I know I wrote about the news about USC and UCLA  joining the Big Ten in the coming years.

Truth is, I can’t wait that long!  I am ready for college football now!

Yes, I did enjoy the USFL.  And I was delighted that Skip Holtz’ Birmingham Stallions took the Championship.   The last time I saw Skip he was coaching Louisiana Tech at Marshall in 2019.  The Herd won that won handily.

Though the speaktherights.com College Football Preview is a month away, I hope my students are paying attention!  I am so ready for college football to begin.  I am excited about seeing another FBS school in Idaho.  They will be coming to Bloomington to take on the Indiana Hoosiers in September.  Having seen more than 70 FBS schools play football in person, I have never seen Idaho.  Yes, I know about the Vandals.  I watched them many times on crazy satellite feeds over the years.  Yes, I know the name John Friesz.  Some of you may have to look that one up.  Seeing the Vandals in Bloomington, I could not make the game last year, will be a treat.

I am ready to make this walk into Memorial Stadium again.

Memorial Stadium is a great place to be on college football Saturdays.

Look, I know what I am talking about.

I was in Iowa City last year for the Hoosiers’ season opening debacle.  This was a portent of doom.

Yes, I was the guy who made hotel reservations in Pasadena for The Rose Bowl for a team who finished 2-10.  Thankfully, my dear wife, Carrie, and I were at the last Indiana Hoosiers Football victory last September in Bowling Green against Western Kentucky.

It was a long season.

Guess what?  The pressure is off.  Coach Allen has a multi-year contract that no one will touch in Bloomington, Indiana.  The staff and the players have had time to look around.  And my guess is they like what they see.

The 2020 season was an anomaly.  Yes, the Hoosiers did well.  Heck, maybe they had an advantage by playing in front of small to no crowds.

Here’s what I do know.  Last year when the Cincinnati Bearcats came calling to Bloomington, and the Hoosiers got hosed with a phantom targeting call against McFadden, my dear wife, Carrie, met a lady from Cincinnati who was glad to talk to her.  She Bearat lady found refuge in my Hoosier wife.  The Bearcat lady told Carrie of how nasty the Indiana fans were to her.  That is too bad.  We are not Wisconsin or Ohio State!  I was so disappointed when Carrie told me of this.

Act like you have been there before.  That is what we were always taught, in case we scored a touchdown in high school. Me, I kicked points and field goals and played center.  Indiana Football fans had not been there in their lifetimes.  I know I hadn’t.  Two bowl games in a row and expectations beyond belief. Walking on the moon seems more practical.

Here is what I do know.  I believe in Tom Allen and his ability to bring the boys back.  He knows what he is doing.  Yes, I know, Washington and South Alabama have good head coaches.  Indiana does too.

Me, I am looking forward to the 2022 College Football Season.

This is going to be fun.  We can talk about how it all pans out in about a month!

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

On these pages I have made mention of some English teachers I know were very important to me during my formative years.

In high school there was Mrs. Kain and Mrs. Englehardt.  And we could not forget Mrs. Miller.  They all played a part in my English teaching life long before it got here.

Millard Dunn has been the subject of multiple pages here along the way.  He was my English mentor in college and in life.  Many a day I go back to words that I caught in his classroom and never let go of.  I was better for doing so.  Hopefully some of that will rub off on students I teach today.

Referencing these venerable folks from the past is the natural order of things I suppose.  That is the way it goes right?  You look back and you look far enough behind you where things are safe and mostly in monthballs now.

Today we are going to get a little closer to home and talk about a couple of English teachers that have made a great impression on me as fellow educators. Now there is some territory you rarely read about.  Many reasons dictate this I think.  You are afraid you might offend someone else.  Or you just don’t take the time to introspectively peel back layers that are not about the next lesson.  Maybe they really are.

On June 10th I finished an ambitious piece of narrative nonfiction that is my Long and Winding Road.   Two people I gave treatment to when I wrote this tome were Cathy Clouse and Bart Bigham.  If my tome never sees the light of day, let me tell you a little about these two now.

I worked with Cathy Clouse at Medora Schools longer than I can remember.  Well, not really; it all started in March of 1998.  That was when I began a 15-plus year stint at Medora that came in two parts.  March 1998 to May 2000 and August 2002 to June 2015.  Yes, I left them and they called me back.

Cathy and I worked well together.  We sat around more school improvement meeting tables together than I want to remember.  But I am sure I want to remember Cathy being there.  We never had a cross word.  She vented to me when she needed to and I’m sure I bent her ear a few times too.

Cathy gave me my greatest triumph in teaching.  I never told her that.  I was hoping she would one day read about it when my tome gets published.  Little did we know, that less than two weeks after I placed the last piece of punctuation on my chunky writing, Cathy passed away.  She died on June 23rd. I was taken aback.

