I will gladly import a photo from the Paoli Jr-Sr High School facebook page. Hope I don’t get chewed!

This is Emmett Dunn, Class of 2020, Paoli High School.  With him are Mr. Greg Walker, superintendent of Paoli schools and Dr. Sherry Wise, PHS principal.  This photo was taken earlier today at the Washington County Courthouse in Salem, Indiana.  This was a graduation ceremony for area graduates that have enlisted in the Armed Forces.  When their schools finally get around to a graduation ceremony they won’t be here.  They will be serving all of us.  I wish I had been there today.

Not long after this ceremony, I exchanged emails with Emmett.  I told him to make sure I have his mailing address when he gets to where he is going, Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Thank you to Mr. Walker and Dr. Wise for being there.  And thank you to Emmett’s parents.  I know a thing or two about these circumstances.  Our son, Jarrett, an Army vet, is working at the US Embassy in Iraq as I type these words.  He was due home April 17th.  I know he will get back home eventually.

I will never be able to thank Emmett and his family enough.

To be a school counselor for a graduating class I have yet to introduce myself to, my first day at Paoli was to be March 30th, is the most surreal professional challenge of a long career in education.  The students and parents I have met via phone or email or video conference have all been most gracious.  I can’t thank them enough.  Y’all have made an ocean of lemonade from this place and time we are in.

With that said, I would be remiss if I did not give a HUGE thank you to the folks at Paoli I have worked with from afar.  Dr. Wise, Rachel Robinson, and Sara Parks…I so appreciate your effort and your patience and your passion for helping kids.  Thanks also to the teachers I have spent time with in meetings, be they general faculty or specific conferences.  You are pros!  All of you.  And don’t get me started on the football coaching staff!  We could be here for a while.

Oh what a difference two months can make.

In March I wrote a post about the walking path I have been using for, well, two months.

The time has gone by quickly at times.  Most of the time it has not.  These are tough times.

I walked six miles today.  With the help of an American Top 40 rebroadcast from July of 1988 and Justin Hayward’s Spirits Live album, I kept pushing.  I did not come in for a drink of water.  When I got to the kitchen after my walk, I was like a water buffalo refilling.

During my walk I reflected on so many things.  I thought about the school business, of course.  I am so glad I made the move to Paoli.  Even though I have yet to spend a day in the building, I know I am where I belong.  When we eventually get there like we are used to, it will be a true celebration.

I thought about my Uncle Roger in Georgia.  Earlier in the day I emailed him quite a few words.  I was ashamed when I looked back at my email at how long it had been since he and I had been back and forth.  He had been the last one back…in March.  During my walk I checked my email on my phone.  I was delighted to see that he had responded.

Earlier in the week my brother Darrell put together a video of a song I wrote a long time ago.  I gave him pictures and Darrell did what he does and made magic.  It has been well received via facebook.  I was singing along to the song last week and it just struck me.  This is a song for the times we are living in.

The video is here…. I hope it works for you.  I am not a techno wizard.

https://www.facebook.com/100013659552726/videos/914461705685806/?id=100013659552726

And so it goes.

Take care of each other.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

So my friend and FM radio king Robert Becker from WJAA 96.3 in Seymour was playing Bob Seger tunes three mornings ago.  It was to celebrate Bob Seger’s 75th birthday.

Yes, that is what I said, Bob Seger is 75.  In 2006, when we were needed a concert more than any one I can recall as we were caring for her grandparents, my dear wife Carrie and I saw Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band at Freedom Hall in Louisville.  It was a hot show on a cold cold December night.

This photo was taken at the last Seger show we saw at the new YUM Center; could there be a more goofier name for an arena?  This show was in December of 2018.

Bob Seger was always a staple in the football locker room when I was kid growing up in Brownstown.  The mono 8 track player on the training table in front of the showers in the bowels of the now demolished original James T. Blevins Stadium at Brownstown Central was a place where I got a music education.  LIVE BULLET was played a great deal.

That night in 2006 at the first Bob Seger concert Carrie and I attended, I took this picture and I thought this was so interesting in contrast to the old album cover.

