John Denver
Dec.
31, 1943 - Oct. 12, 1997
A long time ago, a friend of
mine asked me to hear a song, a country song. I told her that I did not
listen to country music but would listen to it because that's just the
way I am. It was the most beautiful song I had ever heard, about mountains
that I had never seen. It was "Country Roads." I lived on the ocean and
had never been really happy there. I had seen mountains on pictures but
never been there. (Okay, I moved cross country when I was one but does
that really count?) Anyway, I started going to the Blue Ridge Mountains
whenever I could. I would go there and camp, hike, drive the "country roads"
and just take in the views and breath in the clean air. These were the
mountains of Virginia and they were just a strip of mountains. Then I went
to North Carolina and Tennessee. The mountains didn't stop! There were
so many and I was in love! I wanted to live there and so I moved there.
That's where I met my husband of now 22 years. I've been to a few more
mountains since then. I've been to Washington state where they have volcanos
and rain forests. Mt. St. Helens said hello back in 1980 while I was there.
Boy was she loud! Then we moved to the Rockies. Other than being the driest
place I've ever been to, it was also one of the most beautiful. I lived
in Denver for about five months and then we moved to the Colorado Springs
area. We decided we would live IN the mountains instead of in front of
them so we moved up to around the 8500ft. level. We lived behind Pikes
Peak.
When my husband got out of the
Air Force, he decided he wanted to be closer to home. Now we live in the
mountains we met at once again.
I went to see John Denver in Virginia the year they made his live album. I had always wanted to see him again but never got the chance. I use to play his music as lullaby's for my daughter. She loved "Sunshine On My Shoulders" and learned to sing it quite young. His songs touched me in that they told my story on just how much I love the mountains. I still want to see Alaska and Canada. Of course, there is also the ones in South America and Europe.
You may wonder why we could move away from such a beautiful place. To be closer to home was the main reason, but Colorado is getting so full of people and most of them are not taking care of the place. Trash all over the place. People driving like they haven't any time to get there. Passing on curves and killing others. It was just not the same as it is here in the Blue Ridge. This is a simpler place. Remember, John sang that the Blue Ridge mountains were, almost heaven!
