Rocky Mountain Highs and Lows

Listening to John Denver always puts me in a melancholic mood. Part of it is the music. A lot of his songs are tinged with sadness ("Sunshine on My Shoulders," "Matthew" etc.). Part of it also is that his music reminds me greatly of a younger me. "Rocky Mountain High" always brings back memories of Colorado, especially those crystal blue-sky days in the fresh air when I would sit on the shore at Lake Haviland or by the banks of the Animas River and reel in trout, not for sport but for the dinner table. And picking wild asparagus. I remember once pulling our little green Volkswagen Beetle over to the side of the road because I had spotted a patch of wild asparagus. Backed up, hopped out, cut it and took it home for supper. Nature's bounty. Manna from Heaven. We also had wild asparagus growing out behind the house we lived in. Most of the trout I caught were just the right size for 4-5 to the frying pan. You cooked both in butter. Just sauteed them. It was a feast. Those were hard days but we were young and bright-eyed and I was going to be a great writer. Well, as the Stones put it, "You can't always get what you want/ But if you try, sometimes you just might find / You get what you need." Amen.