In 2013 Carrie and I went to The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan to see a concert by their native son, Bob Seger.

This poster is in our living room.  We went to the April 13th show.  The Palace at Auburn Hills was more a dump than a palace.  It is no longer there.  But this was sure a good time.  Joe Walsh opened the show with seven songs that, along with Bob Seger, represented a great part of the soundtrack of my life.

Bob Seger 75?  I can believe that.  I am 52 and I walked six and half miles today and my right hip hurts.  Oh well.  We are not here to have a bad time!

Two days ago I took this picture while I was walking.

It was lovely walk.  Humidity low.  Temperature was great.  I did not want to stop walking.  I got in six miles on this day too.

This weekend nine years ago Carrie and I went to see The Moody Blues play a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater outside of Denver, Colorado.

I don’t think The Moodies will play another concert.  In 2014 they were scheduled to play at Red Rocks in May again.  Well, it is Denver.  There was a snowstorm and the show was moved to an indoor venue in Denver. I am certain Carrie and I can say we saw The Moody Blues play their last concert at Red Rocks where they made the Live at Red Rocks album and video when they played with an orchestra for the first time in September of 1992.

That spawned Orchestra shows all over the globe for the next eight years.  I was fortunate enough to catch thirteen of those orchestra shows.

Liner Notes.

It is no secret that I enjoy writing a word or two.

Recently I took a handful of CDs off my shelf at random and inspected them.  I didn’t listen to them.  I read them.  Being interested in words, I read what we call liner notes.  That is what refers to the words the music artist puts on the cd packaging to acknowledge “something”.

It made me think about the liner notes I have written on the three CDs I have produced.

Words I wrote for my friend and musical partner Jeff Carpenter resonate.  How could they not?  Without Jefferson I don’t record a song.  He is the man.

On my 2006 CD The Best Thing You Did Yesterday, I wrapped up the liner notes with this… “I still miss the Corner King.  And I am quite certain that Josey is still on a vacation far away.”

I hope you all are doing well.  This is a tough time.  I told Carrie today that speaking the rights is tough these days.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

This has been the road most traveled for a change.  I took pictures of my walking route a few weeks ago.  This was taken a couple days ago as the sun was setting and darkness was creeping in.  About 61/2 tenths of a mile from home, it was a nice way to end the day.

As I type these words in the screened-in back porch, a steady rain is falling on the tin roof keeping time with the music on my little portable speaker that blurts out music via the radio signal via the internet on the 96.3 WJAA app.  Wow that is a mouthful.  My favorite radio station, Seymour’s 96.3 is coming through loud and clear.  One of Boston’s many hits from the 70s.  Keep on rocking is the message.

For some reason my mind looked to the Southeast this morning.  I was thinking about the folks in Pender and Onslow Counties.  The aircraft from Camp Lejeune  go up and down the coast of these two counties and I hope we see them again soon.

This has really been something, hasn’t it?  This virus stuff is what movies are made about and after watching we throw away our popcorn bucket and think how rotten that might be.  Well, it is rotten.  I know I am so fortunate to have some wider open spaces to roam than most probably do.  I can walk up and down my road course for an hour and a half and never see a car.  Sometimes two or three may go by.

And there, overhead, I hear a jet airplane flying the in along the West landing pattern toward the Louisville airport.  We have not heard that much lately.  The week of the Kentucky Derby it is a constant barrage of aircraft overhead here.  The small private planes come and go on that weekend like fireflies.  Now, the skies are quiet and even the vapor trails at 36,000 feet are hard to find.  Amazing how that one that just went overhead can get one’s attention.

This is a basketball goal on a tree in Mississippi.  I just saw it a little while ago and thought I would share it.  I have always thought this goal was a neat thing.  I am going to take a basketball with me the next time we visit and I am going to put one through again.  It has been decades since I did more than nod to it.

I miss Coach Doc Holliday and the Marshall University Thundering Herd during the Spring Game.  They turned the fountain back on at  10 AM this morning and very few were there to take part in this ritual of Spring.

I was asked if I had written any good songs lately with this stay-in business.  I have not.  I have been very occupied with many aspects of my new job and that has taken a great deal of concentration and brain power..

