PEACE: HAIR YESTERDAY, GONE TODAY

On the wall behind me, there hangs a painting. Actually, it's more of an oil sketch. 

It's based on a slide I shot in May of '69 in a bedroom of Suite 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. And it's not hard to identify the subjects.

It has an unfinished look to it, but I like it like that.

It's all I really need to invoke a flood of memories about a time in my life marked by wild and wonderful changes. Not that worming my way into John and Yoko's "Bed-In For Peace" changed my life. That event was more symptomatic than causal.

Rae Katherine always said it was one of the two boldest things I'd ever done in my life, but she never did say what the other one was.

It was Spring. And we were just about to quit our jobs (mine at the Instructional Communications Centre at McGill and hers at the library at Sir George Williams), pack our pets and belongings into an old potato chip van and set out for the wilds of Kaministikwia. So, there was a certain sense of recklessness in the air, and that might have had an influence on my thinking.

At any rate, we met after work one evening; and out of the blue, I suggested we go over to the Queen E and see if we could bluff our way in to meet Lennon and his squeeze. 

Rae Katherine was shocked.

"How would we do that?"

"I'll take my camera," I said, "and tell them we're collecting shots for a slide show on the Peace Movement."

If it didn't work, we'd at least have had the fun of trying.

The off-duty cop sitting in the hallway by the suite (the only security in sight!) met us with a wary look.

"There was a bunch here from McGill just last night."

As it turned out, that was a group of my co-workers come to take some 16mm footage for inclusion in a little silent film they were making me as a going-away present. But since they were doing it as a surprise, I had no idea why they'd been there.

Nevertheless, I kept my cool and explained that we were doing a slide show - a completely different sort of project.

The poor man gave us a tired look that said, "What the hell do I care!" and waved us inside. (On the 40th anniversary of the event, I saw him interviewed on television; and he expressed precisely that sentiment about his unorthodox assignment.)

But once inside, I began to have my doubts. We walked into a kind of waiting room packed with Hari Krishnas and all the sort of hangers-on I despised. Yet there we were: a part of the herd.

We edged our way into a corner by the window and surveyed the scene with some dread. Within minutes, a fellow came out of the main bedroom and demanded, "Are the people from McGill here?"

This is it, I thought. We're busted! 

Sheepishly, I said we were. And then came the shock of my life.

"Would you mind coming in now and using the lighting setup we have for the CBC?" he asked.

"Of course," I allowed, magnanimously. "Whatever's easiest for you!"

And in we walked to John and Yoko's bedroom with the full gratitude of his road manager and a profound sense of disbelief.

Now, at that time, Yoko Ono was not a Beatles fan's favourite person, since she was about to "break up the group". And I'd never been a fan of "conceptual artists", at the best of times. But one look at her lying gracefully in that bed, cuddled up next to John was enough to make me understand what the man saw in her.

She exuded a peaceful but powerful and arresting sort of aura. 


Most of the time, she was on the phone to New York or Hollywood or somewhere, arranging the details of a gathering the next day when they'd record "Give Peace A Chance" with Alan Ginsburg and Tommy Smothers and a host of others.

In an alcove of the room, a local DJ was playing "Get Back!" and other Lennon hits; while John did his best to answer the questions of an overly-earnest CBC reporter.

"What do you think of Marcuse?" she asked.

John didn't recognize the name.

"What's his gig, then?" 

Rae Katherine sat by the bed, while I wandered about, snapping shot after shot (most of which came out blurred, because I was using a range-finder Leica and was never very good at judging distance).

We waited through question after question, in an interview that promised to go on forever; until eventually, my courage failed. 

When it came our turn, what was I going to tell them? I could have said I was a draft dodger or that we were headed off to live a simpler, more peaceful lifestyle and chatted about that. But these people were on a mission. And somehow, I couldn't bring myself to keep up any pretext of putting together a presentation on world peace, when I had no intention of doing that.

So, we bailed.

The road manager was very apologetic about the CBC hogging so much of John's time, but we thanked him anyway and said we had plenty of material as it was.  And we did.

I hadn't shed my doubts about the effectiveness of the couple's wacky method of demonstrating for world peace, but I could see that John was sincere... and as affable and down-to-earth as I'd expected... and more in love than I'd imagined.

And years later, when I tried to sketch his features, I realized I couldn't. Instead, I found myself focusing on Yoko's expression. 

Then, it finally dawned on me. 

She was the one I remembered best from that experience. She was the one who'd shown me what Lennon was really like.

And now, she's the one left on my wall to remind me that the work of achieving peace is as unfinished as my painting. And I can almost hear her say that, even if love isn't all you need, it's surely where peace has got to start.