I was watching a PBS special about John Denver, and there was one thing about his life that reminded me of my dad. Denver first went to the Rocky Mountains as an adult, and his first wife, Anne, says that Denver (a.k.a. Deutschendorf, such a great German name!) was most at peace when he was wandering in the mountains.
My dad grew up on the plains of South Dakota. He and my mom lived in Missouri and Iowa for a time before moving to Rapid City to take a job at the Rapid City Journal. Over the years, my dad was offered some plum assignments in different parts of the country, but I suspect he just couldn’t leave the Hills.
He loved to head out in his beat-up truck to search for US Forest Service slash piles. His tiny slip of a dog, Poochie, would bound out of the cab, and Dad would start loading logs into the bed of his truck. He had the biggest woodpile that I had ever seen at his house, and he knew exactly how long each section had been curing. I once commented that if his woodpile ever caught fire, NASA would see it from the International Space Station.
Sometimes Dad and I would head out in the truck and take back roads just to see where we’d end up. On one trip we landed at the Moonshine Gulch Saloon in Rochford. An old bartender with no butt (noted by both Dad and me) slid a bowl of homemade salsa across the bar to us and walked to the back room. Dad and I shoved salsa-loaded chips into our faces until Dad declared, “This is the best salsa I’ve ever had!” The bartender claimed it was the Rochford grown tomatoes that made the difference. I told Dad I would move to Rochford if that’s what it took to make salsa that good.
Whether it was hiking, hunting for Christmas trees, searching for firewood, or canoeing, I don’t think Dad found any more happiness than he did in his Black Hills. He said that he got twitchy if he waited too long to get out and putter in the woods. That same trait was passed on to me. If pressed, I would say that my hiking boots are my favorite pair of shoes. I make my best memories when I’m wearing them. They’ve hiked the Rockies from Wyoming to New Mexico, climbed Mount Kenya in Africa, stomped around the Sierra Nevadas, and wandered the southern end of the Appalachians. Like Denver, being in the mountains calms my soul and gives me the peace I need to face life.
Not surprisingly, when Dad passed away on a trip to Gaithersburg, MD, his best friend and I decided that the most appropriate song to be sung at his funeral was Denver’s “Back Home Again.” We brought Dad home to rest in his beloved Black Hills, a place of rest just like Denver sang of in the lyrics. I placed a granite marker in Rochford, SD, to pay tribute to his love of the Hills, a headstone among a stand of aspens. I’ll have my own monument there some day. Like Denver, Dad and I were born on the prairie and ended up with our feet and hearts firmly planted in the mountains.