Rocky Mountain High

The song featured in this post was originally written as a tribute to a place of great natural wonder in Aspen, Colorado. "Rocky Mountain High" was performed by John Denver and it's a song which he co-wrote with Mike Taylor. The song was released and became a Top 10 Hit back in 1973. I remember as a kid, that I had enjoyed listening to this song even though the words didn't really make much sense to me at the time.

It was years later when I "rediscovered" this song. Even though its words spoke of deep affection for mountains, for some reason I found strength and inspiration in them while in the midst of making a life-changing decision.

Aside from economic reasons, I needed a profound change in my life and a defining one at that. From a professional standpoint, I felt there were constraints that prevented me from delving into areas I had technical expertise in but could not practice in my country. On the personal side, I wanted to prove something to myself and I wanted to start anew in a place where nobody knew me, where my academic background, especially the college I came from, didn't matter much. In short, I wanted to see how far everything I've learned would take me.

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin' home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hangin' by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
It keeps changin' fast and it don't last for long

It was at that age when I made the difficult decision to pull my stakes up and try my luck in the States. I gave myself six months to see if things would work out for me. I promised my parents that if the six months ended without my finding a job, that I would immediately head for home. I told them that they did not even have to remind me to come home. Should I fail to land a job, I promised them that I will board the first flight home on the exact day the six-month period would end. That was the deal.

I landed in the States in early December and stayed with an uncle while I looked for a job. But it was the Holiday season, not really a good time for jobhunting since a lot of people were in a holiday mood. Plus, most of the companies were busy with their yearend wrap-up activities. So I hunkered down and prepared for myself for the possibility that it may take me at least two or three months to land my first interview. But still, I looked through the classified ads of any newspaper I could get my hands on, even ones I saw that were left on a bus seat, at a supermarket, or on a park bench.

My uncle didn't have a computer at home and thus I ended up using his office computer on weekends. The internet was then at its infancy and thus, all job applications were mailed through the post office. My first job interview came a month later in January.

Although I was a little nervous prior to the interview, I felt that my work experience and skills satisfied all the ad's published requirements for the job. That first interview was followed by two more rounds of interviews with the same company. Within a week, I got offered and accepted a job with the first company I interviewed with. The rest, as they say, is personal history.

I will be one of the first to admit that I'm not the sharpest tack in the box. In fact, I could be quite dense at times. However, if there's anything I can share with people who are planning to try their luck overseas it is this: a very good work ethic will always be appreciated anywhere you go in the world. We may trip or fall from time to time but whenever we do, we should always try our best to pick ourselves up, brush the dust off, and keep going.

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high

Just a few notes on the video. It was from the Tonight Show in 1973, back in the day when the late Johnny Carson, Jay Leno's predecessor, hosted the show. John Denver's performance on the show was live and the video also shows Mr. Carson's interview of Mr. Denver afterwards where the latter talked about what inspired him to write the song.

The video shows a young John Denver. He projected innocence and a youthful naivete during the interview, still awed with his success and expressed pride that his parents were able to watch him perform at New York's famed Carnegie Hall. He went on to enjoy many years of success as a recording artist scoring hits such as "Sunshine On My Shoulders", "Take Me Home, Country Roads", and "Annie's Song". He even went to the Philippines for a series of concerts back in the early 1980s. Yours truly even saw him perform on the noontime program "Eat Bulaga".

Unfortunately, Messrs. Carson and Denver are no longer with us. John Denver died in a plane crash in California back in 1997 while Johnny Carson died from natural causes in 2005.