Is it because we are from West Virginia?

I was watching the tape that’s been in the video camera since Christmas day, and there’s a scene from my hospital room the day Mia was born that nearly makes me wet myself every time think about it. In the background music is playing–specifically, Joan Baez’s Dark Chords on a Big Guitar. There is a song on this album called “Wings,” which was written by another of my favorite artists, Josh Ritter. My sister Megan likes him as well, and when the song came on I said aloud to Megan, “That’s a Josh Ritter song.” This is the conversation that followed:

My Grandmother: He performed at the Civic Center a while back, and I was going to go but I didn’t, and then we found out the next week that he had died in that plane crash.

Me: Who?

G: John Denver.

Me: I said Josh Ritter.

My sister Charity: John Denver’s dead?

At this juncture my father tells a joke about John Denver’s driving skills that he heard on the John Boy and Billy Show. To my knowledge, Megan never actually heard a word I said. Country roads indeed.