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John Lennon was murdered at the age of 40.

My 40s were delusional: The Delusionist Era.

When Lennon died, I must have been around

10, because at 11 I was crossing the American

West in a Ford Leisure Van™ with my family, my

first trip to California, where I might have turned twelve.

That summer I decided, at Great America, which

was to my mind somewhere between Fremont,

where my great-uncle ran a sawmill, and San

Francisco, the Elysium, where the coldest day

I truly ever spent was indeed the summertime

day before (which was spent with my family 
at or near Fisherman’s Wharf, of course).  Thanks

to a certain Arkansas blonde, I’d just discovered

that I very much enjoyed rollercoastering.  I’d

so avoided them until earlier that same year,

when, riding with that blonde, I’d realize that

being upside down for brief moments was just

fine.  But the slow tick-tick-tick-tick up to the

first (and often highest) peak could last forever,

and...let’s just say that my problem has always

been anxiety, rather than depression (something

I’d find out too late in life to enjoy so much that

had come previously).  Anyway, that cross-country

trip in the early 1980s, our family of six, my dad

so proud of the newfangled van’s sound system

that he purchased eight new(ish) 8-track tapes for a

buck on the very first stop of our vacation together,

which was either a Walmart (most likely) or a K-Mart (I

forget which one) in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Among

them, was John Lennon’s (who’d recently been murd-

ered) and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy.  Wow, that

was a great trip.  And now I live here atop Nob Hill.

Life is a beautiful thing.

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

                                                                            —John Lennon