14 Oct, 2009
Pacific Grove Commemorates John Denver with Annual Beach Cleanup
Posted by: Beach Reporter In: beaches| california| events
John Denver fought world hunger; Britney Spears fought hunger pains and lost weight
Each year singer John Denver is commemorated with a beach cleanup in Pacific Grove on the second Sunday in October. The city of Pacific Grove website listed the event, described as a memorial held Oct. 11 at Lover’s Point. Dedicated to keeping John’s legacy alive with an emphasis on environmental concerns, people come from a distance to “John’s Beach” in Pacific Grove annually. Why? John Denver, the 1970’s chart-topper with five songs reaching #1, died in Pacific Grove, California, on Oct.12, 1997 in a plane crash of an experimental aircraft that left Monterey Peninsula Airport and crashed off coast of Pacific Grove just minutes later.
It’s amazing to find out how musicians have impacted the public and touched them with messages, songs and good deeds that remain in memory, even after the creative talents have long passed. If you attend a John Denver memorial event, you discover that people honor him for his music, but mostly for his causes such as ending world hunger.
Denver received recognition from many governments for his concerts about global hunger problems, and he supported The National Wildlife Federation, Save The Children, The Cousteau Society, Friends of The Earth and the Human/ Dolphin Foundation, to name a few. He was one of the five founders of The Hunger Project – an organization committed to the sustainable end of chronic hunger.
Denver fought for environmental causes long before it was cool to be green, and many of his songs contain moving lyrics about nature and the environment, such as Take Me Home, Country Roads; Sunshine on My Shoulders; and Eagle and the Hawk. John Denver’s original songs were sometimes made famous by other musical acts such as “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, that Peter, Paul & Mary sang.
Born John Deutschendorf, Jr. in Roswell, New Mexico, the singer/songwriter wrote over 200 songs, one which is the state of Colorado official song, Rocky Mountain High.
I attended a tree planting event in Southern California that Denver’s brother attended several years ago, and was surprised as to how many fans John Denver has years after his death. When the tree was planted and a song commemorated his music, people pointed up to the sky and said, “look!” A hawk flew over the event and many in the crowd said they felt the spirit of John Denver lives in the creatures he wrote and sang about.
While you’ll probably not read about John Denver much this week, you no doubt will see the media frenzy over Britney Spear’s weight loss after her appearance on the Jay Leno Show, and her endorsement of Acai Berry that she said helped her drop the pounds.
