John Denver shrine on Aspen Mountain

Nan and I made a quick trip back to our old stomping grounds in Aspen this past weekend. It was a chance to catch up with friends and ski some familiar terrain. We have skied two days here in New Mexico this season, at Sandia Peak and Taos, but we really wanted to ski in Aspen again after not having skied there in almost four years.

Early on Saturday morning, our friend Mike, who has been our first mate on every major sailing adventure with Whispering Jesse, including our trip to Bimini last April, and who works for the Aspen-Snowmass Skiing Company, met us at the base of Aspen Highlands to get us set up with rental skis and lift tickets. Then we took a couple of lift rides up to the summit for unmatched views and easy skiing on blue groomers. The weather was beautiful and the snow softened up nicely. Mike headed off to work at mid-day, and we picked up Lori, our friend and generous hostess, and her friend Judy for some afternoon runs.

The original plan was to ski Snowmass on Sunday, but Nan wanted to meet up with friends instead, so Mike and I opted to ski closer to home at Aspen Mountain. The weather was deteriorating in the morning; a front was blowing in from the west with dark clouds and high winds. The lighting was flat and the snow stayed firm, so we stuck to the blue terrain and skied runs off the top of the mountain.

On a whim during one of our chairlift rides, I asked Mike if he knew where the John Denver shrine was located. Aspen Mountain features many shrines--memorials to beloved locals and famous celebrities who have passed away. The first ones I knew about, back in the '90s, were dedicated to Jerry Garcia, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. One was erected in John Denver's memory shortly after his death in October 1997, but I had never known where it was located, only that is was off the Belissimo ski run somewhere. Mike didn't know where it was either, so we stopped at the Skier Services hut at the top of the lift to request directions. "Can you tell us where the John Denver shrine is located?" I asked. The employee there, a guy wearing a goofy cowboy hat, responded, "No. I grew up here, so I can't tell you. Otherwise, I could. I can tell you that it's that way," he said, pointing down the hill. "Not that way," he said, pointing up the hill. We skied away without thanking him for his arrogant lack of assistance.

A little later, we ran into Steve, a ski patrolman Mike knew, and he explained to us exactly where to go. Following his directions, we skied down the steep part of Belissimo, bore to the right in the flats, and then looked for tracks going into the woods on the left side of the run. Mike led the way as we traversed several yards into the spruce trees, and there it was.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was mostly faded photos and publicity shots of John from different phases of his music career, plus some wind chimes and a makeshift candle lantern. The item that struck me was a photo of John in his later years, looking a little scruffy, with the announcement of his memorial service printed below. I told Mike that Nan and I had attended the service as guests of John's family. I was John's computer consultant back then and had been up at his house helping him get his technology in order for his trip to California just a few days before he crashed his plane into Monterey Bay.

It's difficult to believe that John has been gone for almost twenty years now. Like his many fans and friends, I still miss him.

The Shins at Belly Up in Aspen

Nan and I were up in Aspen last weekend to see the Shins play at the Belly Up nightclub. I have been a fan of their distinctive music since I first heard "New Slang" on the soundtrack of the 2004 movie, "Garden State", starring Zach Braff and Natalie Portman. Over the next several months, I listened to the band's first two albums, "Oh, Inverted World" and "Chutes Too Narrow" almost non-stop.

Two years later, in 2006, my sister Jane and I traveled to Chicago from an August family reunion in Milwaukee to see the Shins play at Lollapalooza in Grant Park. It was heartwarming to see tens of thousands of other fans as crazy about the band as I was, and we were all treated to new songs off their then-upcoming album, "Wincing the Night Away".

The Shins didn't put out another album for several years after that. Band leader James Mercer, partnering with Danger Mouse as Broken Bells, released an excellent self-titled album in 2010, and I assumed that the Shins were no more. But then earlier this year, I saw that the Shins would be the musical guests on the March 11 broadcast of Saturday Night Live. I tuned in and was surprised to see James Mercer surrounded by an all-new band. The distinctive sound was still there, though, and I was impressed enough by the songs they performed to get their new album, "Port of Morrow".

The band line-up in the poster outside Belly Up looked the same as the one from SNL, but when the band took the stage, guitarist/vocalist Jessica Dobson was not with the band. There was very little patter between songs, and no explanations were offered. My impression was that James Mercer is the Shins regardless of who is playing with him, and this was made evident by the line-up that night playing a wide variety of Shins songs from the entire repertoire rather than simply focusing on songs off the new album. It was a show to promote the Shins, not just "Port of Morrow".

The music that night is a blur for me now, just a continuous stream of songs I know by heart, punctuated by favorites "New Slang", "Sleeping Lessons", and the final encore song, "One by One All Day", which I found myself singing for days afterward.

Go see the Shins if you ever get a chance. As Zach Braff's character Andrew says to Natalie Portman's Sam as he slips the headphones over her head, "You gotta hear this one song. It'll change your life, I swear."

Republicans in Aspen

After living there for twenty years, Nan and I moved away from Aspen a little over seven years ago. We still get back there a few times a year to ski and visit friends, and we notice changes that we might not if we still lived there. This was especially true this past weekend when we made a quick overnight trip to visit a good friend.

On our way into Aspen, we passed the old Poppies restaurant building. The business closed a few years ago and the Victorian-era building has been sitting empty, but it is now serving as the local Republican Party headquarters. There was a sign to that effect above the door and signs promoting Republican candidates plastered all over the wrought iron fence out front. Nan and I both expressed surprise, and I reminded her of an Independence Day several years ago, when some local Republicans marched in the annual parade carrying a banner announcing themselves. I had made the comment: "There they go, all four of them."

Times seem to have changed. We saw Romney bumper stickers and yard signs all over town. Aspen used to pride itself on being a tiny island of Democrats in the sea of Colorado Republicans. It also prided itself on what was called "messy vitality," a kind of small-town funkiness arising from the co-existence of folks spanning the entire economic spectrum. Those points of pride are less in evidence these days, and the reasons are obvious. 

In Aspen, the Great Recession hit late, but it hit hard. During the depths, the all-important tourist dollars dwindled to the point where many businesses, especially the mom-and-pop ones, closed permanently. The businesses that survived were the ones that catered to the uber-wealthy, the people least affected by the economic downturn. Surrounded by empty retail spaces, businesses selling thousand-dollar cashmere scarves and five-figure handbags continued to flourish. During this period, downtown felt like it used to feel during off-season, when all the locals cleared out of town, except that it was now year round. 

