John Lennon

Today is the birthday of John Lennon.70 years old is what he would have been.Imagine.This man has influenced me more than any other public figure and he has been dead for almost twenty years.
I was ten years old when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan.My music tastes at the time were none.I was into westerns and war movies. Red Sox baseball and Patriots football.Music, really, didn't mean a thing to me.But like the rest of the country ,I sat glued to the TV that night.Who were these guys that made the girls scream like that? What the heck was that type of music? And that hair?What was that all about?
The bus ride to school the next day,was filled with a bunch of kids talking, about what we had just seen. The hair!The way the girls screamed. The way our parents were putting them down.That right there was a big thing. If our parents didn't like them,then, they must be good.
The years went along.The Monkees and Herman's Hermits became the groups I was into.The Beatles were a little too far out for me.The hair became super long.The music was not so simple.And then I heard the White Album.My life changed again.The Monkees got kicked to the curb,and I started to grow my hair.I started to listen to Hendrix,The Doors,Cream,and The Rolling Stones. And I also adopted the lifestyle that went with listening to that stuff
Through out this whole period there was one voice.Even when I didn't think I was listening,there was one voice shouting louder than everyone else.John Lennon.He was saying crazy stuff.Peace.Love.Harmony.I wasn't listening,yet I was.Somehow, he entered my subconscious and indirectly my heart and soul.I became big in the peace movement,Big in the hippie life.Big in the whole subculture of that time.
The Beatles broke up,and life went on.Lennon put out an album for the ages.He showed  me it was all right to be confused.He pointed out the class struggles of the working man.He told me not to believe in anything ,except myself.
I took and ran with these ideals.And I wasn't the only one.
The man shaped a whole generation.Anyone that is pushing 50 or older has Lennon to thank among other's.He was the voice.If you are speaking out against war.If you are speaking out against human rights violations.If you are questioning the government.The list goes on. The reason he influenced me was that for the most part he put his money where his mouth was.He was real.He marched. He questioned.He wrote and sang about it.And most of all, he tried to do something about it.
70,today. Wow!He left us way too early.We all know that.I am not even going to get into that sad part of mine and everyone else's period.The fact remains ,that John Lennon changed my life.And I am glad he did.I am ,who I am today,because I have tried to follow the blueprint he laid out. I haven't even come close to succeeding in so many things that he put forward,but what is really cool ,is that he didn't either.He was a human being.Full of greatness and full of faults.And I am so glad that for a brief period ,I was able to share this earth with him.
Thank you John,and Happy Birthday!