Imagine

There's an episode of "WKRP In Cincinnati" in which Mr. Carlson is approached by a local watchdog group about playing lyrics to songs that the group finds offensive. At first, the leader is very buddy-buddy with Carlson, though it quickly becomes obvious that he is not wavering from his agenda.

It starts out with one song, which Mr. Carlson agrees has lyrics that are over the top. Armed with the words, he approaches his top two deejays, Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap, and points out that they shouldn't play this song anymore.

Johnny and Venus warn Carlson that if they give in to the one song, the group will be back with additional requests - and with threats. Sure enough, the same man comes back with a list of songs that are not to be played, and when Carlson stands up to him, he begins to go after the station's sponsors.

Eventually, he gets the guy who runs the bait company (TigerBlog believes it was called "Red Wigglers") to bail on the station, which he apologizes for profusely as he admits he feels ashamed for doing so.

In the big scene at the end, the leader of the group comes back another time, trying to make it seem like he and Mr. Carlson are actually on the same side. Carlson then mentions that "other than making an old man feel like a coward," he doesn't see what the group has really accomplished.

He then pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to the guy, saying that Johnny had written them down and asked if they'd be acceptable.

Barely audibly, the man reads the words:

"Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us only sky. Imagine all the people, living for today."

He then continues to skim the lyrics, the part about there being no countries, no religion, no possessions. When he's done, he tells Carlson that clearly this would belong on the banned list.

When Carlson points out that there's not an inoffensive word in the song, he then dismisses it by saying a world without religion, without heaven and hell, without possessions is clearly Communist.

Carlson, as he's about to throw him out of his office, says that the author of those words never said that those things don't exist. He said to IMAGINE they don't exist.

The episode, lost in a fluffy - and extremely funny and underrated - sitcom, is one of the most powerful moments in television that TB has ever seen.

The author, of course, was John Lennon, who was shot and killed 30 years ago today in front of his apartment at the Dakota, one block to the west of Central Park.

There are no words that can explain strongly enough to someone who was too young to be around back then just how big a deal Lennon and his group The Beatles were. To many who know them simply from a video game or now that their songs are available on I-tunes, they have no way of knowing the impact that the four long-haired kids from Liverpool had on the entire world.

As for Lennon, he was a hero to the anti-war movement, with songs like "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" and his Christmas song: "Happy XMas - War Is Over."

Lennon also had great solo songs like "Watching The Wheels" and "Instant Karma," not to mention all the legendary songs that he and Paul McCartney wrote together for The Beatles, many of which debuted on I-Tunes recently.

Lennon was also seemingly a pretty down-to-Earth guy, one who mixed with the people on the streets of New York every day, who made time to sign autographs and pose for pictures outside of building, who never ducked the crowd.

In what became his final irony, he could have avoided Marc David Chapman easily had he allowed the car he was in to be driven into the courtyard at the Dakota. Instead, he got out in front, so as not to let down those who were waiting to meet him.

The story of the night of Lennon's murder and how it was first reported on "Monday Night Football" was the subject of an extremely well-done long piece on ESPN the other day.

TB was a big Beatles fan even before he ever heard of Bruce Springsteen, and almost all of his early record purchases were Beatles' albums. TB remembers the day Lennon was shot and what classes were like the next day like it was yesterday - even if it happened 30 years ago.

Women's track and field coach Peter Farrell is one of three Princeton coaches who was already working here when Lennon was killed, along with men's track and field coach Fred Samara and men's swimming coach Rob Orr.

TB knew Farrell, who is as accomplished a social commentator as he is a coach, would have something to say about Lennon, and TB was right.

"Lennon was The Beatles," Farrell said. "His breadth alone made them what they were. I couldn't really take McCartney or George Harrison or Ringo [Starr]. McCartney was saccharin without Lennon. I mean I couldn't sit through a Paul McCartney concert. 'Silly Love Songs?' No way. When Lennon wrote a song, he had something to say."

And then he added this:

"Lennon was the Bruce Springsteen of Great Britain."

John and Paul agreed to have every song either of them wrote for the group to be credited to Lennon and McCartney.

In a similar way, Princeton track is Farrell and Samara.

Track and field is not an easy sport to coach. It goes longer than any other sport at Princeton, beginning with cross country and then including indoor and outdoor. The numbers of athletes involved in the two programs is always more than 100, and coaching sprinters is much different than coaching distance runners or throwers.

It is physically demanding, and it takes a huge emotional toll as well, especially, TB assumes, to go from something like the NCAA cross country championships directly to the indoor season's earliest meet.

That first meet would be this Saturday, when Jadwin Gym hosts the New Year's Invitational for both the men and women. There will be 12 college teams competing, as well as some unattached individuals.

As with any track meet, it will be a well-choreographed and colorful competition, with different skills on display from event to event.

It begins at 11 and runs all day.

Oh, and it's free.

Imagine that.