John Denver and Dark Matter, Part 2
Was it luck and cosmic forces at work?
The next day started off well, the roads were rough but the ride was smooth. By late afternoon I was in eastern Colorado, blowing through Pueblo— not exactly the crown jewel of Colorado — and rolling across the flat, desolate, windy wilds of the Rocky Mountain State, when . . . oh, no. A soaring, thick dark purple wall of thunderheads seemed to rise from the desert floor directly in front of me and stretched across the horizon from farthest north to deepest south. No way I wasn’t going to get soaked.
For anyone who has never ridden a motorcycle through rain, especially a driving rain— and without a wind visor —the only way I can describe the experience is to imagine having hundreds of syringes shots at you constantly and every one of them hitting its mar. This was not going to end well. Bad enough my backpack and I were going to get drenched inside and out, there was no way I was going to make Denver that night.
But then those mysterious forces put on a little puppet show, with me as the lead puppet. The sky opened up, the lightning sizzled and cracked, the thunder boomed, and the four lane road I was riding began to wind and twist through the plains like a water moccasin on the Red River. And as the road rolled left and curved right, back and forth, and the storm pelted the earth, the veil of rain followed the path of the road. As in, the oncoming lanes were wet and slick with rain, but my side of the double yellow line? Only the occasional drop. Dry. When the road twisted left I leaned left, and so did the wall of rain. Wind around to the right? The rain followed the road and me but left us alone. A desert cloudburst, and I barely got damp.
How do you explain that?
And . . . I got in to Denver only an hour later than I’d planned!
Flash forward two days. I’ve checked into my condo lodgings. It’s a beautiful cloudless Colorado day. The main pavilion tent is up, the circus is in town! Hundreds and hundreds of tree huggers are milling about, visiting new and old friends, eating, drinking, waiting for the night’s activities to start in only a few hours. I’m sitting alone at a table for two outside the tent across from the main entrance. I’m babysitting a beer, eyeing the parade of like-minded Earth-watchers, and excited at the prospect of getting to see John Denver up close. As soon as they open the venue I intend to be the first in and make my way to a front row seat, right under John’s nose. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a chance to meet him tonight after he performs. Probably not, not in that crowd. But hey, close counts.
Partly because I’m a supporter of Windstar and proud of it, and I admit, partly because I’m hoping John will notice me in the crowd, I’m wearing my bright yellow Windstar teeshirt. I’m careful not to cover up its Windstar emblem over the left pocket with my “Hello! I’m” name tag. In fact, I’ve pined my tag on the right instead of the left where I would normally have put it.
People are walking by. I’m amazed at how many women here don’t shave their legs or their armpits. Ugh. I take a sip of my beer, getting warm now. I look to the right, puzzled by an odd-looking couple, take another draw on my beer and look to my left, and out of the crowd comes a very large man, longish blond hair, built like a college football player. Not very old, maybe in his early 30s. Huh? What? He’s walking straight toward me. Before I know it he’s towering over me, a huge stupid grin on his face. He leans down and takes a good look at my name tag.
“Hey there,” he says pleasantly enough. “How ya doin’?”
“Good,” I say. “Enjoying the scenery, having a brew, watching the people.”
“I see you’re wearing a Windstar teeshirt. Are you a supporter of Windstar?”
“I am,” I say, and I launch into a brief pep talk about what “Windstar is and why I joined.
“Cool,” he says. “And your name is—” he leans down to take another look at my tag —“Heath.”
He reaches out his shovel-sized hand and we shake hands. “Glad to meet you, Heath. I’m Arthur Jackson. I work at Windstar.”
Those wild and crazy unseen forces!
So Arthur and I talk some more, about the conference, about environmental issues, about Windstar, and well yes, shamelessly, I ask him if he ca get me close enough to meet John. He says he can try, “but I can’t promise you anything.” I tell him I understand. “If you meet me at the opening to the left of the stage, I might be able to introduce you,” he adds. “Just look for me.”
It was very nice of him to make the offer, but I’m a realist. How in the world am I going to be able to find him two days later out of a thousand other people? And will he even remember me?
Flash forward again. John put on a nice little concert with a few of his local musician friends, including John Somer who wrote “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.’ There were some informal talks and house business speeches from Sierra Club administrators and, as they say, a good time was had by all. And yes, I was in the very front row, right in front of John, but it was clear when the night’s little stage activities were concluded that there was no way I was going to get to meet John Denver in person. Not that night. For one thing, he’d already left the pavilion out the back way before the evening’s concluding speakers even began their speeches. I couldn’t very well stand up in front of a thousand people and go trailing after John and the other musicians like lost puppy. Oh well, I told myself, it’s not often you get that close to a huge star like John Denver.
The next day was filled with breakout sessions, mini-seminars, day hikes, and all sorts of activities you’d expect at a tree huggers’ convention.
Sunday, however. Sunday was a bot of a surprise. It turned out that John was once again going to be featured in the main pavilion tent, among other notables, including Gary Hart. I hadn’t noticed this on the weekend’s program of events when I’d first arrived on Friday. Yippee! Maybe abother chance to sit in front and get to meet John. However, because I missed the bell or whatever signal they’d used to tell everyone it was time to assemble, I was late and wound up in the very back row.
Numerous speakers came and went. Finally it was John Denver’s turn. He spun a few anecdotes, debuted what was then his new single, “Wild Montana Skies,” and then gave his centerpiece talk. It was all very inspiring, but worse than the first night, my chances of even getting near him were close to impossible. He concluded his remarks, and as the audience applauded, he made his way out stage left followed by a small group of hangers-on. The show was over; the Assembly and the weekend were over. Everybody stood and began to make their way out of the tent, like a slow cattle drive. I stood too, disappointed at not getting a chance to meet John, even a little bothered by the groupies who were following him like a school of pilot fish. For just. a moment I thought about falling in with them and maybe even slipping my way toward the front where I might get to see him up even closer than before. But then I told myself I wasn’t going to do that. I wasn’t a groupie.
And then . . .
I took a final look over my shoulder to see if I could catch one last glimpse of John Denver, star performer and famous humanitarian, when like the Red Sea the crowd that had been smothering him suddenly split apart, all of them seeming to have heard a siren call pulling them away from him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was John Denver, still standing at the back entrance to the tent, but now with only two other people, one of them being Arthur Jackson. As if I were being nudged from behind by invisible hands— Go on! Go on! —I turned and walked down the aisle directly toward John and his two man entourage, the three of them standing beside John’s dark grey Porsche. “It’s not all Rocky Mountain High,” I snickered.
So yes, I got to meet John Denver after all. The crowd knew intuitively that it was my turn, my time, and they’d made a clear path for me. Not only did I get to meet John and have a pleasant little talk with him, but we later exchanged a couple of personal letters. I still have them. Oh, and just to add to the bizarre aspect of the whole adventure, I told them about Mindy from KHOU TV in Houston and that they had met a couple of years before. I told him she had asked me to say hello for her.
John got this quizzical look on his face, then looked off into the distance for a moment as if he was trying to remember. Arthur looked perplexed also.
“No. No, I don’t think so,” John said. “I remember interviewing in Houston, but I can’t say I remember anyone named Mindy.” He looked across at Arthur. “Do you?”
Arthur shook his head. “Never heard of her,” he said.
So, what force is it exactly that guides us and is running the universe anyway?
