I took this from turn 3 at Newkirk Track around Cook Field at Paoli High School yesterday.  The place is a lovely sight to behold. The fact that I can look at it on more days than not now is a sincere reason for thanks.

We are all at the starting line of the most unusual and scary new school year any one of us can ever remember.  In earnest, I hope we all make it.  There are arguments from both sides and a few other corners, I suppose, about how things need to be.  My hat is off to those charged with more leadership than I.  The circumstances of 2020 were never in a syllabus or class outline in programs that dealt with school administration.  This is as close to walking on the moon as we will ever know.  The world is a different place.

Thanks to my colleagues at Paoli for helping me along in the early going of this place in time.  I do appreciate you a great deal.

My memory has few rivals.  I am speaking of my ability to recall and recollect with a great deal of accuracy.  Though I love to put words and sentences together, numbers stick in my head.  Ball game scores and dates hang with me for some reason.

Though I admit I am not as talented as I once was, there was a time whilst enrolling a student, that I could often look at their birth date and tell them what day they were born on.  I had reference points in my head.  Be a concert or a ball game, those were the two biggies.

I was asked what I miss the most about being “kept in” during this national and world tragedy that we are all living through.  I miss the honest and calm interaction with people that we once had.  Be it the virus that is hurting us or the political climate that wants to tear us apart, I miss folks just sitting in a room  chewing the fat and just “being”.

In quiet times in my mind when I look around any room that I knew during better days, that is what I yearn for.  I am prepared to deal with that reality, a longing for a more peaceful day that was not too long ago, at least as prepared as I think I can be.  Somehow there seems to be a new level of lack of thought or threat from some direction that can still raise my brow and turn my head sideways like a beagle hound trying to figure out what in the world is going on here.

Young folks are dealing with more than I ever had to deal with.  I feel guilty about that.

I wish I could take them through a time portal and land in a hay field and we are all pitching hay and chewing Levi Garrett as we try to hold a conversation over the hum of the tractor that is pulling the wagon we keep time with like a symphony.  It is a beautiful movement.  I raise my forearms from the keyboard I am typing on right now and wonder how they ever recovered.  I was one of those stubborn so and so’s who did not want to wear a long sleeve shirt while pitching hay or straw or sticking tobacco.  My forearms got ate up.  I enjoyed every bit of it. Mind you I did wear long britches in the field.  I did not compromise that.  Lord it was hot on some of those days.  And the best thing was we did not care.  Back then 4 bucks an hour could buy a great deal of Levi Garrett I can tell you. And we were not without a cassette or two of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” floating around. Those semoleons could also get us to a cool movie house for the 9:30 show if we hustled.  We usually did.

In my office at school and in our home, there are photos of places my dear wife, Carrie, and I have been.  In many of these photos we are in the shot.  I did not expect to travel to as many places as we have over the years.  It just turned out that way.  One thing I have learned is that if you stop and over-analyze things too much, you may never get anywhere.  I have trusted my gut instinct.  I have listened intently for guidance.  I have prayed a great deal.  And more often than not, I have heard the words “go”.  Or in the vernacular of Pastor Duke Lackey’s sermon titled “Do This”.

Some of those dates still stick in my memory year after year.  I see the date on the morning paper and say to myself “In (inset the year) this (insert the occasion) happened”.

The last travel of any great significance Carrie and I engaged in was in December after Christmas.  By this time in recent calendar years we have seen the North Carolina shore a couple of times and spent a couple weeks in New England taking in the cooler air that is kinder to my bothersome pipes.  I see pictures of some of this travel and it looks a dream.

Dates stick out in my head.  That is for sure.  I was asked to share some of these.  I told them if I did, there would be more here than we have time for.  Do it anyway, we’ll get to it in more than one sitting if we have to.  I will keep the culprit anonymous so you don’t have anyone to blame but me.

I wish I had kept all my ticket stubs.  I got on a mean streak one day many years ago and tossed a bunch of stuff I probably thought I would never want to see again.  That is all I think.  But I am very glad I have held on to memories that I have talked about with friends and family lately.  Good times.  Good times.

I’ll tell you about a few of them in no particular order.

Carrie said she wanted to see Brett.  I told her about Fall Break plans I made.  She said let’s go see Brett Farve play.  One of my friends said, “You’re a lucky man, Cheeze.”  He’s right!  Vikes won 33-31.  Hauschka missed a field goal on the last play of the game.

The Moodies at The Gardens in 1988 for $15.50.

I took a hiatus from listening to others while I was finding my own sound from 1999 to 2002.  By 2003 I was ready for another Moodies concert.  They debuted songs from their new December holiday album which was their last original recordings.

Russell Harrell and I drove over to Champaign to see IU lose this one.  Saw Anthony Thompson score his last touchdown.  Jeff George lit the Hoosiers up 41-28.

In what lives as a special tradition to this day, my Aunt Barbara and I talking football, this is the ticket stub of the first game we went to in Jackson in 1989.  Uncle Durwood passed away in 1988 to a brain tumor.  Aunt Barbara and I have been pals ever since.  I spoke with her Friday about the prospects of the new season and how Mississippi will have fun one day with Mike Leach at State and Lane Kiffin now at Ole Miss.

Eli Manning’s senior year.  Cody and I went to Nashville.  It was 96 degrees for the Jefferson-Pilot kickoff.  24-21 Rebs win on a LONG field goal.  A good kicker can save some bacon for sure.

The last Ole Miss game Aunt Barbara and I attended.  Eli threw for the most yards he ever had in a Rebel victory.  43-40 was the final.  Had they played fifths instead of quarters, might not have worked out so well.  The Rebs squandered a large lead.

I have said it before.Giving my Dad a chance to walk into the Rose Bowl and Notre Dame Stadium are highlights for me.  I think he enjoyed it too.

Another story to relive.  As we were listening to Paul sing “Hey Jude” I thought if only we could get all the folks throwing rocks at each other together to sing along with this, they’d stop throwing rocks.  The next morning as we were leaving our hotel I got a call from Jarrett.  Turns out while we were sing Hey Jude, he was in a Chinook over Iraq that crash landed with a little help.  It was a long drive back home from Nashville.

The last Moody Blues concert we attended.  I was 18 when I saw the first.  49 when I saw the last.

A stop over in Greensboro to see The Key.  Alicia Keys.  One of the best shows I have ever seen.

Me and my dear friend, Corner King Lincoln.  This was our last cruise.  The Moody Blues in Ft. Wayne.  On August 26 that year, he left us.

The most significant game ever played in Bloomington with national implications.  It was Penn State’s first visit to Indiana and it cost them the national championship.  Chris Dittoe came in as the back-up quarterback, as I remember, and his mop up duty turned a 35-13 game into a 35-29 game.  The Hoosiers scored on a fluke of a pass on the last play of the game and went for two and made it.  This result was an eye test that cost a 12-0 Nittany Lions team a National Championship.

An awkward flyover by a military cargo plane changed me.  I came to see a Bengals loss at the hands of Eli Manning.

This funky sideways flyover DID ME IN.

What I would give for a phone like we have now on this day.  I married into a family of Dolphin Fans.  Carrie’s Dad, her brother, and Jarrett and I went to see the Fins play the Colts.  Had a great time.

Heard Brian Wilson sing a song I had never heard before at the Tanglewood Shed.  Have not been so moved by a song since.

Talk about good times.  Thank you, Bob Biddle.  Ticket was given to me.  

I don’t know if I have ever seen such a mass of humanity.

I shocked Carrie with these as we were in Willamsburg, VA.  She was working on school certifications and studying her butt off.  I told her we were going to see Train.  I knew she would like it.  Well, I was blown away.  We have seen them six times since, including two time in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Finally got my sister to see The Moody Blues!

This was the first time Carrie and I saw Justin Hayward play a solo show.  It was on the way back from Fall Break.

I will never forget the night Pat Conroy grabbed my shoulder when I told him I had been an English teacher for a long long time and said, “I wanted to be you.”  I told him he never stopped teaching.

A proud moment.  The concert was at Kings Island.  While trying to impress the young lady I with at the time, I took her over close to the Twin Racer roller coasters were and asked her which stuffed animal she wanted.  She pointed to one.  It was the football throw.  Throw that football through a hoop that it can barely make its way through.  I took the ball and did a perfect impression of a Ken Anderson five step drop.  I threw it and it hit nothing but the back of tent behind that little circle.  The old boy told me he would give me everything on display if her could.  Then I carried a huge stuff bear to the car so we could continue our day.  The Moodies were great, of course.

Good times.  Good friends.  Hotter than…fill in the blank!  Was so delighted Brother Tim got us to T-Town for this weekend.  I am so grateful.

A while after this game my brother, Darrell, was about to embark on a mission trip living in a homeless shelter for a year’s time.  I am thankful we got to see his beloved Twins and watching batting practice around the cage before the game.  Good times.

Y’all know what is going on here, don’t you?

I am reliving good times during so much uncertainty and I could go on.  I just hope we are one day set free from this bad cloud.

We got a football season to look forward to!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Oh my.

Spoiler alert.  I am about to sound like a crotchety old fogy.  I don’t want to.  It just happens that way.

Music.  I love music.  Always have.  That won’t change.  Regardless of what the music business does to screw up music, my love for the tunes that move me will never cease to move me.

I walked 4 and half miles today and I listened to tunes I love.  Later in the day I spent 30-some minutes on an elliptical watching and listening to The Moody Blues live from the Greek Theatre in 2005.  When I exercise I will listen to and enjoy tunes doing so.

I have gotten acclimated, swallow real hard, to listening to Amazon music when I walk.  We pay for it, I suppose.  There is an Amazon Prime membership that factors in there somewhere.

Today I read a story about Pink Floyd’s 1983 album The Final Cut.  It was the last thing Roger Waters did as a member of Pink Floyd.  We don’t have time to get into the lineage of Pink Floyd or what is good bad or indifferent about that group.

The thing is, I heard a “dink” over my head and decided to go get my Pink Floyd Final Cut CD off the shelf to listen to for the first time in a very long time.  Then, I turned my head sideways.  No way, I thought.  No way Pink Floyd’s Final Cut is on the Amazon Music?  I am not talking about Amazon Music Unlimited.

I looked before I retrieved it from the shelf.  There it was on Amazon Music.  All I have to do is pull it up on my phone and use the blue tooth speaker and listen to this album like I always have.

I struggle with this.  I really do.  Show of hands of how many of you remember certain groups or solo artist whose CDs would not come below the 14.99 mark back in the day?  If you wanted Pink Floyd back in the day, you were gonna pay!  I think I got my copy of The Final Cut for 17.99 on CD a long time ago.  I am listening to it now.  It is my favorite Pink Floyd album.  Politically charged music it was then.  But I suppose that concept is a thing of the past.  Guess whomever makes the purse string decisions regarding music and politics found a calculus that did not add up.  How else can you figure a lack of protest music today?

I will tell you.  We have stretched ourselves music thin in this country.  Too late to bring the masses together with a tune.  That is museum stuff now.  Garth Brooks is playing Drive-In theaters.  “Nuff” said.

Me.  Time and life have seen me be fortunate enough to make music.  I must say it has all been a blessing to me.  In the world of music, I am a NOBODY.  I get that.  With that said, music is a NOBODY in these crazy times we are looking at outside our windows.  Oh yes, you can pay 100 bucks and go listen to Garth Brooks at a drive-in.  That makes me feel better.

In earnest, my songs are listened to.  That, I do like. Above is a page from my digital sales.

Will it make me money?  Not much.  I recently shared with a music artist of prominence my status in the world of digital music.  I told him that my tunes have been downloaded over 7000 times.  I have less than 10 dollars to show for it.

Don’t play music unless you love it enough to let it go.

When I was ten in 1978, a Bay City Rollers album cost about $7.99 for ten songs.  Pay that a month today and you can listen to anything. Convert those 8 bucks in 1978 to 32 bucks today.  God love my parents! I got all the BCR albums made.

I am a music rich man for sure!

Speaking the rights….

Danny Johnson

If you see me in a mask, don’t be offended.  I am trying to help both of us.

I got here on March 18th of 1968.  The morning I pushed my way into the world, something was wrong.  My lungs.  They were not ready for this world. My mother had to wait days to hold me. I don’t think my lungs were ready for this world.

With the exception to two quick trips to Denver, Colorado, I don’t think my lungs have served me like they are supposed to.  During those trips, I distinctly remember the freedom I felt when I could physically feel cool air hit places in my lungs I did not know existed.  One of those trips was in 2011 to see The Moody Blues play at Red Rocks.  The other was an education conference I attended in 2014.  I still hold those few days in high memory regard.

Before this year, the last six Carrie and I have headed to the Northeast for a couple of weeks.  The humidity and air quality there is much better.  Thanks to Covid, we had to cancel that trip this year.  I have felt it too.

I wear the mask.  I need it.

When I was in the 7th grade I could not play football.  Breathing problems.  This is not a good thing when your Dad is the head coach of the high school team.  It was miserable.

Made it through my 8th grade year.  I started allergy shots too.