Though it is the most nondescript looking office space I have worked in over the past twenty years, I will so be glad to be working full time in this office.  As I type there is one box of my stuff in it.  Everything you see in this picture, I couldn’t tell about.  But I am certainly enjoying the folks I am working with from afar and I like purple and gold!

When this is over, I am going to grab a bag of balls and go swing my leg!

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

I would normally never ask you to do what I am about to ask you to do.

Why?

Look.  Music has been better to me than I will ever be to it.  As I type these words I am listening to a guilty pleasure… the Greatest Hits of Asia.  John Wetton’s voice is a favorite of mine.  I was elated one day when he and I went back and forth via twitter message.  John is no longer with us.  His voice will never leave me.

Near two years ago I found some new music by former Little River Band front man, Glenn Shorrock, and I was totally enamored with his new songs and his delivery.  Wow…I thought.  So much so that I sent him an email and told him of my thoughts.  In less than a day he emailed me back and, while I will allow our exchange to be private, it was inspiring.

I told Glenn I was watching so many years ago as a ten year-old as The Little River Band was playing one of my all time favorite songs, REMINISCING on The Midnight Special.  That was a late night music show I hope many of you remember.

I digress.   So today I ask that you find Glenn Shorrock’s 2019 version of the great Little River Band song COOL CHANGE.  It is wonderful.

This song will, as it is sung today, take you back and bring you back unlike much of anything I have ever heard.  It is then and today in one sweet…the word fails me.  You just need to listen.  You’ll thank me.

Now, back to why I don’t usually ask this.  Being a musician, albeit a nobody, I do have a digital sales account with a particular music distribution entity and know that my songs, delivered in multiple formats near 5000 times have accrued me about 8 dollars.  This is the reason concert tickets are what they are.  I hate to break it to you.  Album sales are a thing of the past.

And so it goes.

Give Glenn a listen.  You’ll thank me.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

The screened-in back porch is clean again.  It is Spring.  That is what happens.  As I type these words my dear wife, Carrie, is applying a new screen to the porch’s exterior door.  Thank you, Carrie.

Writing during Covid-19 season is not an easy endeavor for me.  Oh I thought it would be.  I equated more time at home to more time to move more words around.  It has not happened that way.  I think it is a concentration thing.  Yesterday I was expected to be “on” if you will.  I spent nearly five hours during the course of three different remote meetings working and collaborating with new colleagues. We were discussing students and plans and interim activities and directives from the State Board of Education and other fun things like that.  I felt envious of what my co-workers know and frustrated with what I don’t know.  How could I?  I have yet to be in the building in an official capacity with students in it.

I appreciate the patience the folks at Paoli High School have extended to their new guidance counselor.  None of us expected to be where we are today, away from the building.  My heart hurts when I think about the seniors; the Class of 2020 will be connected like no other known in my lifetime.

I went to work on Thursday, March 12th at North Harrison High School with absolutely no clue that it would be the last day I would work in that school with students in it.  I had already made plans with Mr. Bigham to come in and have speaks with his junior English classes, as has been the custom the last few years toward the end of school.  I was to come in to share with them on the Friday before Spring Break.  We never got there.

On March 13th, North Harrison had an early release schedule for professional development and I thought that to be a good day to drop in on Paoli where I had been given the green light by their school board that Monday to begin working there after Spring Break on March 30th.  There were papers to go over and folks to be introduced to.  It was a good day.

I have been asked many times why I decided to leave North Harrison to take a job at Paoli.  Having not been in a position where I was actively looking to leave, I feel like this job found me more than I found it.  When that kind of thing happens, and let’s be honest, if you know anything about general hiring practices of schools, a guy with my experience is usually not given an opportunity like this.  Translation:  Schools, given their monetary constraints, usually hire on the cheap when they can.  It is a fact of life.  So in that regard, I am honored that Paoli looked at me and said “yes”.  I look forward to working with students and parents there.

In the space of nine days and a few meaningful phone calls  to a couple friends I knew I could confide in and ask for prayerful discernment, the dominoes just started falling in a perfect line.  I told the principal at North Harrison I had a thousand reasons to stay at North but I needed one more.  I needed to know I would not regret going to Paoli. With that said, I told him I knew it was time to go.

