It was a surreal moment...it was a Monday night. I was in college, living off-campus, but passing throught my old dorm to see some friends. I stopped in the TV lounge for a few minutes of Monday Night Football when Howard Cosell broke the news on the air during the game broadcast.

I can still hear Cosell's vocal cadence as he announced it: "Ex-Beatle John Lennon...shot twice in the back...rushed to the hospital...dead on arrival."

I was shocked. I didn't know him, wasn't a Beatlemaniac, but Lennon was the first icon of my generation to die suddenly, victim of a crime, too young.

tony b.