrite history, but you can have a moment to wonder in
amazement how the actions of one affects an entire planet. Forever.

Where were you when Kennedy was killed? Then, it was the time of assassins.
Then, they knew how to give their whole life everyday.

The Saratogian, Nov. 18, 2005.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home