This was not easy.  It was, however, the right thing to do. The folks at North were very good to me.  I thank them so much for giving me five years on campus again.

Before I left North Harrison I had some students coming to me telling me they had heard that I was leaving.  Each time I was met with this query my heart sank just a bit.  One student, knowing I was leaving, asked to have his picture taken with me.  The students at North are as resilient as any I have ever seen.  They will be fine.  I will still miss them, of course.  They are all Great Americans.  They know that code, politics notwithstanding.  The scholars, the athletes, the artists, the go-to friends, the musicians, the voices in the choir, the Ag prodigies, the helpers, and the ones fortunate enough to be in the room across from the computer lab.  How many times I wanted to come in and join that fray.

And so it goes.  “That is all.”

I leave you with some photos of good times at NH.  I wish the camera had been rolling during other times too when it was not.  Thank you again, Mr. Bigham.  I am sorry I missed your juniors this year.  Perhaps you can smuggle me in down the road and we can do it again!

Thank you all.  Know that you are loved.

The Lady Cats at THE BIG DANCE part 1.  How much fun was that?

Graduation was and WILL BE a wonderful time.  Always so delighted to pass out those diplomas and send out well wishes after the ceremony.

When we were younger, Mick Rutherford and I laughed like this all the time.  It was good to be on the hill laughing again.

One of my favorite pictures.  Carrie was thinking.  Sitting on the hill with my Dad.

Tony Waynescott putting the line through some paces before facing BCHS.

The end of the finest hour for this old Cougar.  Ben Waynescott’s FG wins it.

Ben honored me on Senior Night and I am thankful and still regret not being there.

A win for the ages over Batesville.

Bringing wrestling to North was a strike.  This is a great time.

My friend Barry Hall walking on the NH field.

Lilly Hatton at the line against the Lady Braves her senior year.  The hardest working student-athlete and most deserving of any accolade that comes her way.  She has earned it. This year Lilly was the Southern Conference’s Freshman of the Year playing for Wofford College.

For North,  I hope it is always 1st and Goal.

I wore a North shirt the day I kicked at The Rose Bowl!

Finally, I am glad to leave this guy behind.  There is a new field waiting.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

The numbers are not adding up on the crawl of ESPN and other sports networks.  Rolling at the bottom of the screen you can see that this team may have dumped this player to save this many million dollars of salary cap money.

Now is not the time for news like this.

As long as we have nurses and nursing assistants and doctors trying to save people whilst they are putting their own lives on the line, these dollar figures about sports and how much guys are being paid while not playing need to join the players on the sideline.

I know. The sports networks are purging anything they can to produce something current to report.  I would rather watch the Philadelphia 76ers of the Dr. J, George McGinnis, Darryl Dawkins, Bobby Jones, Caldwell Jones, and Henry Bibby vintage play a game against the Buffalo Braves coached by Jack Ramsay with Bill Russell doing the color commentary.

My hat is off to all the medical folks in harm’s way.  There are too many of you.  My prayers are with you and your families.  It hurts.

What I am enjoying in the mornings is Robert Becker on 96.3 WJAA.  Robert does an informative and entertaining radio show in the mornings in Seymour.  I wrote about Robert some time ago in a feature on these page:  http://speaktherights.com/?p=2979

This morning Robert played as many Mellencamp requests as he could get in, while he was offering hopeful encouraging words and up to date information, either from a guest of civic nature or his own cache of positive good vibrations.  That and the man just know how to flat pick good songs to play!

Thank you, Robert.  As you offer up information and song, you are truly an unsung hero in very tough times.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

It was 1988 I think.  The Rockford, Illinois quartet that brought us The Dream Police and Live in Budokan was at it again with their album “Lap of Luxury” that spawned the hit song “The Flame”.  Have they had a hit since?  If they have I don’t know of it.

Yesterday I was thinking about the band Cheap Trick and their aforementioned 1988 album.  Given the circumstance the world is dealing with, I have the luxury, if you will, to be in wide open spaces.  Yesterday I walked 6.79 miles on a county road and saw three cars.  The UPS planes heading east to Louisville outnumbered the cars three to one.

