A is for Annie Sweater

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

Disclaimer: this is a SUPER cringey story

I fell in love, deeply, madly in love, when I was 14. I'd had crushes before: Davey Jones, Bobby Sherman, Barry Cowsill, but this time, it was true love, and his name was John Denver. Sure, there was a little age difference, but I didn't see it as a problem. What's 17 years? I could get married to him and still finish junior high, right?!

I saved my money and bought all his albums I could find, Rhymes & Reasons, Poems, Prayers & Promises, Aerie, Rocky Mountain High, Farewell, Andromeda, Greatest Hits (which turned out to be Volume 1, but no one knew it at the time). I sat by my record player for hours, writing down song lyrics (and it was TEDIOUS, because I could only write so fast, and I had to move the needle back over and over and over and I'm pretty positive everyone in the house wanted to KILL me). If one of his songs came on the radio, or if he made a tv appearance, everyone had to give me DEAD SILENCE.

I was a bloodhound at research, and let's remember that this was before the internet, like WAY before the internet. I devoured every magazine article I could find on him. and that's when it happened.

I discovered there was Another Woman.

Her name was Annie and he was married to her. My heart was shattered, if only momentarily, because (prepare for dark thought here), meh, something could happen to her, and then we could be together (interesting that this was my Plan A, as the idea of divorce never crossed my mind; at that time in my life, I only knew one friend whose parents were divorced).

His album Back Home Again came out in 1974, and Annie not only was on the front cover with him and was so pretty, but he wrote the most beautiful love song ever just for her. I gave up hope for a future with him (mostly, anyway).

I was shopping at the mall with my mom not long after this and found a sweater hanging on a rack at Montgomery Wards almost exactly like the one Annie was wearing on the album cover. It was a simple maroon pullover with a scoop neck, just like Annie's, and from that moment on it became known as my "Annie sweater."

I wore it often over the next few years, and then it got put into a drawer for what turned out to be the last time.

I continued to love Annie's husband's music. The very first concert I ever attended was to see him with my friend Teresa and her mom Betty. I saw him in concert again when I was in college. I cried when he died in a plane crash in 1997. His music still makes me happy when I hear it.

Tour book and ticket stub from 1975
John Denver concert at Kemper Arena,
Kansas City, Missouri

And then I dug in a dresser drawer last weekend and pulled out...my Annie sweater. 

Sorry that I kind of wished you dead, Annie, wherever you are.

Almost Heaven....

When I was in junior high, I was truly, madly in love with John Denver and his music (don't judge me). I had all of his albums and played them over and over and over. I knew everything about him, including that he was missing two toes from a mowing accident (did YOU know that?).

I lurrrrved him.

When it was announced that he was coming to our city for a concert on May 1, 1975,  I HAD. TO. GO.

Enter my mom's friend, Betty. She and my mom had been close friends since I was maybe 3 when Betty and her family lived across the street from us. Betty was a John Denver fan and all around good sport, and she offered to accompany me, along with her daughter Teresa, to the concert. SOMEBODY PINCH ME!

I treated that ticket as if it were made of glass. I was terrified that someone would break into the house and steal it, so I kept it in a tiny little drawer in a shelf in the dining room and checked on it daily (I'm happy to report it never budged).

When I thought I could not possibly wait any longer, the concert date finally arrived. Betty and Teresa and I saw his tour bus in the parking lot when we arrived at the arena. Once inside, I bought a t-shirt and a program. My heart beat like a rabbit's, and I was nearly bursting with excitement.

He didn't pick me out of the crowd and whisk me away to be with him forever (dammit), but other than that, the concert was everything I could have hoped for.

It was my first concert, and the best night of my (14 year old) life.

And my second concert, a year and a half later?

Kiss.

But that's a story for another day.


Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop writing prompt #2: the first concert you ever attended