John Denver

John Denver is the man! 

When I found out that LG shared my love of John Denver, I KNEW he was the man for me. I thought that I had an unusual upbringing because my parents were always exposing us to JD's music. Come to find out, my upbringing was pretty normal. LG was growing up 2,000 miles away and he had just as much exposure to the King of country-folk music.

While I lived in Alaska, mom and dad would put us to sleep with John Denver. They would play him as loud as he would go on their little portable battery operated tape player.

I still love John Denver. LG and I carry on tradition and listen to him while we take road trips with our girls. We teach them to sing the lyrics to his songs, which are quite uplifting. Here is one of my favorites:

Perhaps love - 1980

Perhaps love is like a resting place,
A shelter from the storm,
It exists to give you comfort,
It is there to keep you warm,
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone,
The memory of love will bring you home...

Well, I was grief-stricken, like many others, when Denver died in a plane crash, October 12, 1997. I was mostly bummed because I never got to see him in concert.

At the time, I was taking a course in college, Public Speaking. Each student was to give a speech on a self-chosen topic. I did a bang-up job with mine on the life of John Denver. Did you know that his birth name was Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.?

Well, during my speech, I touched on Denver's act of adopting two children with his first wife, Annie. In explanation of the adoptions, instead of saying, "They thought that John was sterile." I said, "They thought that John was impotent."

Hello, they THOUGHT that John Denver was IMPOTENT...isn't that something that someone either knows or they don't?

I still got an A on the speech. No one even snickered when I said it. I didn't even realize what I had said until I was doing my mental speech replay later on during the day. I was mortified at what I had done. Luckily, most of the students in the class were really naive 18 year old Mormon girls. But, surely my hot young male professor from Michigan realized what I had done. I couldn't believe it when I got my grade. Either the teacher was really impressed that I was the only student who accompanied my speech with a Power Point presentation, or he was so entertained that he decided to let my mistake slide.