I decided to give my legs a break today before one of them breaks on me.  That would be tragic.  Over the last four days my walks have averaged 5.28 miles. These walks are nonstop, save a break of a glass of water or the need to rid oneself of some water.

I have a 1.7 mile lap.  It is my Lap of Luxury I have found.  I leave the driveway and head toward Milltown and turn around .85 miles down the road.  I walk this way because I can faintly keep a cell phone signal in this direction.  If I head east up the hill, forget about it.

Don’t tell my friend Robert Becker from Seymour’s 96.3 WJAA what I am about to disclose.  During these walks I have been listening to iheart radio’s Classic American Top 40.  Casey Kasem counts ’em down from the 1970s and 1980s.  This has been a nice diversion to the not so normal way of life we are experiencing.  This takes me away from the gamut of emotion that wants to creep in.  Sadness, worry, fear, disgust, anger, and fill in the blank.

These walks are a real good time and all four food groups of leg muscles are given a challenge at some point or another with hills and curves and I don’t know what all.

So my lap goes like this:

Head west young man!  Horace Greeley said that.  What else was gonna say?  He was three miles from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.  This is a very overrated quote, don’t you think?

Down the hill we go.

The Blue River is across the field to the left and it looks very calm right now.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I took some large landscaping rocks from a dry creek bed behind the house today.  That story doesn’t have much to do with my walking route but I thought I would bring it up anyhow.

We start to climb a little again and the left side gets a little steep ahead.  Here is where you keep a careful eye out for cars and try to listen for the sound of whining tires from 4-wheelers or the rumble of a car or truck engine.  There is a curve at the top of the hill and it is probably the most ticklish spot on the walk.

This is a wide shot.  A couple curves and up toward the highest point of the walk.

See that car on the horizon.  It was our mail carrier.  He stopped.  We kept our distance as we chatted for a few minutes.  I am a social sort to a degree.  I like to talk.  I also like to listen.  It was good to hear a voice on this route besides that of Casey Kasem.  When he drove off I was reminded of how the voices of others I have heard the last two weeks are few and far between.  Then I rallied and got back to American Top 40.  It was long distance dedication time.

Keep going. At the top of the hill in the distance I start to head down for a little while and then my .85 mile marker is found and I turn around and head back from here:

That is the one way trip of my Lap of Luxury.  I am thankful I have it.  I know most do not.

Lord have mercy I will be glad when the last of these laps is a distant memory.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Back from the longest hiatus in speaktherights.com history…

Wow, to quote Justin Hayward, we are living in “Strange Times”.

A couple October’s ago my dear wife, Carrie, and I went to a concert at The Brown Theatre in Louisville.  It was one of those.  When I heard Roger McGuinn’s Rickenbacker play the opening strains of “Turn, Turn, Turn” I sat a little deeper in my chair.  Is this real, I asked myself?  It was.  In front of me and Carrie from our balcony seats in the quaint Brown Theatre were original Byrds members McGuinn and Chris Hillman joined with Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives.  They played the 1968 album Sweethearts of the Rodeo in its entirety, as well as other notable Byrds hits.  The Bob Dylan tune “My Back Pages” is a favorite.  “Mr. Tambourine Man”, Hey Mr. Spaceman”, and “So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star” were highlights also.  Personally, I like the Sweethearts of the Rodeo album.  Not a critical success, I can listen to it any day.  Critics don’t make music.  Some of us do.

I practiced a little social distancing the last two days.

Yesterday I went for a 5.08 mile walk.  The coast was clear.  The legs were sore!  So later I went downstairs for 2 miles on the elliptical.  Woke up this morning feeling better than I expected.

Today that walk was 5.64 miles.  I did not have the will to go downstairs to further my exercising endeavors.  I will probably feel it in the morning.

In this time of hiatus I am looking forward to getting back to work.  On Thursday, March 12, it was announced at the North Harrison Community School Board Meeting that I had resigned my position as Guidance Counselor effective March 30th.  At the time I thought Carrie and I might be in North Carolina for Spring Break this week.  So much for that.

