Yoko Ono has paid a touching tribute to her late husband John Lennon on the 30th anniversary of his death, recalling the happy times she shared with The Beatles legend before he was killed. The "Imagine" hitmaker passed away 30 years ago on 8 December, 1980 after he was gunned down outside his New York apartment in The Dakota building by deranged fan Mark Chapman.
Ono has marked the date by remembering her happiest moments with the singer - sipping Lennon's favorite tea and laughing like teenagers together. In a post on her Imagine Peace website, she writes, "John and I are in our Dakota kitchen in the middle of the night... 'Yoko, Yoko, you're supposed to first put the tea bags in, and then the hot water.' John took the role of the teamaker, for being English. So I gave up doing it. It was nice to be up in the middle of the night, when there's no sound in the house, and sip the tea John would make."
"One night, however, John came up with 'I was talking to Aunt Mimi this afternoon and she says you are supposed to put the hot water in first. Then the tea bag. I could swear she taught me to put the tea bag in first, but...' 'So all this time, we were doing it wrong?' 'Yeah...' We both cracked up. That was in 1980. Neither of us knew that it was to be the last year of our life together."
"On this day, the day he was assassinated for being a truth seeker and a communicator, what I remember is the night we both cracked up drinking tea. They say teenagers laugh with a drop of a hat. But nowadays I see many teenagers angry and sad at each other. John and I were hardly teenagers. But my memory of us is that we were a couple who laughed."
In related news, a legal letter which is said to have led to the break-up of The Beatles is up for sale. The document, signed by John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, is addressed to Sir Paul McCartney's lawyer father-in-law Lee Eastman and effectively fired him as the band's legal counsel.
Dated 18 April, 1969, the letter reads, "you are not authorized (sic) to act or hold yourself out as the attourney (sic) or legal representative of The Beatles," and requests all documents related to the band be forwarded to manager Allen Klein. Eastman, the father of McCartney's late wife Linda, managed the musician and acted as the band's lawyer, but a disagreement between the group members led to his dismissal.
The argument is said to have driven a wedge between McCartney and his bandmates, which eventually led to the band's break-up in 1970. Independent Beatles memorabilia dealer Peter Miniaci tells the New York Post the letter will be a must-have item for devoted collectors, saying, "It's a million-dollar item. It's John sending a message to Paul and Lee that he didn't want Eastman managing the band. So then the Beatles became a divided camp. It was a colossal mistake because Klein ended up taking advantage of the band, and it was dismantled shortly after the letter came out."
The letter has a $175,000 price tag and is for sale on curator Gary J. Zimet's website Momentsintime.com.
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