USA: Fans brave the chilly winds in New York's Central Park to pay their annual tribute to John Lennon on the 26th anniversary of his death

It's a tradition that refuses to fade away. Scores of John Lennon fans gathered at Central Park's Strawberry Fields in New York City, on Friday (December 8) to remember the legendary Beatle and to recall his message of peace. Lennon, who was shot and killed 26 years ago on December 8th, 1980, would have turned 67 in 2007. Even as temperatures reached below freezing, fans braved the elements to gather at the Lennon memorial with flowers and other tributes. Some laid down lapel pins that read, "War is over. If you want it." As they reminisced about the famous peacemaker and sang Beatles songs, there was a palpable anti-Iraq war feeling in the air. "With the wars going on in Iraq and all the stuff like that, I know John wouldn't have stood for that. He probably would have had a strike and stuff and had his believers and people and fans with him to hopefully get the troops sent home and things like that. I know that's what he would have done," said Andrew Eid, a Lennon fan at Strawberry Fields. Some of the fans present on Friday, such as Karen Legana and Donald Lusk have been visiting Strawberry Fields every single year since Lennon's death. "He's everything I stand for and I just love him to death and I'll always come till the day I die. I just followed him since I was four-year-old and like I said, I'll love him till I'm a hundred," said Legana. "It would have been so great to be able to know that John was here all that time and had a chance to grow up with Sean but unfortunately that never happened, so basically we come down here out of respect for Yoko and really try to keep the good tradition of remembrance," said Lusk. Meanwhile, Yoko Ono has called for the anniversary of John Lennon's death to become a worldwide day of forgiveness but said she could not yet absolve her husband's killer. "Every year, let's make December 8 the day to ask for forgiveness from those who suffered the insufferable," she said in full-page newspaper advertisements. She thanked all those who wrote to her at this time every year to say they were thinking of her and her husband. She said Lennon was "shot and killed at the prime of his life, at age 40, when he had so much life ahead of him." Mark Chapman, the obsessed Beatles fan who gunned down Lennon in 1980 outside his New York apartment, remains in jail and was denied parole for a fourth time earlier this year.

ITN Source | December 14, 2006

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