I appreciate the opportunity to work nearly five full school years at NH.  The folks there were good to me.  I am thankful.  I will certainly miss the students.  They make the building come to life!

A new opportunity found me, as I was not actively looking to leave North.

I used to kick a football over this goalpost and aim for the scoreboard.  When the ball hit it there was a “PANG” sound that echoed for a while.

And so it goes.  I am back once again where I used to swing my leg for fun.

And just like that I am a Paoli Ram. I will be a guidance counselor at the Paoli Jr-Sr High School.  It feels good I can tell you.  Even in these uncertain, if not downright weird, times we are in the midst of, I am looking forward to the challenge and the opportunity to help the students of Paoli Jr-Sr High School.  I appreciate the kind words and gestures I have already received from a place I have visited in an official capacity a total of two times in the physical sense. I will be delighted when the day comes that we are back in full swing like a school full of eager students needs to be.  I don’t like schools feeling like museums.  We’ll get there eventually and we will celebrate when we do.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Where do I start?  There is too much symmetry for me to get.  The Chicago Bears made the playoffs in 1977 for the first time in my lifetime.  Walter Payton saw to that.

I texted back and forth with an old friend, Barry Hall, tonight.  He filled in the missing pieces for me.

A while back I swore off facebook.  Things were way too negative for me.  It was not helping me.  That is when it is over for me.  Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way.  I got facebook out of the way.

Funny though, today as I ate my lunch I grabbed my phone.  I was looking at instant messages from days gone by.  A few of them struck me as oh so pleasant memories.  One of those was from an old friend I found again thanks, ironically enough, to facebook.  I was reliving a message I had gotten from out of the blue from a guy called Terry Grider.

When I looked at facebook today for the first time in a long time, I found that Terry Grider passed away a few days ago.  It hit me hard.

Terry Grider played football for my Dad at Brownstown Central a long time ago.

In 1977, Terry Grider was my first football coach.  I was in the 4th grade.  Coach Grider’s team The Bears were 1-2.  We beat the heavily favored Cardinals is the season finale 30-26.  It was my first taste of we can do this after all.  I remember a tackle I made.  I didn’t make as many as I should have.

I look at this team and think about so many memories.

Chuck played quarterback.  I played tight end on offense.  In practice, after Coach Grider told Chuck over and over again to throw it to me, he did and I caught it.  In our next game Chuck threw it to me again and I caught it.

I have made over about this time in my life time and time again.  Why wouldn’t I?

It was the place in time when, on practice days, 9 and 10 year-old boys road a bus from the elementary school to the middle school completely unsupervised and changed into our football gear in a locker room there with no one else around and then we would walk a couple blocks in our football practice gear to the town park where our coaches were waiting for us.  AND WE THOUGHT NOTHING OF IT.  OUR PARENTS THOUGHT NOTHING OF IT.  Yes.  It was a simpler time.

In high school my Dad was my head coach.  We did the best we could with that situation and I am glad it worked out that way.  But know I was glad to have Coach Terry Grider there for me when I was in the 4th grade.  I knew him.  He knew me.  He, like my Dad, was tough on me.  I am glad of that.

I wish I could have told Terry all these things.  Life is like that though.  The best of intentions that don’t come to fruition still live on in our hearts and our souls and make us better for the next day and the next time someone may need us.

There was a great deal of unspoken feeling between Terry and me.  Our instant message exchanges are testament to that.  We had our time.  I am so thankful for that.

To Coach Grider!  Amen.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Someone is paying attention, I found out.  They asked if I would comment further on some of the pictures I have put on speaktherights.com over the years.

Here’s the thing.  I keep moving.  I don’t stop and look around a great deal.  I wish I did that just a little more.  I was much better at that skill when I was 17 than at almost 52.  Responsibility to blame?  I don’t think so.  Things change.  Photographs don’t change.  That is part of their appeal I think.  When I stop and look at the catalog of photos on this page I look around and wonder how it happened.

No great order here.  But I will acquiesce and throw some meaningful photos on here.