Once upon a time Cathy was working with some students on what we called End of Course Assessment practice.  The ECA was one of many Indiana testing snafus over the years.  What happened was that Cathy was getting frustrated with a group of nine juniors and seniors who had yet to “pass” their English ECA.  I’m sure this was yet another task she was heaped on.  Small schools are quaint to those in bigger schools whose work load is lesser than the case load of the teacher at the small school.  I taught four levels of English at Medora once upon a time in the same school year.  Cathy understood this too well.  She had been there.

Cathy had the guts to come to me and ask me if I would work with these juniors and seniors to see if I could help them pass their English End of Course Assessment, again, this was one of Indiana’s educational farts.  I told Cathy I would help them and in the process I was helping her.

Cathy Clouse did not let her ego get in the way.  She knew of my proclivity for writing and thought she could tune into it and let me help these nine upperclassmen.

“Do you think you can help us?”

That was Cathy’s question to me.  I told her to send them my way.  She did.  This was in early October.  The next retest was in early December.  I looked at every one of those kids and told them how Mrs. Clouse had their best interest at heart.  Cathy could probably diagram sentences that would give me a headache.  But she knew I could help kids be better writers.  And that is all we did.  We met once or twice a week for an hour at a time and talked about writing.  When we were not talking about writing, we were writing.   And writing.  And writing.  Those kids were delighted to see December roll around.

Those nine took the ECA over again, as was required by the mighty tower to the North in Indianapolis.  Six of the nine passed both the reading and the writing sections.  Eight of the nine passed the writing sections.  We didn’t have time to reinvent reading comprehension and writing.  But what writing does is open a door to the mind that was not there seven minutes ago.  Thankfully, these kids were like Mrs. Clouse.  They had open minds.

A few hours ago I was in Mr. Bart Bigham’s classroom at North Harrison High School.  Room 134.  The room just feels good to me walking inside it.  Bart Bigham did that.

When I left Medora School as a counselor and English teacher, I came home to North Harrison in August of 2015 as a full time counselor.  Some things I never learn.  Just as I left Medora for a couple of years before I came back, I left North in March of 2020 for a year and change.  In the fall of 2021, I was on the NH campus again.  This time teaching English full time. Thank you, Mr. Kellems.

As soon as I landed in Cougarville the first time in 2015, I gravitated to Mr. Bigham.  His class room walls were filled with literary and musical references I understood.  I knew.  We just hit it off.  As a counselor with English teaching experience, Bart let me come in and guest lecture on subjects that lent to the significance of utilizing the English language.  I talked to his students about the importance of influences in our lives and how we can influence others.  Another year I talked to his students about songwriting and how ubiquitous songs are in our lives in every season and every holiday.  We wrote our own songs.  In the fall of 2018, I pondered what to share with his students in the coming spring.  I decided on the power of the written word.  This prompted me to write a letter to folks at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.  I told them my dear wife, Carrie, and I were coming out for a game.  This led me to kicking field goals in an empty Rose Bowl and I did not miss.  Talk about a thrill.  Talk about a tangible truth to share.  Thank you, Mr. Bigham and your 11th graders.  I would never have gotten there without you.

Bart Bigham is moving on.  He too is heading home.  He has accepted a job in Oakland City, Indiana at Wood Memorial Jr-Sr High School.  Bart would NEVER tell you he was a member of the Greater Evansville Basketball Hall of Fame Induction Class of 2017.  He never told me.  I did what writers do.  I looked it up!

Last school year Bart and I were English teachers together.  But, we always were.

Bart Bigham was tireless in his endeavors to support and lead students and athletes at North Harrison.  A man for all seasons, Bart coached boys tennis in the fall, girls tennis in the spring, and was an assistant basketball coach for a sport that knows no down time in Indiana.

That I was able to talk to Bart today in his room one last time will stay with me as long as I have a memory in good working order.  And when I think about it I will smile and know thanksgiving and camaraderie and respect.  I’m sad.  But I am so happy for Bart.  Thomas Wolfe had it wrong, Bart.  You can go home again.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

When I heard the news of the impending 2024 jump of the University of Southern California and the University of California-Los Angeles to The Big Ten, I was turning my head sideways.

USC and UCLA in The Big Ten?  Ummmm…aren’t those the guys we hoped to play AGAINST in The Rose Bowl one day?  At first, I didn’t like it.  My ancient Big Ten running roots felt a twinge.  Then suddenly I thought about Rutgers and Maryland.  Uh, last I checked these teams were in The Big Ten too.  USC and UCLA!  Welcome aboard!  I don’t give a rat’s bladder (my apologies to Frank Furillio) if you are in California or not!  Glad to have you!

