John Lennon, Billy Idol, Boy George and Mom

Being born the same year Abbey Road was released, I was but 11 years old on December 8, 1980, the day John Lennon died. I remember hearing about it that night, while watching TV on my parents' old Zenith cabinet model that had been relegated to our game room above the garage when they purchased a newer console model sometime in the late seventies (complete with remote control - no more jaunts across the room to twist the dial for mom and dad to see "what else is on"). I was watching one of the Big Three networks - channel 2, 4 or 7 in the LA market, and a special bulletin came on, in which the newscaster reported that John had been shot and killed. I immediately ran downstairs to tell mom that one of the Beatles had been shot. When she asked me who and I told her "John," I remember her becoming visibly upset and telling me that "John was her favorite."

Yes, the Rainey boys *did* grow up with a fairly cool mom - one who, several years later when I had Group W Cable Channel 24 (MTV, back when they actually played music) surgically attached to my brain, professed a love for ZZ Top [she dug their long beards], Boy George [she never failed to put down her paper and watch when a Culture Club video came on], and, inexplicably, Billy Idol, of whose "White Wedding" she remarked as being "a pretty good song." This from a woman who worked at the Manhattan Project after graduating from high school in 1943, and spent her formative years listening to Glenn Miller.

What a cool woman she was. We lost her in 1987 to complications from cancer treatments (Sherry C. and Mrs. Fish both remember her, I'm sure, and may be the only ones in this blog circle who d0). One of my greatest sorrows in life is not being able to share my adult life with my mom. A good case in point - Kat and I went to see Harry Connick, Jr. in Portland a couple years ago, and I just *know* that smooth-voiced Nawlins-raised Southern gentleman would've just swooped mom off her feet. She was always taken with the 'neat' post-new wave look of bands like Spandau Ballet and ABC ("it's so nice that they cut their hair neat finally!" she would say fairly regularly), and to have someone like Harry Connick, Jr. come along who is a) handsome, b) talented, c) one who sings her music, and d) a person with neatly-cut hair would have just blown her socks off.