Dennis Elsas Never Forgets the Segue

The DJ on the Beatles and More

Everyone of my generation knows exactly what they were doing on Monday, December 8, 1980, when John Lennon was shot and killed outside his home at the Dakota on 72nd Street and Central Park West.

It was a day that will live in infamy, giving the 20th century two consecutive December days of infamy: Pearl Harbor was attacked Dec. 7, 1941, and my father and his generation remembered every detail and emotion of that day as long as they lived. December 8 is like that for us.

Most people heard the somber news from Howard Cosell, the colorful announcer from Monday Night Football, around 11 pm. I had already turned off the game and was ready to go to sleep when the phone rang. It was Joel Kramer, then, as I recall, Newsday's managing editor. He said John Lennon had been shot, it's very serious, get out here right away, to the newspaper's mothership in Melville, L.I.

Uncharacteristically, I had very little to drink that night. But I was tired. I told him I would collect my Beatles books and arti…