For most of today I've attempted to rest. I read the latest issue of Outside from cover-to-cover, sought reasons to get on the bike for awhile ("It will make me feel better!), and ultimately resorted to playing solitaire on my iPhone while listening to John Denver.
Ian heard the music playing when he got home from school, was intrigued, and inquired if JD was an earlier version of Wilco (not a bad comparison, as it could be argued that the former falls somewhere within the genre of alt-country). This inquiry led me to consider my long relationship with John Denver, who I still believe is one of the best singer-songwriters of all-time. JD is summer, sunshine, childhood, vacation, basketball, mountains, and skiing.
I didn't pay much attention to JD when I was little (despite the fact that he owned the decade of my earliest childhood), but I came to know "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," "Take Me Home," and "Rocky Mountain High" as ubiquitous radio hits in the late-70's.
My interest spiked during 6th grade. My older brother, Jim, had his high school cool-guy bedroom in the basement of our house (Atlantic, Iowa), and there kept his hi-fi phonograph and collection of records--Commodores, Jackson 5, Bread, Marshall Tucker Band, Rod Stewart, and John Denver's Greatest Hits, Volume 2, among many others. This second volume of greatest hits opened a whole new world of thoughtful, melodic soft pop with just enough enviro-socio commentary to keep an early junior high schooler intrigued. That I was increasingly hormonal perhaps led to my interest, as well, as John was my conflicted, romantic-wannabe voice ("Annie's Song").
However, it was not until the summer of 1987 that my relationship with JD went deep. My twin brother and I took a train out to Colorado to visit my uncle; our first real adventure without parental supervision. Saturday night in Boulder, enjoying Pearl Street Mall on a beautiful summer night, we sat and listened to a guy named Rick Knowlton play John Denver songs on his piano (no words, just music). The song "For Baby (For Bobby)" captivated me--bright, joy-filled, and summer. Home after that trip, I got my mitts on a cassette tape of his first volume of greatest hits. It was the soundtrack to my freshman year, supplemented by records checked out from the library (JD, Back Home Again, It's About Time). I distinctly remember riding home from Council Bluffs, Iowa, where we had just played Lewis Central in freshman basketball. I cozied in with GHV1 in the back of the bus and dreamed of Colorado. In the springtime of the year, after a ski trip out to Breckenridge and before preparations for our imminent move to Cedar Falls, I purchased Rocky Mountain High and Poems, Prayers, and Promises. The latter remains one of my favorite recordings ever.
Every John Denver song, now as then, makes me want to hop into the car and drive to the mountains. The Rockies (and John) have always symbolized for me escape, freedom, beauty, and adventure; not even so much skiing or riding a bike or rafting down a river, but perhaps even putting on a pair of sandals, cut-off shorts, and a baja hoodie and sipping coffee at cafe in Boulder, idly thinking about heading up to the mountains for a stroll to St. Mary's Glacier.
This is still what I want to do most days. I am looking forward to going west with the kids this summer: they will learn the entire John Denver library (at least the more popular stuff).
In the meantime, it gives me something to think about on a cold January night in Chicago-land, nursing an ailing gastro-intestinal tract.
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