My 9th grade football season was tough breathing wise.  I had an inhaler in my sock at all times.  There were times when I pushed myself beyond places I should have.  I still remember one day.  I was wrapped up in fresh cut grass trying to catch my breath…sucking on my inhaler mad at the world.  Coach Tim Harbison came over and calmed me down.  He told me he knew I was a football player,  when I wasn’t feeling like one.  I was sucking wind like Secretariat down the stretch and not catching near enough.

When my dear wife, Carrie, and I are not in the Northeast, we are on the North Carolina coast.  The air is kinder there too.  Truth is, I was not made for this Ohio Valley climate.  I deal with it.  I don’t like it.

In 2004 I had trouble breathing.  To the hospital I went.  An ambulance ride saw my blood pressure plummet.  There was doubt.

I had a heart cath.  Heart was good.  Breathing was not.

In the years since I have made the most of it.  I’m still here.

A week or so ago, without the benefit of a trip to The Berkshires and without an allergy shot since March 17th, I called my doc.  I couldn’t breathe without thinking long and hard about it.  Involuntary breathing is a gift folks.  Doc sent me a steroid and an antibiotic to my pharmacy.  We both knew it would clear me up.  It did.

I walked over nine miles today.  Loved it.  Enjoyed breathing in and out.  Am smiling about  it now.

Am about to start a new job at Paoli High School and I am so excited to do so.  Just know, this ole boy will probably wear a mask longer than the rest of you.  I call it self-preservation.  I love my life.  I want it to keep going for a while.

Now…That is speaking the rights!

Danny Johnson

Cue John Fogerty!  Lookin’ Out My Back Porch!

Just got home from Illinois I wish!

About this time of year for the last I don’t know how many, my dear wife, Carrie, and I usually head down the road for a little R and R.  No five papers with my name on them waiting at the bottom of the hill at The Country Store in the Berkshires.

Last year’s last haul of papers the morning we left.  Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Times, New York Daily News, and the Berkshire (Pittsfield) Eagle were waiting on me every morning.  I miss them.

For self-preservation purposes, we have not gone too far down the road in a while.  The last time we went anywhere over night was to Bloomington in February to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

We did spend the night in Illinois after Christmas on our way back from visiting with relatives in Mississippi.  Haven’t crossed the state line too many times since then.  Strange days indeed.

Went back and forth with an old friend yesterday via text message.  I still call him Mulllcat.  I have not seen Tim Mullins in longer than I can remember.  He’s one of those.  If you have a few of those in your life, consider yourself fortunate.  When we go back and forth via text or an all elusive phone call, it is just like we spoke at length the day before.  Wish I could explain.  Even more delighted that I cannot.  Our conversations usually ruminate from our shared joy of music.  He took me to see George Thorogood at Coyotes in Louisville back in December of 1993.  Seems the ceiling in the place was like twelve feet high.  We were leaning on the stage.  My hearing recovered by the next March when I saw The Moody Blues a couple times that month.

I took Mullcat to see The Moodies a few times.  We sure had a good time wherever we went.

I wish I had the motivation to get more writing done.  I have had great intentions.  I  put a nice tune together on the guitar a couple of days ago but just could not find the right words.  Oh I had some to go along.  But we are in a point in history when you want to get it right.  Mistakes are going to be blown up more than ever and there is a critic, for better or worse, around every corner.  I am trying to be realistic here, not cynical.

I think about the Greg Walker’s of the world and I say a prayer for all of them.  Greg is the superintendent of Paoli Community Schools.  He and all school superintendents are in a spot as we move forward with what to do as far as opening schools back up in August.  Surveys go out.  Dialogue flies back and forth.  Prayers are sent up.  You just want to do the right thing at the end of day.  It does not matter who gets the credit.  It is the unwarranted blame that bothers me. Leadership and competence certainly come with a price.  I am thankful for strong leaders.

As I said, I wish I had the motivation to do more writing these days.  I think back at when I turned 50 in 2018 and I wrote a post a day for the fifty days leading up to my birthday.  That is just too much ambition for me right now.

I hope and pray you and yours are doing well right now.  It is tough.  But we still need to find a way to…speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

I have never met someone who got married and said how much they are looking forward to getting a divorce.

Have yet to hear from a friend about how much they are looking forward to being in a car accident the next day.

When I was in the ninth grade, after an afternoon run on a frozen cross country course in February when the temperature was about 12 degrees, I was not looking forward to getting under a squat rack moments later with a frozen back and not being able to come back up with the weight I went down with.  My back has not been the same since.

Yesterday morning I was so excited.  I was heading into my office at Paoli High School to get some work done.  Working at the workplace is a joy after working from home for so long.

