I didn’t hear about John Lennon’s death from Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football. My mother told me about it the next morning when I got up to go to school.
Where were you when you heard the news?
I was watching “Monday Night Football”.
(I’ve heard Cosell hated the fact that he had to make that announcement due to its having nothing to do with the game).
Hard to believe 25 years have passed.
Um, it was about 10 years later - in my living room. I had just discovered the Beatles so my mom told me about it. FTR, I was 11 months old when the deed was done.
Actually it’s 25 years tomorrow.
I still lived with my family at the time. I was in my room, listening to music, when my father burst in (which he ordinarily would never do) with the news.
The 7th? For the life of me, I would have sworn he was killed on December 9th or 10th, 1980. My memory must be going.
Heard it the following morning, on the radio, as I dressed for school (I was 16).
Sir Rhosis
What time of day did it happen? And I think it was December 8th…
Anyway.
I was in a multi-media art class --college-- and after someone announced the news, we listened on the radio.
My friend Dave set up a video camera, and with radio reports running in the back ground, focused tightly on his hand holding a navel orange (from his backpack). He then tried to peel the orange using only that one hand.
As you might imagine, by the time he got half the rind off he was holding a dripping pulpy mess.
I wouldn’t call it brilliant film making, but it was a memorable translation of the general emotional state in the room.
~Baal~
I was 7. I walked into the kitchen where the radio was on with the news, and my mom was sitting in a chair crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me she’d just found out that a good friend of hers had died.
I really don’t have a very good memory of the moment I heard, because I was in the midst of a delirious fever from some gawdawful virus I’d caught. I do vaguely remember watching something about it on TV after my Dad (who never misses Monday Night Football, btw) told me about it). I also remember that people at school thought the reason I missed school (I was 17 & a senior in high school, and a big Beatles fan) that week was depression over John’s death. Afterward, I did a drawing of John for my art class, based on his White Album portrait, which was a big hit with a lot of people at school.
It was the evening of the 8th. My then-boyfriend (now husband) and I were 20-somethings, watching the game, and we heard Cosell give the announcement.
Just couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to. 
The game was on in our house, and I was eating a plate of spaghetti. I remember thinking how weird they interuppted a football game and didn’t just do that serious and scary We interrupt this broadcast…
I was living in Baltimore, working at an ad agency. Heard it on the news when the clock-radio woke me up. Thought, “hmm, crap, that’s a shame,” and got up and went to work. I mean, I was upset, but I was just as upset about Mae West dying two weeks earlier.
Hmmm…December 8, 1980. I wasn’t born then. I wasn’t even an embryo then. So why exactly was he shot?
As I wrote last year in this thread:
“I was at home, watching Monday Night Football, when Howard Cosell announced Lennon had been shot. Two things about the event have always bugged me: that the guy who shot Lennon came from Atlanta, and that I had to find out about it from Howard Cosell.”
On rereading that post, I suppose I should have pointed out that Lennon’s murder didn’t “bug” me - it devastated me.
I was swilling beer at a party at college. Many of the girls started to cry and most everybody was seriously bummed out. I confess that I did not feel it. Although I liked his music and did not wish his death, I did not know him and did not feel the impact that others did. I would not have wished his death on him, but I was not as broken up as others.
No real reason. He was killed by a deranged fan/stalker who somehow felt compelled to destroy the object of his obsession.
OP here.
My apologies to everyone. I realize Lennon was killed on December 8, 1980…I just figured that it was late enough on the 7th that everyone would understand I was referring to Thursday. Sorry for any confusion!
I didn’t hear it the day it happened. (Didn’t watch the news and didn’t watch much TV.) The next morning, my radio went off, and the announce was talking about this horrible tragedy. We couldn’t figure out what it was for several minutes until he finally mention Lennon was dead.
I was 12, living with my parents in Brewster, NY. We were probably watching “MAS*H” and WCBS broke into the show with a report.
imagine
I was twelve too and living in Birmingham, Alabama. My dad, sister and I were dressing for school when Mom shouted up the stairs that the radio was saying John Lennon had been shot. Dad and I both said, “Hoax!” at the same time (the skeptical little apple didn’t fall far from the skeptical apple tree, huh?). When we got downstairs and retrieved the Post-Herald, we saw it wasn’t a hoax after all. (Sad timing - in the summer of '80 I got into the Beatles in a big way thanks to our next door neighbor loaning me his albums and tapes)
At school that day our Poetry teacher put on ‘Sgt. Pepper’, then shortly afterward had something of a meltdown and kicked us out of his classroom because some of the boys were cutting up, laughing and so on. Although I was grieving a great deal inwardly at that point, I didn’t protest, but silently departed with the exiles and spent the next hour sitting on the swingset and choking back tears because not only was my new favorite musician dead, my normally sweet, mild-mannered teacher had just lost it and it was sad and unsettling to see him in such a state. Shortly thereafter the teacher left the school (quit or fired, I have no idea) and the incident was never mentioned by anyone again.
And no, it definitely doesn’t seem like 25 years ago.