In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono took several well-documented trips to Canada. During their visits, accompanied by Ono's young daughter Kyoko, they climbed under the covers for a Bed In For Peace and hung out with folks like Marshall McLuhan and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. ONOWEB's Richard Joly recently posted an interview that Keith Samarillo conducted with Ono about her family's time in Canada.
Ono says:
I met a woman in a restaurant the other day. She was sitting next to my table with a man, and did not bother me at all. When I finished my meal, she just said quietly "I was there. At the Bed-In in Montreal." I automatically said. "you must have been a baby then," because she looked so young. She told me that she and her friends were told that John and I were doing a bed-in in Montreal. They got into a car, and drove up to Montreal. They were college students. Asked if they could go meet us. I remember we were told that there were some girls who came up all the way from New York, and wanted to meet us. We said that's fine. The girls came into the room, and we shook hands with them. They stayed quietly. They were there when we recorded Give Peace A Chance.
The woman said she was so deeply effected by the experience, she did not tell her experience to her husband for many years even after they got married. The man who was at the table with her in the restaurant was her husband. He was smiling and nodding about it.
My friend who went to the restaurant with me was also impressed that the woman looked so young. Then the friend told me that he was told by many people that he looked unusually young for his age. His theory was that anybody who touched the moment – our bed-in in Montreal – must have experienced the magic of it, and they could not grow old. Well, that's a nice thought, isn't it? John sat in Montreal for a whole week., intently wishing peace for the world. John was laughed at and had stone thrown at him for doing that. He laid his life on line to wish Peace for the world. I will not be surprised if there is a fountain of peace, good will and love in Canada, from which an invisible water is flowing out to the world. Link
My pal Teresa Moore had her own Canadian moment with the Lennon/Ono family:
My brother's best friend was a reporter for the Toronto Star. He was covering John and Yoko's visit to Toronto and their trying to get a visa into the US. (I recall that he had a drug conviction and couldn't get in.) I had just completed my first year at the University of Toronto and my brother's friend called me at my summer job. He asked if I could come down to the King Eddie hotel to babysit Kyoko for the afternoon while John and Yoko went off to see the lawyer and US immigration people.
I went to the hotel and the halls were filled with screaming girls. I walked through them all, knocked on the door, and Derek Taylor (their manager) answered. I introduced myself, walked in, and met John and Yoko, the lawyer's wife, and Yoko's daugher Kyoko. They left and I went to the park to play with the kids. John and Yoko came back later and they both dressed entirely in white linen. You could see through the linen that John was wearing red knickers. They kept playing their latest record over and over. Then Jacqueline Suzanne and a few other people came in with some reporters. They all talked about going to Montreal and Taylor asked if I would go along to look after Kyoko. I decided not to and left around dinnertime.
A week later, Taylor or someone sent me some money for my time. I think it was about 50 bucks, which seemed like a lot at the time. It was all quite thrilling as I was a huge Lennon fan and had seen the Beatles from the fourth row during their first North American tour.