What we noticed as we walked around town yesterday is that those empty retail spaces, in the wake of modest economic recovery, are filling in with even more stores peddling super-expensive wares. Rather than becoming more affordable as a result of the recession, Aspen appears to have become less so. It has always had the reputation of being the playground of the rich and famous, but now it seems to be the exclusive domain of the "one percenters." And with that cachet comes the Republican mindset that was so much in evidence all around town.

The good news is that President Obama is ahead in the polls in Colorado and will probably take both the state and the election again on November 6. If he does, I hope that the signs and stickers will come down and that people will leave their divisions behind for another four years to let Aspen return to its funky self.

Christmas in Aspen

For the holidays this year, Nan and I are house and dog sitting for our friends, the Vaughns, in Aspen. They are in Costa Rica with family and we are looking after things back home. Their dog Hannah and our dog Scout get along well, romping in the snow together and competing for our affection, so the Vaughns are happy to have us stay here instead of having to board her.

Normally, one would expect to pay top dollar to spend the holidays in Aspen, so it was an unexpected surprise to receive this generous invitation. We have made the most of it, dining at a favorite restaurant on Christmas Eve and skiing on Christmas Day. It has been surprisingly quiet wherever we go. The restaurant had several open tables and there were no significant lift lines at the ski areas. During the years when we lived here, the holidays were always extremely busy, with "a head on every pillow in town," as we used to say. The poor national economy and the local emphasis on real estate profits over quality tourist experiences seem to have taken their toll.

The four of us spent Christmas Day with our friends, the Andersons, who live at the base of Aspen Highlands. The guys skied most of the day over at Buttermilk so the kids could play around in the terrain park on the Red's Rover trail. The photo of Jon is from the West Buttermilk chairlift's halfway point loading area, where we waited in the only lift line of the day.

Later, Jon and I caught the shuttle bus back to Aspen Highlands and met Nan, who had earlier taken Scout and Hannah for a cross-country ski up Maroon Creek Road, for an end-of-day top-to-bottom ski run. I wanted to get a good ski photo of Nan and me, and Jon suggested the new Ski Patrol hut at the top of the mountain for its amazing views. The sun was low in the sky and directly behind us, but Jon's photo turned out nicely, with the sun's flare coming from between Pyramid Peak and the Maroon Bells in the distant background.

The three of us skied the leg-burning thirty-six hundred vertical feet back to the base and then hobbled over to Jon's house for après-ski. When Jon's wife Lori, their kids and assorted guests finally returned from skiing, we all toasted the holidays and sat down to a wonderful Christmas Dinner.

Minifish

I have owned an AMF Alcort Minifish sailboat since one was given to me as a present from my family for my eleventh birthday in 1969. My father and I taught ourselves to sail the little boat and enjoyed cruising it around the Chain of Lakes in Waupaca, Wisconsin over the next several summer vacations. When I was old enough to drive, I would take the boat out to the lakes west of Milwaukee, where I grew up, and sail it with friends. I even took it with me to college in Madison, sailing on Lake Mendota after classes. When I moved to Aspen, Colorado in 1986, there wasn't room in the U-Haul trailer for the boat, so I drove it out the following year. Nan and I would sail it every summer on Ruedi Reservoir, about an hour from home. Now we live in Grand Junction, and there really aren't any good places nearby to sail. There's Highline Lake to the north and Ridgway Reservoir to the south, but they're both so overrun with powerboats most of the time that we haven't even bothered. So the boat has been sitting unused in the garage for more than five years.

When I was back in Milwaukee visiting family in July, my sister Jane mentioned the boat. She and her family live in Seattle near Green Lake, and they also have a vacation home on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Her sons, Max and Ben, are developing an interest in sailing from lessons they have been taking on Green Lake, and she was wondering what I was doing with the old Minifish. I explained that we weren't really sailing it anymore and asked if she would like to have it for the boys to sail. She said yes, and we emailed back and forth about it again this past week, so next spring the Minifish is going to get shipped up to Seattle. I need to do a little work on it first: the plastic rings that attach the sail to the mast and boom are missing or cracked and need to be replaced; one of the mast's endcaps got dinged when the mast and boom fell off the trailer the last time we used the boat; and the current nylon halyard needs to be replaced with a better, non-stretching one. None of these repairs is too major, but I want to hand off the boat in good condition. Ideally, I would like to fly up there and introduce Max and Ben to the boat after it arrives to give them the benefit of my forty-one years of personal experience in rigging, launching and sailing it. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bryan Savage at Two Rivers Winery

It is not well known outside of our immediate area, but western Colorado produces good wine. There are numerous vineyards and wineries in the Grand Junction area, and Colorado's annual Winefest (http://www.coloradowinefest.com/) is held every September just east of Grand Junction in Palisade.

Right up Broadway, about four miles west of us, is the Two Rivers Winery. Nan and I have attended their Winemakers Tasting Dinners, as part of the Colorado Winefest, the past two years. On Tuesday evening, we were there for a Jazz among the Grapevines outdoor event featuring Bryan Savage, the jazz flute and saxophone player. We were Bryan's guests, compliments of my friend Phil Linville, who runs the Ambiance smooth jazz station on iTunes radio as "Aaron Phillips" and had interviewed Bryan to promote his upcoming performance.

Nan and I knew Bryan and his wife Michele from our many years living in Aspen. We used to see Bryan perform around town with Bobby Mason's band, and I used to help Michele with Bryan's Macintosh problems when I owned my computer business.

It was a beautiful evening to sit outside on the lawn, sipping Two Rivers Chardonnay and listening to Bryan's fantastic playing on selections from his long history of recordings, as well as jazz interpretations of popular songs like "Georgia on my Mind", "I Only Have Eyes for You" and "Somewhere over the Rainbow". His one-man act was offset by a MacBook running a customized version of iTunes that tied into his sound system to provide musical accompaniment. At the set break, we went up to chat with Bryan and Michele, take some photos and buy a copy of Bryan's CD, Soul Temptation. It was good to see Bryan and Michele again and to know that they are doing well. Jazz lives!

The Pretenders in Aspen

On Wednesday night, Nan and I were in Aspen to see the Pretenders at Belly Up. They are on tour promoting their new album, Break up the Concrete, and passed through western Colorado between gigs in Denver and Dallas. Belly Up's owner, Michael Goldberg, has done an amazing job booking first-rate bands into his popular nightclub. In the last couple of years, we have seen the English Beat, Deep Purple, Todd Rundgren, and the Dandy Warhols. There are some important factors working in Belly Up's favor: the nightclub is small so most big acts sell out, even with high ticket prices; it is located in an area that makes it a natural link to larger cities; and musicians enjoy playing in Aspen, despite the high altitude, some even treating it as a vacation from their busy tour schedules. Whatever the particular reasons, we are more than happy to take advantage of the opportunities as often as we can.

The Pretenders were terrific. They opened with "Boots of Chinese Plastic" and another one off the new album, and then launched into "Talk of the Town" and "Message of Love", two of their classic hits. They continued in that mode, switching between new material and old, for a solid hour and a half, ending with two two-song encores. The crowd went wild with every familiar song, like "Brass in Pocket" and "Back on the Chain Gang", singing the lyrics back to the band and bouncing around the dance floor like it was still the early 1980s. The place was packed so Nan and I stayed in our seats near the bar, where I took the photo below using my iPhone, which I have decided takes pretty bad photos in concert settings. The shutter is just too slow for the lighting, so the photos are always blurry. Photoshop helps but not much. Click the photo for a larger view.

The best thing about the concert for me was a new appreciation for how talented and unique singer/ songwriter/ guitarist Chrissie Hynde is. She has fronted the Pretenders since 1978, through the deaths of two original band members and a constantly changing line-up of musicians, but her music has never wavered. You can tell a Pretenders song in the first few seconds, or as soon as you hear her distinctive voice. Chrissie's guitar playing was incredible. I don't know what I expected, never having seen even a live video, but she played her silver Fender Telecaster like a rhythm guitar rock god, like Keith Richards if he could also sing like Mick Jagger at the same time. It made me think she must be the most talented woman in rock and roll. At age 57, she looks the same as she always has, with her trademark dark bangs and tight jeans, and shows no signs of slowing down. Go, Chrissie, go!

Tom Bodett

Nan and I just got back from our fifth visit in ten years to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. There will be more on that, including photos, in my next blog post, but I wanted to share something in the meantime, an email exchange I just had with Tom Bodett:

On Oct 14, 2008, at 10:11 PM, John Lichty wrote:

Tom—

I have enjoyed your work for years, from the Motel 6 ads to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, including being in the audience for the taping of the show in Aspen a few years ago, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I had no idea you were also a writer.

My wife and I just returned from renting an apartment for a couple weeks on Isla Mujeres. It’s located across from Cancun and is a great place to vacation if you ever get the chance. Anyway, there was a book exchange shelf in the lobby and on it I found a hardcover copy of The Free Fall of Webster Cummings. Wow, I thought, an actual Tom Bodett book! Who knew? I picked it up and started reading immediately. By the time I got to "snap-on crab bait," I was laughing out loud and completely hooked. What a great story, full of unique characters and warm humor. I can’t wait to see what happens to Norman Tuttle in your new book.

Thank you for all you do. Keep up the good work!

—John Lichty
Grand Junction, Colorado

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His reply from this morning:

From: Tom Bodett [mailto:tbodett@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 5:30 AM
To: John Lichty
Cc: Tom Bodett
Subject: Re: "Free Fall"

Thanks for the note, John. I'm glad to hear these old books of mine are still finding their way to folks like you.

My best,

Tom

----------

How cool is that? If you're interested, here's a link to Tom's website: http://www.bodett.com/.

The Dandy Warhols in Aspen

The summer of music continues. Nan and I have been big fans of The Dandy Warhols since the release of their third album, Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, back in 2000. Last night we finally got the opportunity to see them perform live. They played the Belly Up in Aspen, a nightclub we know well from our twenty-plus years living in Aspen. So we drove up for a wild night of psychedelic rock and roll starting with The Upsidedown and Darker My Love.

I stopped by the souvenir stand before the show started with the idea of buying a Dandys t-shirt. It turned out that Brett Kron, the guitarist from The Upsidedown, was behind the table. We chatted for a few minutes about his band's relationship to both the Dandys and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. All are part of the vibrant Portland, Oregon music scene. I also met Bob Graham Mild, The Upsidedown's drummer, when he stopped by.

I found a good-looking shirt but they only took cash, so I went off to find an ATM. When I returned, a different guy was behind the table. He introduced himself as Travis, one of the sound people for The Dandy Warhols and Zia McCabe's husband. Zia is the band's eclectic keyboardist. Like an idiot, the first thing I could think to ask was, "How many kids do you guys have now?" That made Travis laugh. "Just one," he responded. We talked for a few minutes about what a great place Aspen is and how well the band's tour was going. They had played to a packed house at the Gothic in Denver the night before and were headed to Los Angeles in the morning. He asked if there was any particular Dandys song I wanted to hear. How about "We Used To Be Friends", I asked. "I'll tell Courtney to be sure to play it," he said.

The show started at about 10:00 with The Upside Down. The similarities to the Dandys were immediately noticeable: guitar-heavy pop melodies with strong buzzy undercurrents. I was glad that Brett had also talked me into buying the band's new CD, Human Destination.

Darker My Love was next, and they were just that: darker. The guitar parts were complicated and the band members concentrated more on their playing than on their stage presence. There were interesting tempos and change-ups, but it was not the type of music I would rush out to buy.

At midnight, The Dandy Warhols hit the stage with "Moham-med" [Not "Solid" as originally written. Thanks for the correction, Zia!], followed immediately by my requested song. Travis wasn't kidding, I thought. Nan and I had good seats, but we wanted to get closer so we spent the rest of the concert on the dance floor, pogoing around like crazy to an hour and a half of really good, really loud music. If I had to describe it, the Dandys' music sounds like the Cowsills on acid, like "Aquarius" as performed by The Rolling Stones. The show ended with lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor doing a solo electric rendition of "Every Day Should Be A Holiday". If only!

Jazz Aspen Snowmass 2008

Nan and I used to attend the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day weekend music festival every year, but we have missed it the last two years in a row, partly because we live in Grand Junction now and partly because we didn't think the music line-ups have justified the trip.

This past Labor Day weekend, we decided we would attend at least one day of the four-day festival. For us, it was a choice between Bob Dylan and John Fogerty. I had seen Bob Dylan twice before, once with my friend Curt Haensel back in 1986 at Alpine Valley when Bob was touring with Tom Petty and once with Nan at Jazz Aspen Snowmass in 2002 when it was held at the base of Buttermilk Mountain. We had both seen John Fogerty once before when he performed at Jazz Aspen Snowmass in 2005. That was our last Jazz Aspen Snowmass show and it was so good that in the end we decided to see him again instead of Bob.

As we waited for the festival gates to open at 2:00, the clouds that had looked threatening earlier in the day began to drop a steady rain. That's always a potential problem with outdoor concerts, but we were prepared with rain jackets and a waterproof tarp. Our plan was to run to a spot next to the sound tent, close to the stage but not too close, spread the tarp, position our lawn chairs to hold it in place, and then head to the tent-covered bar to stay dry. Luck was with us though, and the rain stopped as soon as we got in.

The first act was Tift Merritt. We didn't know what to expect since we'd never heard of her, but she and her band were terrific. Her voice sounded like a combination of Joni Mitchell and Mary Chapin Carpenter, and she accompanied herself on piano, acoustic guitar and electric guitar. When her set ended, we wandered over to the merchandise tent where Tift was signing copies of her CDs. She was very friendly and chatted with us briefly about what an enthusiastic reception she was receiving in Colorado. We smiled and told her it was because she was so talented and her songs were so heartfelt. Her latest album, Another Country, is still in our car's CD player. Good stuff, especially "Morning Is My Destination" and the title track.

Dwight Yoakam was next. He is a little more cowboy-country than what we regularly listen to, but he played a bunch of classic Buck Owens songs from his new tribute album and put on a great show with his excellent backup band.

Our friends Robin and Dick joined us for John Fogerty's headline act with their son Alex and Dick's cousin, who was visiting from Sweden. I have been a John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival fan since the mid-1960s when my dad started buying their albums. I know all their songs by heart, but I wasn't the only one singing along to classics like "Who'll Stop The Rain?" and "Willie And The Poor Boys." The highlight of the show was a combination of songs off his latest album, Revival: "Long Dark Night" followed by "I Can't Take It No More." Together they form a harsh diatribe against the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. The crowd roared its approval. The show ended after two solid hours with fan favorites "Fortunate Son" and "Proud Mary."

It's always a blast to revisit the music of your youth, especially live in concert. If Jazz Aspen Snowmass keeps bringing in talent like John Fogerty, we'll keep coming back.

John Denver: genuine guy?

In response to my Where the name comes from and "Whispering Jesse" revisited posts, I have received several email messages from fans of John Denver. One asked, "Was John Denver really the all American guy that we all knew and loved?... Was he really just a nice, down to earth guy and did he have a temper?" Here is my reply:

Jeff,

John was a fairly genuine guy. You never had the impression that he was trying to be something he was not. He had his shortcomings like we all do. He could be moody and he had a fairly quick temper, which I really only saw once when he was frustrated that he couldn’t reach me on a Saturday when he was having computer problems. But he also had tremendous patience, as I experienced one afternoon when his daughter Jesse Belle was being fussy and making a mess.

As an aside, some jackass who claimed to be John’s computer consultant was quoted in an Aspen Daily News article a few years ago saying that he witnessed John angrily backing over his laptop computer in his driveway. That never happened. That guy never even met John. I contacted the author to tell him so.

John liked to have a good time, but who doesn’t? He went through a period in the early 1990s when he was frequenting Takah Sushi, a Japanese restaurant on the Hyman Avenue Mall in Aspen. My wife and I saw him there one night before he and I met and became friends. Anyway, he liked his sake and it caught up to him one night when he wrapped his Porsche around a tree in Starwood on his way home.

More than anything, I believe John was humbled by his good fortune. He was an extremely talented singer, guitarist and songwriter, but those things came so naturally to him that he didn’t think they were any big deal. Anyone who ever saw him perform knew that his songs came from his heart and that he was happy just to have the opportunity to share them with his audience. The overwhelming response he received from his audiences around the world was, I feel, genuinely gratifying to him.

Considering his situation, John was a good man who made a great positive impact on society. Would that any of us could do better.

Best wishes,

John

Boat Quest, Part 4

The fascination with the MacGregor 26 trailerable sailboat continued for several years, but it diminished briefly in the summer of 1999 while Nan and I were in Manitowoc, Wisconsin for the wedding of her youngest sister Sarah to Ian Griffiths. At the reception, we sat at a table with Nan's brother Jim and his best buddy Jack Simono. Jack was a long-time sailor who owned a Coronado 25 that he sailed on Lake Michigan. But the boat had been sitting unused in his backyard for a couple of years and he was ready to sell it. He thought it was worth about $7000, which was less than half what a new MacGregor 26 would cost, so I was very interested. When we got home, I searched the Internet and found a PDF version of the original Coronado 25 brochure. It looked like a sturdy, capable cruiser, more of a true sailboat than the MacGregor 26X power cruiser. I would have contacted Jack to work out a deal but like the dreams that preceded it, there was no money to fulfill it and it slowly died.

Later that summer, I made a pilgrimage to Colorado's only MacGregor dealer, The Anchorage, located just north of Boulder and only a four-hour drive away. The owners, Eileen and John, let me climb around on a brand-new MacGregor 26X and gave me literature and a price sheet. I left convinced that the MacGregor was the right boat for me after all. And I rationalized that it would be easier to come up with financing for a new boat than for an older, used boat. We might have qualified for a home equity loan, but the mortgage on our Aspen home was oppressive enough without taking on additional debt, so I never got past checking interest rates and calculating monthly payments.

That fall, Nan and I attended the wedding of Erika and Mike in Moab, Utah. Erika and Nan worked together in the pharmacy at Aspen Valley Hospital. Their boss, the pharmacy director Dan Gold, was also a guest at the wedding. Nan had been eager for me to meet Dan because she thought we had many interests in common, including sailing. Dan was late getting to the sunset wedding after riding the challenging Monitor and Merrimac trail on his mountain bike, so we met only briefly before the ceremony, which took place beneath one of the arches in Arches National Park. The reception was a low-key affair at Eddie McStiff's brew pub, where Dan and I talked sailing and became friends over pitchers of microbrew. Like me, Dan was a believer in the MacGregor 26, in his case because he owned one, a 1992 MacGregor 26D.

Christmas Letter 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Time passes so quickly these days, our Christmas letters are starting to read like chapters in a serialized novel. By the time the last one has been mailed, it’s time to start thinking about the next. What to do for a cliffhanger though?

This year was a big one for us. We made up for all the travel and experiences we didn’t get to do last year while we were going through our home ownership transition. Much of that travel was the back-and-forth shuffle between our jobs at Aspen Valley Hospital and our home in Grand Junction. We shared a house down the road from Aspen in Basalt during the work week and drove home every weekend, partly to water the plants and check the mail, partly because it was home and it felt right to be there. But as of November 1st, when Nan ended her nineteen-year career at AVH, we are now full-time Grand Junctionites. Nan just started a new job here as Surgery Coordinator for Community Hospital, and I am telecommuting now to my job as the Database/Internet Administrator for AVH. It’s working out well so far, and our dog Charlie seems less confused.

The fun travel started last January. I was looking to expand my sailing horizons so I joined sailor/writer John Kretschmer and a group sailing John’s 47-foot cutter from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas and back. It was rough crossing the Gulf Stream overnight while beating into the wind, but we enjoyed the Settlement on Grand Bahama and the quick surf back. It was smooth enough on the return to practice using sextants to determine our latitude, confirming our position with the ship’s GPS.

To build her sailing confidence in anticipation of our upcoming May sailing trip to the British Virgin Islands, Nan took the American Sailing Association basic keelboat class in St. Petersburg, Florida in April. She surprised herself by passing both the written and practical exams. Our Christmas picture this year shows Nan happily putting her new knowledge to work at the helm of the boat we chartered in the BVI.

The May sailing trip was a dream, especially compared to our 2004 misadventure. Chartering a larger, safer boat and having Nan’s sister Monica and her friend Vicky along made all the difference. It was a first-time experience for both of them, but after they got over the feeling that the boat was going to tip over when it heeled, they pitched in on all the sailing duties. Good weather, smooth seas, excellent snorkeling and plenty of conch fritters kept everybody happy.

In August we visited family, Nan hers and me mine. Nan went home to Manitowoc to celebrate two milestone birthdays, sister Sue’s 60th and sister Amy’s 50th. Sister Sarah, the ninth and final Mullins daughter, and her husband Ian hosted the festivities at their home in Green Bay, complete with a This Is Your Life-style trivia contest.

I drove to Washington State with Charlie for a week-long Lichty family reunion celebration of Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary at sister Jane and her husband Josh’s homes on Whidbey Island and in Seattle. We toured the island, we hiked the beaches, and Charlie experienced sea water for the first time, prompting him to puke in the back of Jane’s van. Back in Seattle, we visited the art museum and aquarium, and celebrated Jane and Josh’s twins Max and Ben’s 10th birthdays.

In September we traveled to Italy for the first time. We wandered around Florence for a few days, reliving the Renaissance through the architecture of the Duomo and the artwork at the Ufizzi gallery, all the while partaking of the great food and wine. Then we took the train to the coast to meet up with The Wayfarers for a week-long package walking tour of the Cinque Terre and Italian Riviera with a terrific group of fellow Americans. The coastal views of the Mediterranean and the compact, pastel-colored towns were spectacular. At a walking pace, putting in about ten miles a day, we had plenty of time to appreciate them. If you’d like to see for yourself and you have a high-speed Internet connection, there are slideshows with captions on my blog at http://whisperingjesse.blogspot.com. After the hike ended, we stopped in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower on our way back to Florence, where we spent another day that included a visit to the Academia museum to see Michelangelo’s David.

October saw us witnessing Brett Favre’s bomb to Greg Jennings to beat the Denver Broncos in overtime. It does the heart good to see an athlete past his prime having probably his best season ever. Maybe Brett will have one more chance at a Super Bowl before he retires. Maybe he’ll play another season. Either way, go, Pack, go!

After that whirlwind of travel and the job and living adjustments, we’re happy now to be spending time settling into new routines and finally unpacking the last of the boxes from our move more than two years ago. There’s snow on the high desert, making for a rare white Christmas and good skiing at Powderhorn. We’ll be here enjoying both this holiday season. Here’s hoping for plenty of snow and the best this season has to offer for you and yours, now and in the New Year.

Love,

John and Nan and Charlie

Boat Quest, Part 2

In 1972, when I read Robin Graham's book, Dove, about his around-the-world adventure, I knew that what I wanted to do with sailing was not to race in regattas on Lake Michigan but to see the world from a sailboat like Robin had done. I was only fourteen at the time and living in mostly land-locked Wisconsin, so the possibility of buying a boat and sailing it around the world seemed pretty remote, a someday dream that I didn't actively work toward for many years.

One day in the mid-1990s, I was at the office of one of my computer business clients in downtown Aspen, and I noticed a framed photo of a sailboat on his desk. "Nice boat," I said. "Is it yours?" He said that it was and asked if I had an interest in sailing. "Yes," I said, "but a boat like that is awfully expensive, isn't it?" Not as much as you'd think, he replied, especially for an older, used boat. "Where was that picture taken? It looks like somewhere in the Caribbean." It is, he said. "So how does that work?" I asked. "You're here in Aspen and your boat is down there?" He said that every few months he would fly down to where the boat was stored, sail it to the next destination, put it back in storage, and fly home. In this way, he was slowly touring the Caribbean by sailboat, an island at a time.

The idea I had been holding for more than twenty years that owning a decent-sized boat and sailing it on the ocean was something I might never be able to afford either in terms of money or time was suddenly gone. If this person could do it, I thought, why couldn't I? How to get started though?

About this same time, Phil LeBoutillier walked into my office. He said he was developing a bed and breakfast in the Bahamas (tomatopastehopetown.com) and needed some assistance getting a computerized accounting system set up to track the project. He also said he had noticed my Minifish leaning against a wall out front and wondered if we couldn't maybe work out a trade for some fiberglass repair work. There was still a deep scratch on the bottom from a bad day sailing on Lake Mendota, while I was at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1970s, when I was blown into rocks near the shore. He invited me to come with him to check out his shop a few blocks away where he was building a plywood dinghy for a new trawler he had bought as a transport boat for the bed and breakfast.

The dinghy was a cleverly designed skiff, with the plywood sides and bottom curved around a sturdy frame. Phil was in the process of fiberglassing it so the shop smelled of chemicals. He said that since he was already at it, we should just go get my boat and fix the scratch. We shook on the trade and on our newfound friendship.

When I asked Phil later where he had gotten the plans for his skiff, he handed me a catalog of boat plans. I can't find it now but I know I still have it somewhere, and I think it might have been Fifty Wooden Boats, published by WoodenBoat. In addition to smaller boats like the skiff, there were plans available for cruising sailboats, which I studied carefully. One in particular looked like the right combination of sailplan and layout without being too large to build in a big garage and transport to the ocean by flatbed truck. But did I have the time and more importantly the skills to build a wooden sailboat from scratch?

Christmas Letter 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

Every time I sit down to write our annual Christmas letter, I reflect on life's changes. A year ago at this time, the business I had started in Grand Junction, Colorado was shutting down and I was looking for a real job, Nan was working at Aspen Valley Hospital and coming home to the house we had bought in GJ on weekends, and we were both wondering what to do next. Job opportunities in GJ were few and paid poorly, but as luck would have it, after posting my résumé on Monster.com, I received an email message that my old job at AVH was available again. It had been almost two years since I was laid off and I wasn't sure if I should apply, but Nan insisted. They hired me back without even an interview, not as Network Administrator but rather in the newly created position of Database/Internet Administrator. I started in late February, leaving behind my interim employment as a ski instructor at Powderhorn Resort, a great little ski mountain just outside of GJ. My half of the photo shows me in uniform but free skiing on Powderhorn's best powder day of the season, March 12, after it snowed four feet in two days.

Nan and I agreed that it didn't make sense to move back into our Aspen house, which was being rented at the time. The move to GJ had been an ordeal and we weren't eager to repeat the experience. And besides, we had grown fond of our living situation in GJ--the friendly climate, the good shopping and restaurants, the beauty of the high desert. We just couldn't afford both mortgages. So we found a house to rent downvalley and put the Aspen house up for sale in May as the lease ran out. We thought we could save on commissions by trying to sell it on our own, but the negotiating process was too draining, so we listed it with an old friend who had a firm offer in less than a week. We closed at the end of August. Now I guess we're former Aspenites even though we both still work there and live, during the work week anyway, just down the road.

These transitions didn't leave us much opportunity for travel this year. We carried through on reservations we had made almost a year in advance to spend a June week in Las Vegas, originally to attend the annual eBay convention, but my struggling business had eliminated any enthusiasm for that pursuit. Instead we walked all over the Strip, read novels by the pool at the Paris hotel, gambled a little and saw two great Cirque du Soleil shows, the Beatles' "Love" show and "O".

Nan and I both made it home to Wisconsin on separate trips for family time. My sister Susan organized a small family reunion that brought the Chicago contingent to Milwaukee for a day of food, fun, reminiscence and music. The rest of the week was a blur of spotty golf, a concert with sister Jane in Chicago and a visit to the Wisconsin State Fair. Nan's visit home brought together almost all of her eleven siblings. In between visiting around the dinner table at 846, Nan attended the Fall Festival at Camp Sinawa, where her father was so involved, and made day trips to see sister Sarah's family in Green Bay and old friends in Door County.

Most of our weekends were spent in GJ working on our new house, but we also managed a few weekends elsewhere, like in Moab, Utah a few weeks ago, where Nan ran in the Winter Sun 10K. As you can see in her half of the photo, Santa was there to record her finish time, which was good enough for third place in her age group.

We'll be making up for the lack of travel in a big way next year, including a repeat of our 2004 sailing adventure in the British Virgin Islands, this time on a bigger boat with Nan's sister Monica and friend Vicky as crew. Hopefully, it will go more smoothly than our ill-fated "Where's the dinghy?" experience.

Things definitely appear to be looking up, not just for us but also for our country. The November election proved that most people, at least the ones who vote, are paying attention and want a return to peace and sanity. We're hoping the momentum carries through to 2008, when we expect to see the election of our first African-American president. Go Barack!

Best wishes to you and yours this holiday season!

Love, John and Nan

The Descending Spiral

About fifteen years ago on a weekend evening, I was having a drink at the Mother Lode bar in Aspen and talking with an acquaintance who also happened to be sitting there. The conversation had moved in the direction of what people do to eke out an existence in Aspen, which is undoubtedly the most expensive place to live in the United States. For example, I was probably drinking an Absolut on the rocks at that moment, at a per drink cost of about $5.00--and remember that this was fifteen years ago. Tim Cooney, my drinking buddy, was a good example of what it took to survive: he was a ski patrolman on Aspen Mountain during the ski season and a freelance writer the rest of the time. And he lived in a funky adobe house at the top of Original Street, which helped to keep expenses down.

Anyway, it must have been around election time because we were both marveling at one of the local candidates for public office. This guy had moved to town about three years before and landed a job as a dishwasher at one of Aspen's many restaurants. In his spare time, he went through the real estate classes at Colorado Mountain College, our local community college, and became a real estate broker. Now he was running for city council or something. Such ambition was a rarity, we both agreed. Aspen has a reputation as a "meat grinder," a place that chews people up and spits them out at a furious rate. It was much more common to see people fail--sometimes spectacularly, with accompanying articles in the daily newspapers--than it was to see them succeed. For what it's worth, this striver went on to lose his election. Badly.

Now we're talking about the real estate profession and I remark that a friend of mine used to say, "Every yutz with ears has a real estate license." Tim agrees, saying, "Yeah, there are way too many 'dirt pimps' in town." And we start to wonder why that is, other than the obvious lure of ridiculously high commissions on overpriced properties. I propose that real estate is what people do in Aspen when the thing they came here to do originally doesn't work out. Tim embellishes the idea, saying that selling real estate is just another step down on the descending spiral. Ahead of what, I ask. With very little effort, we reach a consensus: ahead of the military, prison and death.

So when Sen. Kerry botched his political joke this week, the one where he wanted Bush's decision to invade Iraq to be the butt of what happens if you aren't smart enough to study hard and do well in school, and instead it came out that ending up serving with the military in Iraq is what happens if you screw up in school, I had to cringe. It's one of those things that everyone knows is true but that nobody ever says out loud. The righteous indignation from Bush and the Republicans was to be expected since they exhibit righteous indignation over everything, including Michael J. Fox's display of Parkinson's Disease symptoms in his political ads for candidates who support stem cell research.

If you had asked anybody from my high school graduation class of 1976 if they planned to pursue a career in the military, they would have laughed at you. Vietnam had just ended, and most of us were just happy to have survived the possibility of being drafted. The only guys who ended up in the military were the guys who didn't have any better options or those whose families had a tradition of military service. My brother Stuart bounced around a few different career paths before ending up in the US Navy in his mid-thirties, hoping to get the training necessary to enter into the intelligence field. Here's a guy with a master's degree who is also a world-class athlete in cross-country ski racing. You'd think the military would put him in officers school. Instead they put him through boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Academy with guys half his age. Now, twelve years later, he's with the Air Force Reserve and still largely underutilized and underappreciated. Stuart says most of the young men he has met in the military are "dead-enders," guys with nothing going for them who believe that going out in a blaze of glory in Iraq would at least give meaning to their lives and make their families proud.

I think it's tragic that a segment of our nation's young people believe death in Iraq is their best option. If that's not a step down on the descending spiral from what you or I would consider everyday life, then I don't know what is.

Life without Television

Click this thumbnail for a full-size version of "Flowers for Trinitron"

For the past two months, Nan and I have been without TV. The neighbors next door to the house we are renting in Basalt had some excavation work done around their foundation back in June. In the process, our cable was cut, or more likely it was just disconnected since I finally traced the cable back to its end and there was still a muddy connector attached. It turns out it was not a legitimate hook-up, which meant there was no calling the cable company to get it reconnected. We stewed about this for quite a while, partly not wanting to pay for something we had been getting for free and partly out of fear that there would be repercussions if we called the cable company to order new service.

For the first couple of days, we would turn on the TV periodically to see if by some miracle the service was back on, but all we ever got was a blue screen. We didn't miss it in the mornings when we normally listen to NPR on the radio, but there was a definite void in the evenings. Fortunately, it was the summer rerun season, so we weren't missing much. Still it would have been nice to watch the news or a sports event or an HBO movie once in a while. Instead we would read both Aspen daily newspapers, follow sports on the Internet, and watch DVDs on my laptop. Nan spent more time emailing family and friends, and I spent more time practicing guitar. We went to bed earlier and felt better rested and more productive at work.

It occurred to me after a couple of weeks that we were living Ruben Bolling's "Flowers for Trinitron" existence, based on one of his old Tom the Dancing Bug cartoons. Hopefully, we won't see it through to its logical conclusion and return to our previous viewing habits, even though we recently gritted our teeth and ordered new cable service--without threat of arrest!--in time for football season. Go Packers!

How much is enough?

I work at Aspen Valley Hospital, where Ken Lay was pronounced dead earlier today. The media, which were already in town to cover the Aspen Ideas Festival, descended on the hospital in force. Wolf Blitzer from CNN was seen in the lobby. TV-station vans and cameras surrounded the building.

At one point early in the day, my duties took me past the morgue. I stopped and stared at the door, wondering if he was still in there, but I didn't dare check to see if it was locked. Instead I thought of the man behind the door and what his life must have been like.

At the peak of his career, Ken Lay was a very wealthy man. It was common knowledge that he owned four multi-million dollar houses in Aspen. This boggles my mind. Any one of the houses was big enough to put up the extended Lay family and several guests. So what were the other three for? To house staff? If so, the man was living large, extremely large. And I think that is what got him into the financial mess he ended up in, the one which ultimately contributed to his early death. When you're living the way he did, the money has got to flow at a tremendous rate just to maintain equilibrium. If that balance is upset and the money suddenly stops, what do you do? If you're Ken Lay, you don't scale back; you figure out ways, many of them fraudulent and illegal, to keep it all going until the inevitable crash.

What may have started out as simple greed grew over the years into something that was well beyond Ken Lay's control. I believe this is a common occurrence in modern society, where the gulf between the wealthy and the poor is every-widening. If you reach a point in your life where you have so much stuff and such a complicated life that you need to hire full-time staff to maintain it and organize it for you, then you are living too large. It is time to step back, realize how lucky you are, and start simplifying your life before it consumes you. It's too late for Ken Lay. May his life and death be a lesson to others.

Old Dog, New Tricks

Best powder day of the season, Sunday, March 12

When Nan and I first moved to Aspen almost twenty years ago, her first job was working at a hotel at the base of Buttermilk Mountain. After finishing work at my computer job in town, I would wait at the hotel's bar for Nan to get off work. Most of the bar crowd at that time of day was the après-ski crowd, winding down from a day on the slopes. One afternoon, as I was nursing a beer, a young lady on the other side of the U-shaped bar yelled across to me, "Hey, this guy says ski instructors are the best skiers. Is that true?" I immediately determined that the guy in question was wearing a ski instructor's uniform and that he was using the line in an attempt to pick up the young lady. Without thinking, I shot back, "Yeah, they're the strongest intermediates out there!"

As a long-time skier, my attitude has always been that ski instructors make pretty turns on groomed runs but can't ski the tough stuff. All that changed for me this ski season when I became a ski instructor myself. The business I had moved to Grand Junction to open last January never really took off, so by October I was looking for something else to do. I was also thinking ahead to the ski season and wondering if nearby Powderhorn Resort would fill the bill for me after twenty years of skiing in Aspen. I checked powderhorn.com for a trail map and ski pass rates, and noticed that the ski school was hiring. I thought, why not give it a try? It couldn't possibly be as competitive as Aspen, so I was pretty sure they would take me. And Nan said it was fine with her, so I applied.

I had no idea how the training would be structured. I thought I could just go in and say something like, "I've been skiing for thirty-seven years and I'd like to teach skiers who are looking for a breakthrough in skiing moguls, steeps or powder." I quickly found out that this is not how it works. Everyone starts at the bottom, teaching "never evers," people who have never ever skied before. If I stuck it out, I might be teaching breakthroughs in about three years!

We new applicants spent an evening session finding out what it's all about and then an all-day session learning about the movements involved in skiing, people's learning styles, and the progression that turns them into safe, competent skiers. All this took place before we ever hit the snow. On Saturday, December 10, when Powderhorn opened for the season, all the prospective ski and snowboard instructors were out there trying to impress the trainers with their ability. Most survived to ski or ride again on Sunday. Everyone who survived to the end of that second day on snow was accepted into the school--only about fifteen of us. Actual teaching began the very next day. As someone who had agreed to teach full-time, I was scheduled to teach the next seven days in a row.

Needless to say, this rookie instructor quickly gained experience in getting people, mostly kids, to progress from having trouble keeping their balance to riding a chairlift and skiing safely and in control down an easy ski slope, sometimes in as little as two hours. When it went poorly, it was frustrating, but when it went well, it was deeply rewarding. For example, I was waiting with a class of ten-year-olds in the lift line one day when I spontaneously yelled out, "Are you guys having fun?" They responded in unison with an enthusiastic "Yeah!!" It made me smile for the rest of the day.

While all this teaching was happening, I was noticing that some of the veteran instructors were extremely good skiers, much better than I would have expected given my past close-minded perspective. They were not only great skiers, they were also great instructors and they taught seminars to other instructors most mornings. A frequent topic was what I would call "new school" skiing, a concept I had been resistant to since the introduction of shaped skis almost ten years ago. My five-year-old, "lightly shaped" 191-centimeter skis were not going to cut it, so I bought some new 169-centimeter "R16s." What a difference! Instead of letting my edges skid slightly through short-radius turns, I could now stand on my edges and feel them carve all the way through a turn. Instead of my inside ski just being along for the ride, it was now an active component of the turn, tracking its own edge. With fine-tuning during the early-morning seminars, I felt my skiing move to a whole new level, way beyond where it had been stuck for the last ten or so years. And boy was it fun!

By the time the ski season ended on March 26, I had skied close to seventy days and taught at least as many lessons. I had also taken and passed my PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America) Level 1 certification exam, which entitled me to proudly wear the badge of a professional ski instructor on my uniform jacket. Was it worth it? Yes! Will I be back again next year? You bet! Did I learn anything? More than I ever would have believed.

Where the name comes from

The name "Whispering Jesse" has multiple meanings for me. It is the name of one of my favorite ski runs at Snowmass, a steep and rolling slope punctuated with islands of spruce trees that give the illusion of intense speed when passed at close range. It is also the title of one of my favorite John Denver songs. Some of his fans think the song is about his daughter Jesse Belle, but she was born after the first album to include the song, Higher Ground, was released in March, 1988. More likely, Jesse Belle was named after the song.

Here are the lyrics:

I often have wandered in deep contemplation
It seems that the mind runs wild when you’re all alone
The way that it could be
The way that it should be
Things I’d do differently if I could do them again

I’ve always loved spring time, the passing of winter
The green of the new leaves and life goin’ on
The promise of morning
The long days of summer
Warm nights of loving her beneath the bright stars

I’m just an old cowboy from high Colorado
Too old to ride anymore, too blind to see
I sleep in the city now
Away from the mountains
Away from the cabin we always called home

I dream I left there
On an old Palomino
Whispering Jesse rode right by my side
I long to hold her
To hear her soft breathing
The touch of her cool hands on my fevered brow

Whispering Jesse still rides in the mountains
Still sings in the canyons
Still lives in my heart

Words and music by John Denver

I like to think that John, who was an avid skier, also liked the ski run, so much that he put its name into his song.

But the significance of the song for me is more about John than it is about the song itself. I had the great good fortune to know John during the final years of his life. We were introduced by his assistant Stephanie Ryan shortly after she started working for him in 1994. Stephanie had worked for Marty Stouffer of Wild America fame for several years as a producer, and I was their computer consultant. When she left Marty to work for John, she suggested to him that they use me for their computer needs. It was the highlight of my professional career.

During the next three years, I got to know John both professionally and personally. He had always been an advocate for technology, especially as it positively affected the environment in ways such as reducing tree cutting and paper waste. He was a late adoptee of personal computers for his own use, however, so I spent many hours teaching him how to use his Macintosh laptop computers to do word processing and email, conduct research on the Internet, and generally keep his hectic life better organized. He was an eager student and would actually utter his famous "Far out!" when he had a new revelation about his computer and what it could do. He was also a humble man, astonished that a Yahoo search on his name would result in thousands of matches.

I saw John for the last time on the Tuesday evening before his death on Sunday, October 12, 1997. Stephanie and I were up at his house in Starwood getting him organized for his trip to Monterey. Stephanie was working on his agenda and I was working on making sure his laptop’s dial-up access would work when he got out there. John was in a great mood, more interested in socializing than in planning his trip. He had just recorded a new song, Yellowstone, that he wanted us to hear. So we went into his home studio to listen to a tape of it. There are some wolf howls in the song, so John was howling along while Stephanie and I laughed uncontrollably. Then we were off to his little music nook to hear a brand-new song he was still working on. He grabbed a guitar off the wall from among several hanging there, pulled out his piano bench, sat down, and immediately launched into the song. I can’t remember the melody but the lyrics told the story of two old lovers running into each other after many years. It reminded me a little of Harry Chapin’s Taxi, or Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up In Blue. More than anything, I was enthralled by the sound of his voice in that small space. I had seen John perform at Fiddler’s Green in Denver during his 1995 tour, but it was completely different to experience a personal concert. He strummed out of the song after a few minutes and said, "There’s a bridge that goes in there, but I don’t have it figured out yet." Stephanie and I just stared. "So what do you think?" he asked. All I could think to say was, "I can’t believe you can just pull a guitar off the wall, sit down and start playing like that! No tuning or anything!" He smiled one of his patented broad smiles and said, "But John, this is what I do."

Later, after Stephanie left to go home, John and I shared a couple of Fat Tires while making sure that he knew what he had to do to access his email and agenda from Monterey. When I was sure he had it down, I told him it was time to go. Since I had parked down by the guest house, he saw me out his back door. It was raining lightly. I thanked him for the music and the beer, and he thanked me for the computer help, then he said he was going to go sit and watch the storm roll in for a while. He clapped me on the back and then waved good-bye as I walked away.

I can’t find the quote now, but John once said that he had performed all over the world, and the thing that struck him wherever he went was that people are the same everywhere, that everybody wants the same things from life. I want to experience that feeling myself, to explore the world, meet the world’s people, and share in that sense of world community. To honor John’s memory, the sailboat that will take me there one day will be named Whispering Jesse.

Addendum 2/9/08: A loyal John Denver fan located the quote I couldn't find and sent it to me: "My music and all my work stem from the conviction that people everywhere are intrinsically the same," Denver said in a 1995 interview. "When I write a song, I want to take the personal experience or observation that inspired it and express it in as universal a way as possible. I'm a global citizen. I've created that for myself, and I don't want to step away from it. I want to work in whatever I do - my music, my writing, my performing, my commitments, my home and personal life - in a way that is directed towards a world in balance, a world that creates a better quality of life for all people."