At the top of the list is this photo of my dear wife, Carrie, and my Uncle Stanley Chambers.  Stanley is gone now.  I miss him.  He and I could relate like few I know.  I got Stanley.  And he got me.  This was taken in Forest, Mississippi during a Hines Family Reunion.  My mother’s family was from W.E. and Levi Jane Hines.  Seventeen young’uns for those of you keeping score at home.  Stanley was married to Aunt Reat, my mom’s sister.

Me pensively looking over The Moody Blues display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I did not think either of us would ever get there.

My Mom and Dad at a Moody Blues concert at The Louisville Palace in March of 2016.

Behind us was the fictional Hill Street Station from Hill Street Blues.  We walked through a COLD Chicago day to get to this place.  Still my favorite TV show of all time.

I don’t think I have a better football story than the one I can tell about taking my Dad to The Rose Bowl to see the UCLA play USC.  When we walked into that stadium it was the most surreal experience I had since placing the last punctuation mark on a 74000 word story I finished writing in 2007.

The first picture I ever posted on speaktherights.com.  Who could blame me?  I didn’t know what I was getting into to.  But did I ever have a great start!!!!

I miss this guy.  Luther was our pup for fourteen years.  He gave it up in 2010.  I still miss him so.  This photo was taken about a week before he died.  He looks tired.  He did not look so tired when he planted him near the walnut tree in the back yard.  I mean that.

I kicked, Samonhead held, and Pete snapped it…in this order.  I love these guys.

Me and Carrie at a Train concert in Kingsport, TN.  Were we really that young?

The closest I ever got to a hole in one.

The last time Jarrett and Cody and I went fishing together.  Proud of these boys!

My Dad and I saw the last Notre Dame game played on grass on ND Stadium.  The coldest I have ever been at a game.  It snowed.  Dad had the time of his life.  I thought I was going to die until I ate a whole pizza at the hotel afterward.

I started speaktherights.com in July of 2014.  Four months later we lost my Granny.  I chronicled her illness and it was a cathartic thing for me.  She was amazing.

There is only one place to KISS THE BRICKS…Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

With my Uncle Roger at a family reunion.  He too taught English.  We are both still learning, I suppose.

Carrie and me atop the Empire State Building.

At the reflecting pools where the Twin Towers fell.  I don’t know that I have ever looked at a photo more.  She was there for someone I am sure.

My key to Indianapolis Motor Speedway on more than one occasion, Mr. Adam Disque and the 4th grade Medora Elem. class.

The NHHS girls on the podium at Banker’s Life in 2016.

Making music with Jeff Carpenter has been one of  the thrills of my life.

John Elway thanking me for sending him football cards of his Dad when Jack Elway coached in the World League.  It was the right thing to do.

Barry Hall and my Dad a week before they tore down Blevins Memorial Stadium as we knew it.

Humbled to be in this barn where Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville chewed the fat in Pittsfield, Mass.

The last Moody Blues concert we attended at The Ryman Auditorium.  No better place to end it.

Honored that Ben Waynescott presented me his road jersey for Senior Night.

Robert Becker, curator of Rock and Roll on 96.3 WJAA in Seymour, Indiana.  The best in the business.

Where The Miracle on Ice took place In Lake Placid 1980.  I need to go back and make sure I was really there.

Walking across The Brooklyn Bridge.

Carrie and me hanging with our friend Julie Ragins before a music gig she was playing and singing in at Kent, Ohio.  I am still hoping to write a duet good enough to talk her into singing with me.

Dining with Cody and Jarrett and Sarah in Florida.

No Pier Pressure under the Santa Monica Pier.

Carrie and me in an empty Rose Bowl where I was 2 for 2 kicking just beyond extra point territory in Brooks.  Look at the new field.  I was not about to put on my kicking shoe, though I had it with me.

Working through a musical part with Dan Trisko.

Brother Tim Petty finally got me to Alabama to see Ole Miss play Bama.

The last Justin Hayward gig we saw last October at The City Winery in Nashville.  Julie Ragins is to his left playing and singing as lovely as ever.

Watching the Hoosiers play with Adam Disque.  Love it!

Carrie and Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.  No better way to wrap this up.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson