"Singer Remembered For His Kindness"
     Farmington Daily times / Farmington, NM
     October 19, 1997
          by George Schwarz <Newsguy@la-tierra.com>

Little things.
Little touches by big people.
John Denver was big people.
When his experimental airplane plunged into Monterey Bay Oct.
12, he joined Glenn Miller, Patsy Cline, Otis Redding, Jim
Croce, and Rick Nelson on the list of musicians who died in
plane crashes. John Denver was as "American Pie" as
Buddy Holly, J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson and Richie Valens,
whose "music died" when they fell from the sky before they
fell from the public's grace. That he died in a plane crash
is ironic. One Denver hit as a song writer in the early 1960s
was "Leaving on a Jet Plane," which became the first No. 1 hit
of Peter, Paul and Mary. He joked on "An Evening with John
Denver" album, how his career took off - adding sound effects
- with that song.
     Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (his real name) battled his
own demons. Twice divorced, he felt the pain of lost love. He
joined many of us whose life cascaded through the tumultuous
'70s and '80s, when slivers of peace were hard to find. As
marriages and families morphed into what seems common today,
Denver sang about those travails. People latched onto his
songs of first love. "Annie's Song" became popular for
weddings, although many overlooked his song "My Sweet
Lady," a sweet paean that ignored the fragility of love.
Much of America overlooked the joy of another chance at love.
Denver didn't. With the songs "Perhaps Love" and "Love Again,"
he captured the wishes of those whose hope overcame experience
to try again - sometimes, like him, to fail again.
     His music also told us what could be. The warmth of
"Sunshine on My Shoulders."  The beauty of craggy, peaceful
mountains and serenity in "Rocky Mountain High."  The ache for
the West while trapped in a cold, heartless East Coast city
with "I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado." Of triumph in "Go
for the Gold and Beyond." The recurrent theme of those who
knew Denver - from the powerful and famous, like Colorado Gov.
Roy Romer, or the less well-known residents of Aspen, Colo.,
his home - was that he was kind, loving and gracious.
     Cheryl Charles, president of the Windstar Land
Conservancy, said, "With John Denver's death, we've lost a
poet for the planet. I look for his voice to live through us
all."  That's true. His music touched some of us deeply and
very personally.
     Denver's "For Baby" was the perfect way, in 1982, to tell
a new daughter of her parents' hopes for her. The song let us
share those feelings "with God and those present" at her
christening at a small Episcopal church in New Jersey.
That child, six years later, on a ride through the foothills
west of Denver, must have been more touched by Denver's music,
when she cried at the "scars across the land" that were to
become suburbia.
     Four years later, his brother, Ron Deutschendorf, was a
major investor in a casino in Black Hawk, Colo. Like his
brother, Ron reached out to the community to help the local
health clinic. He wanted to be a good citizen.  That's how I
came to know Ron, sharing an occasional meal and drink with
him, as we worked to help the clinic and the community. It was
several months before I even let him know I had tickets to his
brother's concert at Fiddler's Green, an outdoor venue south
of his namesake-city.
     On July 19, 1992, on my "For Baby's" 10th birthday, Ron
made sure we got into the post-concert reception and that the
mega-star who had meant so much to our family in its various
configurations know it was a little girl's birthday.
I understand it's your birthday, Denver said. How old are you?
"A decade," she said proudly.
"Happy birthday," he said.
And then he leaned down and kissed her on the check.
She remembers that moment. So do I.
For a long time.
Little touches from big people.
Small - precious - moments.