Look, I have been attending Big Ten football games all my life.  Unfortunately, though I love the place and always will as my season tickets indicate, my allegiance has been to the Indiana Hoosiers Football (I have seen more than 70 FBS schools in person and have yet to see a college basketball game).  Being born in Columbus, Indiana some thirty-six miles to the East of Bloomington via Indiana Highway 46, I ‘m not sure I have had a grand choice.  Some things we are just born into.

I was born into a love of college football when I pushed my way into the world in 1968.  My Dad was a high school coach for a very long time.  That meant when we weren’t going to see The Hoosiers play, we watched college football on televison.  That meant I knew of USC greats Anthony Davis. Ricky Bell, Charles White, Marcus Allen, Anthony Munoz, Lynn Swann, Pat Haden, John Robinson, and so many more.  That meant I knew of UCLA greats Freeman McNeil, Randy Cross, Jerry Robinson, Kenny Easley, Dick Vermeil, Troy Aikman, Ken Norton, Jr, and Carnell Lake.

If asked of my ten all time favorite college football traditions, I would tell you Notre Dame vs. USC and the cross-town rivalry USC vs. UCLA.  If I don’t see both of these games on televison, my football season is not complete.  So, with that said, USC and UCLA can’t make it to the Big Ten fast enough for me.  That is so easy for me to say.  The logistical nightmare that is college football scheduling probably made more than one athletic director throw up their hands.  But guess what? They, like you and I, know that there are probably more to be invited to the Big Ten party eventually.  Why not?

When USC and UCLA do get here in Big Ten country in 2024, I will be able to say I knew you when.

My dear wife, Carrie, and I saw UCLA beat USC 34-27 the last time there was a crowd for this game at The Rose Bowl.  What a game it was.

A couple days before these two kicked off that Saturday, Carrie and I were on the field.

Who knew we were scoping out Big Ten country so long ago?

I can tell you the goal posts in The Rose Bowl are true!

I was 2 for 2 at age 50.  I knew when to quit.

In 2016, I took my Dad to see USC-UCLA at The Rose Bowl.  I think this may be my favorite picture of them all.  Sitting on a floor of carpet in the home of my childhood in Brownstown, Indiana or the family room of the same house where my parents’ reside to this day in Ramsey, Indiana, watching games in this stadium were so important to us.  To see my Dad walk toward to the light of this field was, well, special.  Dreams don’t usually come true.

I still have this game on my DVR.  Sam Darnell was too much for the Bruins.

I suppose I had some affection to the Iowa Hawkeyes that has led me to referring to them as my second favorite team in the Big Ten over the years.  After all, the Hoosiers win over Iowa in 1988 when Chuck Hartlieb completed 44 passes for 558 yards for the losing Hawkeyes is still my favorite Memorial Stadium memory;  Austin Starr hitting that field goal against Purdue to send them bowling in 2007 is in the neighborhood.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Anthony Thompson’s 168 yards rushing on 47 carries in that Iowa game in 1988.  I caught up with AT thirty years later before a game at IU.  The Hoosiers were playing Ohio State.  I asked him if he had any eligibility left.  He told me he didn’t want any.  Smart man, as always.

I took this picture on a new turf that was still being painted (you don’t see any hashmarks).  That this will one day be the BIG 10 logo is something I am still processing.  But it sure is fun.

When the Bruins come calling to Bloomington for the first time or the Trojans come calling for the first time since 1981 when they defeated IU 21-3, I will be able to say, “Welcome.  I knew you when.”

And the Bruins, not the Hawkeyes, will be my second favorite Big Ten team.

Danny Johnson

Twenty-two years ago today, my dear wife, Carrie, and I pushed our way through the turnstile at McCormick Field in Asheville, North Carolina to take in a game Class A Minor League Baseball game between the Asheville Tourists and the Cape Fear Crocs hailing from downstate Fayetteville.

I have long been a fan of minor league baseball.  The fans.  The stadiums.  The cheaper concessions.  The goofy and enjoyable promotional gigs in between innings, be it racing a mascot or making a participant dizzy by making them  bend forward and hold their forehead to the end of a bat handle and go around in circles and then try to run to a target and invariably one of them stumbles and falls and it is all good fun.  Myron Noodleman may have played your stadium.  I saw his act at many a minor league park.

June 26, 2000 was different.  The game lasted all of 1 hour and 49 minutes.  Yes, this was a nine inning game.  Julio de Paula was pitching for the Tourists and Cristobal Rodriquez was tossing for the Crocs.  Rodriquez threw a complete game giving up one run on only five hits.  de Paula did better.  Coming into the evening with a 2-7 record that could get you a visit to see the manager for the “toughest thing a manager has to do,”  Julio de Paula threw a no-hitter.  He gave up one walk.  The Tourists won the game and dePaula was carried off the field.  It was a thrill to behold and that evening has not been lost on me twenty-two years later.

Carrie and I have made more visits to McCormick Field over the years.  This one is still the gem on that diamond for us.   The headline in the Asheville Citizen -Times sports page the next day was A McCormick Gem.  That it was.  That it was.  Thank you to Tyler Norris-Goode for a great write-up of the game and to photographer Steve Dixon for capturing a photo that gives a great account of the moment we so enjoyed that evening.

If you can make it to Asheville for a game, McCormick Stadium is a sight to behold.  Up the hill off the main road, when you walk out and see that tree-lined outfield, you know you are somewhere special.  You don’t have to decide in the sixth inning.

Today the Ole Miss Rebels bring a 1-0 series advantage in the best 2 out of three College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.  I have some kin there watching.

Go Rebs Go!

A few days ago, as I was walking on the North Harrison campus, I took a stroll inside the fence of the baseball park.  There is plenty of room to walk!  The centerfield wall is 380 feet out there.

For a few seasons this was my vantage point as I was the DJ and the Public Address Announcer.

Well, the Rebs play in a few hours.  Hope they can pull it off in two.  Hotty Toddy to you!

Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson

On January 23rd I made it known on these pages that I was taking a hiatus from speaktherights.com; I indicated I was working on a chunky piece of writing I needed to complete.

In the unplanned interim, I made posts about the Mississippi State University Library unearthing a John Grisham commencement speech I shared with my students; the Easter season; Henry David Thoreau; Mississippi memories in honor of my Aunt Thula who passed recently; and positive words about the difficult month of May.

In the space since January 23, I finished my ambitious writing project and I am most proud of it.  It clocks in at more than 192,000 words.  Whether it sees the light of day depends on the right publisher.  We shall see.  Any writing perspective I can share with my students is a victory.

I finished the work sitting on a porch at a place my dear wife, Carrie, and I have frequented in The Berkshires. There was no shiver up the spine when I placed the final punctuation mark.  In fact, similarly to a song writing itself, which some of mine certainly have, this writing was finished before I knew it.  That was a pleasant feeling, as there was no pressure as how to wrap it up.  It was over before I knew it was.  I have said it a thousand times.  If you want to make God laugh, tell Him what your plans are.  There’s a lesson.

If you are staying in a hotel thirty-three miles from Walden Pond, you go to Walden Pond.  This was my fourth sojourn to Walden Pond.  It was cloudy and very cool.  I could have used long britches.

There is a nice polite trail around the pond that is narrow and respectful.

The two views above are across from each other.  Cool temps and mid-week yielded a sparse crowd.  I walked hundreds of yards at a time without seeing another human soul.

This photo is one of my favorites.

A replica of Thoreau’s house he built there.

My office on Lake Erie for three days of writing in Willowick, OH.

We met a few new friends there.

Carrie and I have grabbed a sandwich at a  Brattleboro, Vermont deli and rode up a hill to a baseball diamond to have lunch many times on the way to see our friends in New Hampshire.  What a great place to play baseball and to picnic.

This was taken in Erie, PA.

In 2013, when Carrie was studying nonstop while I was enjoying our stay at Williamsburg, VA, on a whim I got us tickets to see the music group Train perform at Virginia Beach.  Carrie was a fan.  I became one that night.  A week ago today we saw them at SPAC.  The Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York.  Train follows us for some reason.  We have seen them at SPAC three times.  2015, 2017, and 2022.  Since we have been going to see them, they have not made a stop in Louisville.

Others on the bill last week were Blues Traveller and Jewel; they were both quite good.  We sat in bag chairs and took the atmosphere in.  The SPAC pavilion is in the background.  When Train came on we sat our chairs next to a tree and took our seats.  Yes, the chairs were waiting for us after the show.

This was the largest crowd Carrie and I had seen since July 2019 in Nashville when we saw Train and The Goo Goo Dolls at the Ascend Amphitheater downtown.  Train brought the goods last week.

A few nights ago I had the privilege of taking my Dad to see Justin Hayward sing in Knoxville, Tennessee at the Bijou Theatre.

We had a great time.

Remember this name, if you have not heard it yet: MIKE DAWES.

Look Mike Dawes up on youtube. Justin did.  And he found a winner.  How Justin has held on to this kid for nine years is amazing.  He adds so much to the arrangements that are becoming classics themselves, given the current line-up of talent Justin has with him.  Julie Ragins, singing and playing keyboard, and Mike have been with Hayward since he started his solo shows in 2013.  Add flautist-singer Karmen Gould, who studied at Indiana University, and that little stage sounds a great deal larger.

