It has been said that the sixties died late on the evening of Monday, December 8, 1980. When ex-Beatle John Lennon was killed by a pudgy, pasty-faced killer eager to make a name for himself, many believed that more things than just the measure of a man were taken from us. Lennon had only recently re-surfaced after five years of retirement.

He had spent the first half of the seventies politically active in leftist causes, making memorable music, and winning a fight to stay in this country. All that, and more, was taken away twenty-five years ago.

Twenty-five years

We remember landmark anniversaries as a way to take stock of what was once so much with us. A quarter century after the death of Lennon, the expected flurry of media retrospectives is painting the picture of a normal man, a flawed individual with roots in American R + B and British skiffle music who mixed it all to make his own statement.

With The Beatles he created such classics as "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," "Strawberry Fields Forever," and "Come Together." On his own and with wife Yoko Ono, Lennon made his mark with "Give Peace A Chance," "Imagine," and "Mind Games."

The memory of that day in December is still with many from my age group, the first generation removed from direct Beatlemania. We spent the seventies exploring their music, going to the occasional Beatle convention, and watching solo Beatles fall under the spell of the era's tendency to over-produce simple songs. George was the philanthropist, Ringo the slightly nasal but always loveable drummer, and Paul the hitmaker with his new group Wings. John was the troublemaker, the radical sentimentalist who could record "Instant Karma" and "Imagine" in the course of a year's time. John burned the candle at both ends. He went away for a while, came back, and then he was gone.

NBC-TV's "Dateline, " unfortunately, is planning an interview with and profile of Lennon's killer. The idea of such exposure is perhaps the dream of every assassin. They kill in order to be remembered. While the PBS program "Frontline" produced a fascinating examination of the pathology behind this killing as a way to understand the motivation, they steered clear of the killer himself. At least a made-for-TV docudrama can achieve camp value by casting the killer with a recognizable face; "Dateline" is just being sensational and tasteless.

I was sixteen the day John Lennon was killed. I am now a year older than he was on December 8, 1980. The measure of a life is sometimes exaggerated and amplified of they are killed at a young age, and we remember the day of loss more than the day of birth. Lennon's death was the true dividing line between sixties idealism, seventies cynicism, and eighties selfishness. The sixties were ten years old when Lennon was killed that night, but for many people, the hope of a generation was still waiting for a resurrection.

Christopher J. Stephens is an adjunct college English instructor for Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Western New England College, and Corinthian Colleges, Inc.