Monday, December 8th, 1980 means more to our family than most...wanna know why?

For folks of a certain generation, December 8th, 1980 is a day that will live in infamy.

On the night of 8 December 1980 Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon in the back four times (the fifth shot missed) in the entrance hallway of The Dakota. Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman earlier that same night.

Now, what makes this night infamous for our family revolves around this event in a related, yet separate way.

My mother's cousin, "M" (who used to babysit Matthew Broderick as a little boy) and her husband, "A" lived in New York at the time. Dec. 8th is their wedding anniversary.

My mom and her second husband (who was a super John Lennon fan in his own right) were in New York visiting "M" & "A" that week and that same Monday evening were supposed to go to a party at one of "M" & "A"'s pals' "P" & "L"s. "P" & "L" lived on the upper west side near Central Park between W. 66th & W. 72nd off Central Park W., which was about 2 blocks from The Dakota on W. 72nd & Central Park W.

"M" received a call earlier that night from "L" saying that they were going to have to cancel the party because they had to "12 Step" (now called an intervention) one of their pals. "L" said that this pals wife had stated many times that, "He's boozing, sleeping around and coking it up and it has to stop, otherwise he won't be President.", so that's why "L" said they had to do this intervention that evening and she was sorry to have to call "M" and cancel on her. The person about whom they were speaking was our current-soon-to-be-former-President George Bush himself.

So, instead of going to a party at Central Park West at "P" & "L"s house, my mother, step-father, "M" & "A" decided to wander around the town and amongst other things, took a walk through Carl Schurz Park, a block away from Gracie Mansion,(officially the Mayoral residence), only to get mugged. The robbers stuck a gun under my step-dad's chin and robbed him, as well as took a 100+ year old edition of Convivio that "A" happened to have in his pocket, threw it into the river and then quickly left when they realized my mother had gotten away. (my mother was in front of the group & the robbers, so she got away in a pair of mules, a fur coat and a 20 lb leather purse through bushes, without running her nylons - but should have turned left instead of right and would have run into some cops.)

All the while, John Lennon was then being murdered across town....all on a cold Monday night in December, 1980. Yeah, it's a night that none of our family will ever forget...