Mike leads off the show with thirty of the fastest minutes in music.  There is not time to keep up with everything he is doing with that guitar. Makes me want to sell my guitars.  It is amazing.  Do take time and look this guy up.  You’ll thank me later.

In the 1988 Moody Blues song Vintage Wine, Hayward wrote a line:

And the lights go up on the empty stage…

They sure did.

Dad and I were sitting on the front row.  And the sound was still pristine.  That is not a guarantee.

Justin sang songs spanning the 60s to 2013, his latest solo effort.  We heard Tuesday Afternoon, The Voice, Question, Nights in White Satin, Your Wildest Dreams, The Actor, Driftwood, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere, Never Comes the Day, Forever Autumn, and more.

When I was heading to a concert in April of 1992 and my buddy Tim Mullins asked the question, “How long can they keep going?” as I was heading to see The Moodies for the sixth time since I first saw them at age 18 in 1986, I thought I knew something when I told him if I get three more shows in I will be good with that.  Well, thirty years and from Red Rocks to The Newberry (SC) Opera House, I have seen more than nine shows.

Though Justin has been kind giving me a nice promo to thank Robert Becker when he hung up his Radio DJ mic, he has not granted me an interview here and I have requested via the proper channels on a couple occasions.  My interview would be short.  Through all of the concerts, record collection, posters, videos. photos both tangible and in my mind, I just have one question.

American rock and rollers turn to The Beatles as the influence.  How many times have you heard it or read it?  The Ed Sullivan Show changed everything.

But for the British boys and girls, the name you hear over and over is Buddy Holly.  The guy who showed them they can write their own songs and make it happen their way.

My question?

What if Buddy Holly had lived?  What then?  No mantle to pick up?  Or not?

We’ll never know.  I know in my own musical life, when Tim Krekel died in 2009, recording a new album fell more on me.  Everything sounded different.  We carried on.  Ten years later on album number three, with the help of Jefferson Carpenter and a host of great players, I finally heard a Danny Johnson album for the first time; I enjoyed it and I missed Tim the whole time.

I have my suspicions of what Jus’ answer would be.  Some mysteries were made to be exactly that I suppose.

Though we only had a few minutes, it was good to catch up with Julie Ragins.  The last time Carrie and I had real speaks with her was before the Nashville show in 2019.

While you are checking out music, don’t forget to look for Pear Duo, Julie and her husband Curtis Brengle can lay down some sweet tunes.  7 Fairway Drive, oh my.  Thank me later.

Speaking more than I had planned; it has been a while.

Danny Johnson

May 2022.  Wow what a month it has been.  I just finished my first year of classroom teaching since the 2001-2002 school year.  Yes, that would be twenty years.  Thanks to all the students and their parents for being patient with this old educator.  Yes, I did get emails from self-proclaimed “helicopter moms”.  I would have never called them that.  I am delighted they communicated with me and I hope I made them feel comfortable doing so.  It was a good time.

North Harrison has some wonderful students.  We are blessed, also, for having a school staff we can all be proud of.  I mean this.  There is not a single person in the high school I see and want to turn around and walk in the other direction.  I AM SERIOUS!  Believe me.  This is a man who has worked for six different schools and was called back to work at two of them.  The first time Medora called me back I stayed 13 years.  Last summer North called me back and I hope and pray this will be my last stop.

The last week of school I asked students to complete the assignment above.  This was the best FINAL EXAM I ever gave.  They were all on their honor.  I did not ask to see them.  But, three of them came my way.  I did read them.  And I was honored to do so.  They were addressed to me.

The Kentucky Derby has a soft spot with me.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I watched the 2014 Derby at the home of Mike and Bonnie Hunsucker in Medora, Indiana.  Mike was losing a battle with cancer.  This was the last time we laughed heartily together.  The Derby means more now.  I don’t care about the horses much.  I loved Mike.  I love Bonnie.

I added this photo on the Quote of the Day, a practice I make so each day.  My students know that Millard Dunn is my English teaching mentor.  An English professor, Millard and Henry David Thoreau are why I am where I am today (in additon to scores of others).  The photo of Millard was taken at Jeff Carpenter’s studio as we were rueing over song lyrics in November 2016.  This was a day dreams are made of.  Rod Wurtele (The Wulfe Brothers) was there too.

I took this picture of sweet Kimber when son Cody was visiting from Nashville recently.  I have a soft spot for this puppy.

Speaking of puppies…

My North Harrison colleague, Josh Swarens, was walking this precious hound down the hallway recently and I just had to take a photo.

This was my final goodbye photo after the North Harrison Drama Club presented the last performance of THE GREAT GATSBY.  These kids did a GREAT job.

Old Sport, indeed!  What a GREAT bunch of young people.

This month we lost our Aunt Thula.  She was a wonderful woman.  Her home was like a sweet sanctuary for me.  I feel blessed that I was able to share this place with my wife, Carrie, and our boys, Jarrett and Cody.  That porch behind us is a cathedral in my heart.

I get emails from all over asking me to come to their games.  Places I have ordered tickets, college football,  ask me to come back.  I have been to The Rose Bowl twice to see UCLA host USC and it is still the most magical college football setting I have ever been blessed to be a part of.  So says the man who got to kick a couple field goals in an empty Rose Bowl.   I DID NOT MISS.

So, why am I so disgusted when I open my Indiana University ticket account and see a photo supposedly promoting IU Football and the photo looks like one taken when the Hooisers are getting their rears handed to them by Ohio State?  Pitiful!  In spite of what lives in the promotions department in Bloomington, I still root for the Hoosiers.  But, they still need to get their heads out of their rearends.

I told you!  They looked daunted to me.

Though it was painful, I did break the seal on this 3LP set.  It was better than I imagined.  I am glad I broke the seal.  I was dumbfounded how the this sounded BETTER than the CDs that came out before the vinyl did.  Excellent.

Finally, I stood against the fence at North Harrison High School’s baseball field and realized, at 380 feet away there was a reason why I have seen a ball fly out there.  Danny Schmidt is no longer the coach and I propose we move this fence in.  He may have not wanted to lose a game by a homer, but we are also removing a chance by winning one too.

The Merry Month of May Indeed!

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

Mississippi Revisited

This was originally posted in 2017.  I need to add an addendum here.  Look, I have been a blessed man.  I know that.  Today, I wish I could have been in Mississippi to say goodbye to my Aunt Authula Crout.  I’m not sad.  She was 95.  She lived a life most of us would dream of living.  Simple.  True.  Loving.  Tough.  Honest.  Classy.  Funny.  My Aunt Authula was all of those things and more than I will know.  Aunt Thula’s funeral was held today. I wish I could have been there to hug the necks of Janet, Bobbi Sue, Joyce, and Doyle (Fred Biletnikoff)…an inside joke.  I love them all so.  I have been in Indiana my entire life.  My sojourns to Mississippi are too sweet to mention.

This was the last time I saw Aunt Thula in December of 2019.  I hope I make it back to that most important front porch of my life.  I want to sit there and write for a while.

From 2017…

A few days ago my dear wife, Carrie, my sister, Lynn, and my niece, Katie, visited family members in Mississippi. It was the first time we had been there since 2013 and that is shameful. As much running around as Carrie and I do, we need not wait four more years to get back. I say it again, it is shameful.

We had a great time. It was a wonderful visit. It always works out that way even when Carrie and I are walking at 8 in the morning to get a little exercise and the bright sun there is already strong enough to take the hide off of you. How do they practice football in this, I asked. I know…they are used to it. I am not. But that is not to say that I do not like it. The air there is much more kind to my pipes that the crud we are relagated to breathe in and out in Southern Indiana. Like the Berkshires, I’ll take the Mississippi air to take in and out any day, sun or no sun.

We saw Uncle Stanley and Aunt Reat. They are in a nursing home in Morton, Mississippi. Neither one of them can get around too well. Uncle Stanley can make out what you have to say to him if you can keep your voice long enough to do it. You have to speak up a great deal. Though he can’t hear and can’t see very well, he still has his wit about him. He was the only one on the visit to bring up the political spectrum in this country. Pleasantly, we agreed on the dim horizon from “left” to “right”.

Aunt Reat is an inspiration. She told us she never thought she would ever be in the spot she is in…in a nursing home. She was then quick to bring out the fact that many others there have it much worse than she does and that she is thankful and still has a great deal to live for. She is tough. It was hard to say goodbye to them. She’ll be 90 her next birthday.

We also had a visit with Aunt Barbara. This is another self-procliamed “tough old sister”. That is what she said in 1989 when it started to rain at an Ole Miss-Arkansas football game she and I were attending. I asked if she wanted to find cover. She set me straight.

Aunt Barbara’s husband, my Uncle Durwood Hines, was the first of the 17 brothers and sisters born to W.E. and Levi Jane Hines to leave us. He died of a brain tumor in April of 1988…April 18th to be exact. I know where I was when I got the call from my mother that day.
We still talk football, Aunt Barbara and I do. She still works fulltime. She will be 82 in less than a month. We also enjoy taking in a meal together. We ate catfish on Tuesday night at a place called The Cock of the Walk along the Ross Barnett Resevoir not far from Jackson. It was a feast. The best fresh water fish in the world.

Our last stop was at Uncle Carlton and Aunt Wanda’s house. Carlton Hines is the youngest of the 17 Hines children. He is 70 these days. He does not look it. I have all his white hair. He and I have a shared interest in music and football and we held forth on both subjects with earnest vigor sitting on his back deck while the ladies shared stories inside. It was an old-fashioned meeting of sorts. Carrie did come out to join us eventually. Our time there went by so quickly it is sad.

If there is one constant in geography and personage, it is a country road, maybe Old Hillsboro Rd, I really am not quite completely certain and I don’t have to be because I know the way. It is the same road that my parents drove on to the same house we visited in the 1970s,80s, 90s, 2000s, 10s. Five decades rolling up to the same house.

My Aunt Authula moved into this house in 1952. He her husband, Everett Crout, planted Sycamores in 1953. They are prominent on the property today along with an array of other tall and wide trees including Oak, Magnolia, Pine, and others I don’t know quite as well. My leaf collection was puny in the 9th grade Biology.

I do know I shot some ball on this hoop as a child.

Only in Mississippi could I get artsy with a basketball goal.

The back of the house.

Aunt Authula will be 91 this month. Like the house she still lives in, though Uncle Evertt passed many years ago, the place is still like it was in so many ways when I was young. There is a peaceful sensibility about the front porch where my Grandaddy Hines dipped snuff and took note of the weather. It is the Ryman Auditorium of front porches to me. I considered it a hallowed spot.

So does Carl. Carl, you are in the midst of greatness. I hope you appreciate it.
And so it goes. Mississippi is as sweet as ever. A much better place than given credit for or understood. But I suppose you have to know a thing or two to appreciate it, like anything else. Thank God I know what I know. Hope I can hang on to it, even if only in my mind.
Speaking the Mississippi rights…
Danny Johnson

There is nothing wrong with aiming high and dreaming of achievement.  There is an old adage about belief and achievement. Hopefully my students have caught on to a little of this.   My hope is to leave students with knowledge and creativity for utilizing the English language.  Communication is the key.  Relating opens the door.

I am blessed beyond measure to be able to go on wonderful nature walks with no need to do anything with my automobile besides waving goodbye to it in the driveway as I walk on.

Yesterday I went on a 5 mile hike and after play practice today I walked a couple miles.  There is a hill across the road behind my dear wife, Carrie’s, cousin’s house.  I made it up to the top of that hill for the first time yesterday.  Know that I have lived across the road from this hill for more than twenty years.  I have hiked in every other direction many times over and over.  I had heard about the field at the top of the hill.  I must say I have never seen anything like it.  The path up the hill is steep and winding.  Not quite the long and winding road.  A quarter of a mile up and a much increased heart rate later, one can find something special.

Finally, wishing I had a bottle of water later.  It was all worth it and very much worth the wait.  Yes, I had heard it was a lovely spot.  And I went back again today.

Through the woods, up the hill, and then…

Pictures don’t give this space its due.  This is a thimble of the expansive piece of flat land on top of this hill.  The last time I felt so moved by the landscape in front of me was a walk around Walden Pond.  Henry David Thoreau knew what he was doing.

Down from the hill across the road, I took to the lane behind the house and took a few great pictures.  I won’t lie.  The flat land was a friend.

I always say that when the light is right you have a good chance with any camera.

Just about where I turned around and headed for home.

The play is next weekend!  How about these posters designed by Clay Brown of Celery Signs!  Very nice.

This is only post #7 of 2022.  Enjoyed it.

Love one another.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Hello, Group.

It is good to be back.

The Easter Holiday is special to me on so many levels.

Memories of my childhood and the great Easter Sundays I spent at the Brownstown Baptist Church.  I can still hear that choir sing, “UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE!”  That I can still hear it all so clearly is a musician’s blessing.  I know how fortunate I am.

This is the church I was married in back in 1996 to my dear wife, Carrie.  John Abbott married us.  For years, including 2022, John and I went back and forth each February 10th.  I never ceased to thank him.  John passed away recently.  But I know that was just a new beginninig.  Good Easter to you, John.

Easter is new life.  Walking around the last few days and a couple weeks ago on the North Carolina coast, I thought I would share a few photos.

I never tire of looking forward to see the sun come up in the morning.  Whether it is over the railroad tracks below the Tunnel Hill bridge or the North Carolina coast.

For me, the water offers a new perspective that is bright and full of possibility.

A couple Saturdays ago I was at Indiana University Southeast doing a little writing.  I was the only one in the room and it was a peaceful experience.  What I learned in some of those classrooms I now hope I can pass along to my students.

It was nice to walk around the old place again.

Speaking of walking.  I enjoy walking along St. Louis Road toward Milltown.  I have mentioned this many times on these pages.  The photo above was taken a month or so ago.  There is no way I can put together all the photos I would like to share.  This is the first post I have made since early March, I think.  And only the second one in two months or so.

Yesterday I took a long walk.

What a lovely day it was yesterday.

After a while on the paved road, I decided to take the walk behind the house and into the woods and say hello to a busy and raised Blue River.

It won’t be long.  These woods will be filled with leaves and more critters and I don’t know what all.  It is very sweet to pay a visit when the woods are teeming with new life.  Thanks be to God!

My how things change in thirty-seven years.  Last night was the return of the United States Football League.  It was a spring football league that lasted from 1983 to 1985. Last night in the Louisville televison market, you could tune in to watch this game on either WAVE 3 or WDRB 41.  When the USFL was televised all those years ago, the Louisville ABC affiliate did not carry the games.  They differed.  Be glad you have no idea how difficult it was to make out those football games watching them from a grainy over the air signal from Channel 7 in Evansville.  But that is what my Dad and I did.  Last night, it was all there in HD for the Louisville market to enjoy.  New life.

Good Easter to you!

Speaking the rights for the first time in a while…

Danny Johnson

Nearly twenty years ago I printed off a speech that was made by John Grisham, the noted author of what we call “legal thillers”.

This particular speech was ten years old at the time.  It was made at the commencement of the 1992 graduating class of Mississippi State University.

A native of Southaven, Mississippi, not far from Memphis, John Grisham was a 1977 graduate of Mississippi State.  He got his undergrad in accounting before he trotted from Starkville northwest to Oxford and on to law school at Ole Miss.  In 1984, as a young trial lawyer, John Grisham took out a legal pad and began writing a story called A Time to Kill.  That story was published and by the time he made his commencement speech in Starkville for that 1992 graduating class, he had three books to his credit.  Today the number of books John Grisham has produced is over 40.  His books have sold more than 300 million copies and have been translated into more than 40 languages worldwide.

Enough of the John Grisham public service announcement.

So on a Wednesday, it was May 8, 2002, I printed that particular1992 Mississippi State commencement speech that John Grisham delivered.  Why I printed that speech is a mystery to me.  At the time I was not teaching seniors and I was a year away from seeing a high school graduating class to the finish line as a school counselor which is something I did for a long time.

For twenty years I have always known where I could put my hands on this speech.  Oh it has changed from cabinet to cabinet and from drawer to drawer, but I have always known where I could find it.  Why?  I have no idea.  But, believe it or not, it came in handy recently as I was teaching English in Room 104 at North Harrison High School in Ramsey, Indiana.  Things just work out that way sometimes.  When they do, you are thankful and you move on.

Above is the paper I printed off in 2002.  I suppose I can relate to the quote to the left of his picture.

“If you’re sitting out there now with a nice, neat little outline for the next ten years, you’d better be careful.  Life may have other plans.”

I often give a refrain that goes like this, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

So as I was lesson planning, I looked for this speech and was delighted to put my hands on it in quick fashion.  Twenty years on, I knew where it was sitting.

Unaccountable with just this paper copy, I knew I needed more.  I told myself that if I was going to share this with my students, my reading of this speech (which I dearly love and appreciate) just wouldn’t do for me or my students.  Action was needed.  I wanted to find a video of this speech.  Even though google and youtube could not locate it, I knew it had to be out there somewhere.

A very simple “chat with someone” on the Mississippi State University Library page turned into a mission.  And to my academic, spiritual, and simple delight, I was shocked that folks in Starkville, Mississippi wanted to make it their mission too.  A call out to share with my students turned into an all out media history search at State.  Four days and an exchange of more than ten emails later, the video of this speech was found and yesterday I had the chance to share it with some of my students.

In earnest, I did not believe this would be pulled out of Mississippi State’s maroon hat.  Therefore, I had already showed my students John Grisham’s 2010 UNC-Chapel Hill commencement address.  Guess what?  With the additonal ability to view Grisham’s 1992 address to the State grads, we were able to….wait for it…compare and contrast!!!!  Get those Venn Diagrams flowing!

Yesterday we watched the 1992 Mississippi State commencement speech by John Grisham in Room 104 at North Harrison High School in Ramsey, Indiana. Under the QUOTE OF THE DAY, I added the names of Julie Shedd, Jennifer McGillan, Emily Harrison, Paul Huddleston, and Li Zhang.  These kind folks in Starkville, Mississippi went to work for North Harrison students and I am so grateful.

As an additional point of reference, I can easily lay my hands on a book by S.E. Hinton called The Outsiders.  There is a post it note that puts me right to one particular page whenever I need to read it.  The words I read, when life tells me to do so, are:

“There’s still lots of good in the world.”

Some kind folks at the Mississippi State Library reminded me of just that this past week.  I am so thankful.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson