John Denver and Dark Matter, Part 1
I truly believe there are forces at work on us, through us, and all around us that influence our lives. Forces we intuitively know exist but have no way of proving. Throughout history individuals and entire cultures have assigned these forces names and personalities: God, Allah, Krishna, Jehovah, Parvardigar, Bahá’u’llah, Hay Rabbi, Om, Braham, and so on and so on. Arthur C. Clarke wrote a brilliant short story called “The Nine Billion Names of God.” Are there nine billion names for these forces? Nine billion billion names? And do these forces— the (G)gods bend the universe to the will of man?
Or are they lost angels? Flying celestial nymphs? Spirit guides? Masters of Light?
Cosmologists, theoretical physicists, astrophysicists, and a whole menagerie of scientific disciplines give these forces other names: quantum mechanics, dark matter, energy, gravity. And do these forces bend our minds to the will of the universe?
Let me tell you a story.
In the spring of 1983 I signed on to attend the Sierra Club’s first International Assembly in Snowmass, Colorado, which was going to be held later that summer in July. My plan was to strap my loaded backpack to the back of my motorcycle and ride from Houston to Snowmass with one or two stops along the way, including a layover with my cousin and her family in Denver. Aside from being an insufferable environmentalist at the time, the main reason I wanted to attend the conference was because my musical hero at the time, John Denver, was to be the featured performer and speaker. There were other notables on the bill, including Senator Morris Udall and presidential hopeful Gary Hart, but John was all I cared about.
About two weeks before I was set to leave for Colorado, I happened to be watching a local noontime TV show on KHOU, “Houston Today, “ or something like that, I don’t recall. The topic was est, a training seminar founded by Werner Erhard in 1971 that aimed to "transform one's ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change would clear up in the process of living life itself. This caught my attention because John Denver was a big proponent of est at the time, and I figured if it was good enough for John it was good enough for me. His hit song, “Looking For Space” is about his experiences with est.
I called the station as soon as the show went off air and spoke with Mindy the producer. I asked her where and how I could get in touch with that day’s guest who was an instructor in est somewhere in Houston. She gave me the man’s contact information and then asked me why I was so interested in est. I explained the connection between est and John Denver and that I was going to Colorado in two weeks to see him. It was my hope that I might even get to meet him. “There are going to be several thousand people there,” I told her, “but you never know.” She went on to tell me that she had actually met John herself several years before but had no advice on how I might get to meet him in Snowmass.
“The only thing I can tell you is he has an assistant who works at Windstar (Denver’s 900+ acre retreat and experimental center high in the valley of Old Snowmass). His name is . . . um, let me think . . . Arthur. Arthur Jackson. I suppose if you can find Arthur he might be able to help you out.” Fat chance I was going to find this Jackson guy in the crowd, but I thanked her for her idea anyway.
A few days after this phone call I was summoned for jury duty. The case, as it turned out, was a capital murder trial. Oddities abounded. I had heard about the murder on the news the previous summer, but more to the point, my brother had known the victim casually since they both worked at the same construction site. The judge let me sit on the case anyway, even though I was sure I would be dismissed because of my indirect connection to the deceased. Ironically, the defendant and I were exactly the same age, 28. I remember wondering how this had happened, that two young men
the same age had ended up on opposite sides of the courtroom. Stranger, too, was that despite the fact that I was the youngest member of the jury, I was elected foreman.
The trial lasted for five days, but luckily it ended the day before I was set to leave for Colorado. The next morning, my dad shook my hand and told me to “watch out for the crazies,” and my mother hugged my neck and told me she was going to worry the whole time I was gone.
The first few hours of my ride up I-35 were uneventful— hot and boring, mostly. That is, until my motorcycle died just at the entrance to the exit ramp for Ponca City, Oklahoma. Stranded on the shoulder of the interstate, I sat on the saddle of my bike and watched traffic sweep by as my whole adventure vaporized. I had to be in Denver the next night and in Snowmass two nights after that. I was almost a thousand miles away.
Of course, no one stopped to help me or offer help, and there wasn’t a cop or tow truck in the state. Roadside assistance? Not really a thing in those days, and besides, what Easy Rider renegade uses roadside assistance? So there I sat, angry, depressed, and worried, when an old rusted purple pick-up truck took the off ramp, slowed . . . stopped . . . then slowly backed up. “Uh-oh," I thought, the murder trial still fresh on my mind. May Day, May Day.”
Two huge farmer types in bib overalls and sprouting ZZ Top-length beards got out and sauntered over to me. The driver blew a wad of snot out his nose and asked me what the problem was and had I tried this and had I tried that. Yes, yes, and I don’t know, I told him. Hell, brother, I’m not a mechanic. "The bike’s DOA, that’s all I can tell you.”
“You want we should give you a lift into Ponca City?”
“How far is it?” I asked.
“‘Bout fourteen miles, give or take a cornfield, “ he said. What choice did I have? I said sure, and damned if these two hosses didn’t hoist my 550 pound bike into the back of their truck and invite me to ride in the back with it and two bales of hay.
“Is there a motorcycle dealer in town?” I asked.
The driver spat out a stream of brown goo. “Dunno,” he said.
It turned out there was a motorcycle dealer in town, with a shop and a mechanic. And it wasn’t just a motorcycle dealer, it was a Suzuki dealership, the same make as my bike. On top of that, the mechanic on duty was just finishing a late lunch and, miraculously, had no jobs lined up for the afternoon. He was free to check out my ride right away. Which he did. The diagnosis? A faulty stater, the equivalent of an alternator on a car. Yes, but did he have a new one in stock? Of course not. Why would he? That would have been too easy, too convenient. Too lucky. I was back to square one.
But then wait! He said he did have another bike in the back that carried the same stater as my motorcycle. He’d swap it out. Within two hours I was back on the road, only a hundred dollars lighter, heading for the wild wheat fields of Kansas and all points west. But get this. Somewhere along the way I lost track of my fuel consumption. My tank went empty. The good news, however, was that I had a reserve tank, good for about 20 or 30 more miles. I flipped the switch and crossed my fingers, hoping a gas station would materialize soon. But there were no towns, let alone gas stations. I watched my odometer carefully, ever mindful of how many miles I had left before i was once again severely and hopelessly stranded by the side of the road.
But the strangest thing happened. As my allowed emergency mileage dwindled down to nothing and I waited for the engine to choke itself out on the last remaining fumes, the engine kept running. I kept riding. Still no towns, or no towns with a gas station anyway.
On and on I rode until at last I came to some little jerkwater compound with an old Gulf station. I filled up, then reset my trip meter so I would know exactly how I was doing on mileage the next time. The trip meter read 382 miles, a full 100 miles farthert han I had ever been able to run the bike even with the reserve tank! Not possible, yet it had happened.
I hopped on the bike, powered it on, and— you’re not going to believe me, but I swear to you it’s true, I wrote it all down in my journal —the same thing happened again. Knowing my main tank I was about to go empty, I was all set to hit the reserve switch, based on my miles traveled since the last fill-up, yet the bike rode on for over 80 additional miles without my ever having to switch over to my reserve tank! I thought at first that maybe I’d made a mistake, maybe I hadn’t reset the trip meter. But I had! It was all there in my journal.
It was dark by the time I got back on the road; it was cold and my gloved hands were frozen. The only warmth was from the field fires on either side of the highway. I drove by the glow of the flames and my lone white headlight. Best of all, I got into my Kansas motel only two and a half hours later than I’d planned!