Still in the process of getting my office in order, aesthetically and otherwise, I was collecting some mini college helmets, most of which are of a local variety that I display and make reference to should the need arise.

These helmets were on the top shelf of my bookcase in my home office.  As I have done many many times to simply retrieve them, I took my metal retractable Air Force pointer and extended it to full length.  Reaching up with the pointer to connect with the face-mask of the helmet as a means to lower it.  It works every time.  Only yesterday it did not work.

There was a reaction to an action.  That sounds familiar.

As the Ball State helmet I had leveraged with the pointer was ready to be turned loose, the pointer, in my right hand, sprang back a couple of inches.  It was just enough distance to make contact with something on one of the shelves of the book case.  One of my many mementos on display.  The pointer somehow had to bring down the last thing on that shelf I would want to lose.  It is broken and so am I.

This thing broke because something went wrong.

My Great-Grandmother, Ivy Nowling, she lived in Brownstown on Bridge Street for 53 years, brought this back from Niagra Falls a VERY long time ago.  When my dear wife, Carrie, and I last visited the falls, I brought back some water from there to replace what had evaporated inside the little ceramic barrel over many decades.  Just looking at this picture makes me want to reach for something that is not even there.

My little barrel isn’t the only thing broken.  We have a country that is broken.  Something or some things have gone wrong.  The death of George Floyd in such a senseless, cruel fashion was the last straw for many.  Now, during a continuing Pandemic that has crippled the country, America is burning.

Cities are being shattered by protesters.  I sit on my comfortable couch in the middle of the woods in Southern Indiana and I see cities that Carrie and I have visited.  Many of them, including Minneapolis, have been wonderful to us.

I could go on and on about what is wrong with the protests.  I could also go on and on about what is right with the protests.  That is up to you for you.

Yesterday I saw a post on facebook that personified the US and THEM finger pointing so prevalent in America today.  Divide and conquer seems to be the recipe for politics today and it is backfiring.  Or it may be a case of…you asked for it…what the hell did you expect?

Three things rattle consistently in my head when I see this action being played out in real life and not in the candy land of social media that some seem set to rely on for an alternate reality seeped in fear and indifference:

3.  Billy Joel singing WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE.

2.  In the movie A TIME TO KILL when Matthew McConaughey’s character, lawyer Jake Brigance, was describing to white jurors the torture at the hand of white men that  happened to a young black girl…and in closing he asked the jury to imagine that the little girl was white.

Watching George Floyd die on television brought that back to me in a hurry.  I don’t think a white George Floyd gets a knee to the neck.  Do you?

In classrooms over the years I have talked to students about race issues.  Some hate it when I talk about the root cause of racism: fear and ignorance.

When I discuss race issues with students I tell them I have had my heart broken, been punched, been kicked, been shot at, been made fun of, been called names, and been considered by some as an outcast.  All this and I can’t tell you of one black person responsible for this catalog of ache.

1.  President Jimmy Carter and his Crisis of Confidence speech that included:

…First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: “We’ve got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.”

Are you prepared to help to change the course?  I hope so.  We can do better.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Had a good day when I took this photo at Topsail Island a couple years ago.

With no disrespect to those who lost their lives fighting for the freedom of this country, this Memorial Day Weekend feels a little different, doesn’t it?  At this writing nearly 100,000 American have died at the hands of an enemy we could not foresee.

Still there is time to take pause to remember and be thankful for those whose shoulders lifted the rest of us up to help us stay standing.  Thank you.  God Bless You.

In Boston, there is this moving place.

They gave it all they had.

New York where the towers fell.

So this year there will be no I – 5 this weekend.  I call the Indianapolis 500 the I – 5.  Don’t ask me why.  I just do.

I mentioned to a cousin in Mississippi yesterday that even though I live 45 minutes from Churchill Downs, not having a Kentucky Derby during the first Saturday in May 2020 did not really phase me much.  I watch the race and have some specific memories about it.  Most of those memories have little to do with the horse race.

The Indy 500 is different.  To know that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway won’t be roaring today makes me sad.

The First Winner 1911 with Ray Harroun behind the wheel.

I always tell my Mother the rain has to start and stop somewhere.

Yesterday I was caught up in proof of it as I walked.  Mostly sunny skies behind me and ominous skies in front of me.

When it started to lightning, I did an about face.  I did get more than 5 miles in yesterday and that was nice.

The Topsail Beach flag is flapping on the porch.  

Take care of each other!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

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