"Are you John Lennon?"

The column began -- "That summer in Breezy Point, when he was 18 and out of Madison High in Brooklyn, there was the Beatles on the radio at the beach through the hot days and on the jukebox through the nights in the Sugar Bowl and the Kennedys. He was young and he let his hair grow and there were girls and it was the important part of life."
It was written in December, 1980.
The column ends,"Tony Palma said to himself, I don't think so. Moran shook his head. He thought about his two kids, who know every one of the Beatles big tunes. And Jim Moran and Tony Palma, older now, cops in a world with no fun, stood in the emergency room as John Lennon, whose music they knew, whose music was known everywhere on earth, became another person who died after being shot with a gun on the streets of New York."
Jimmy Breslin, still the best, writing about John Lennon's shooting. But he doesn't focus on the star. He focuses on a couple of beat cops.
And the gun. He focused on the gun.
Still the best. He was at home in bed at 11:20 p.m. when he got the call. He lived in Queens. He got dressed, went to the scene, found the beat cops, went to the hospital, then got back to the office to write this column by 1:30 a.m. He says in "The Wolrd According to Breslin, while admitting a mistake in a street name in the column, that he knows of nobody who can do that kind of work so quickly.
I've never come across anyone who could. I could do the bit about getting a call and springing into action. But I've not quite been able to get words so well done so quickly.
No one comes close.
John Lennon was shot dead on the streets of New York 30 years ago today.