My late friend John Denver once wrote a lyric in a song that said: “Why is it thus we are here and so soon we are gone.” I think he was writing about his Father’s passing. I attended a wake a couple of days ago for a young woman in her mid-forties. So young compared to my age and so young in a society that says the young live and the old pass. Death and dying is not a common conversation topic in our society.…
This post will be both a small rave and a longer rant. United Airlines. I flew with United Airlines from Aspen to Chicago to Newark the other day coming back from my meetings on participating in a documentary on the “spirit” of the late and great singer John Denver. More on that in later posts. United Airlines! From my perspective is the “cattle call” of airlines. In most of their terminals they have boarding group lines from one to five. Depending on your group number,…
Joe Henry. You may not know Joe Henry, but you’ve heard his words in song for years. He was a lyric collaborator with the late and great John Denver. Joe is an unassuming shy soul whose grace with lyrics is equaled by few. I once sat with Joe on the lawn outside the music tent in Aspen. We were having lunch. It was a break in the Windstar Symposium; an annual event hosted by John Denver. Joe deflected praises for his lyrics and said John’s…
I had a profound awareness this morning as I sat in a chair next to an Easterly window. The sun rose without a morning cloudiness to obscure or dilute its rays. I was reading a new book from Deepak Chopra while the early morning light bathed my shoulders with its warmth through double glazed windows. I paused in my reading and thought of my old friend, singer, entertainer, actor, activist and environmentalist John Denver and his song, “Sunshine On My Shoulders.” I replayed in my…