25 years ago. Not only is it amazing to stop and think that it was 25 years ago today that we lost John Lennon. It's amazing that it seems like yesterday.

Like many, I can remember exactly where I was when I got the news. We had our Christmas party for the campus radio station at Rhode Island College. It was held in the lounge in the Communications Department and at one point during the evening I had gone back to the studio to get more records to play. As I went through our library I pulled out "Double Fantasy". While I am a big Lennon fan, it just didn't seem the right kind of music for a party so I slipped it back. This was just around 10PM as John was returning to the Dakota.

I left the party soon after that and was at home watching Benny Hill when they interrupted the show with the news. I didn't leave the TV for hours after that. I was still watching when they made the announcement of his death and I continues to watch as the news turned into retrospectives. I can still feel the cold wind blowing down W72nd Street in Manhattan the day of the prayer vigil. I can still hear the complete silence that fell on the city. All crystal clear images as if they were this morning.

What would the last 25 years had been like if John had lived? Would there have finally been a reunion? What would Live Aid be like with him there? Would there have been as many tell all books from those surrounding the Beatles? And most importantly, what would the music had been like?

I now work with people who only know John Lennon as a name in a history book or a CD in their parent's music collection. My son knows his music because his father insists on taking a break from the thumping repetition of rap and wondering why his father still has a poster of this long haired Englishman hanging in his living room.

One of the reporters doing their retrospective this morning seemed to say it best. John was only human and he had his flaws. But he took his position in life and his talent to raise himself above what he was and to hold up a mirror to the rest of us urging to raise ourselves up as well. Can you ask any more of a person than that?