Oh my I had a great time yesterday.  My brother-in-law, Steven, and I went up to Seymour High School to the Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium, one of the largest high school gyms in the country, to watch the Lady Cats of North Harrison HS dismantle to the Lady Owls of Seymour.  That was so much fun.  The ladies played a tough game.  The refs seemed to let some rough stuff go and maybe that was a good thing.  Games like these prepare you to play another day.  With the 60-42 win over the Seymour squad, the Lady Cats are now 16-1.  Add that to the last two years and the team is 71-7 the last three years.  That is sooooo impressive.

The Lady Cats will return to Seymour to play in the Sectional thanks to some “Success Factor” rule made by the Indiana High School Athletic Association.  There were three class 3A teams that moved up to 4A given their success the previous two seasons.

Heritage Christian beat North Harrison in the 2016 State Finals.  Heritage moved to 4A this year.

South Bend St. Joseph’s beat North Harrison in the 2017 State Finals.  They moved to 4A.

North Harrison lost both of these championship games…but they too moved to 4A because of the ISHAA Success Factor Rule.

This makes me sick.

North Harrison is a public high school.  We don’t charge tuition.

Heritage Christian advertises a tuition of over $11,000.  It’s a private school.

St. Joseph’s is a private school.  Parishioners tuition is 7,000 and change and non-Parishioners tuition is 9,000 and change.

If you know anything about the dynamics of high school sports and the politics of being here, you probably know what I am getting at.

North Harrison is a victim of political circumstance.  Schools like North Harrison had nothing to do with the implementation of a rule like this.

What about 4A teams at the highest level…if they win three championships three years in a row are you going to tell them they can’t field a team for a season or two

This stinks and it slaps the face of country schools like North Harrison doing the right things to be successful.  But, don’t ask the IHSAA to care.  They don’t care about the country school.

It was bad enough in 1994, wasn’t that the last season we had single class basketball?

There had to be a great deal of whining associated with turning to class basketball.  The IHSAA decided more trophies needed to handed out…but I guess now you can only be so successful before you are penalized.  And now we know you can be penalized without winning it all.  That is pure stupidity.

The old Sectionals were Indiana institutions.  As a kid I went to the old Seymour Sectional.  It hosted all the county teams from Seymour to Medora.  Huge to the smallest. And we all loved it.  Next to the Jackson County Fair, this was the biggest social event of the year.  Those sectionals were played in the same gym I went to this past Saturday to watch the Lady Cats.

Now sectionals rotate among different schools and a point of reference we once knew we could look forward to, having the sectional at one familiar, welcoming spot, is gone.  Now I do know there are coaches who will argue with me.  They want to move it around to give all a sporting chance.  I guess that too comes with class basketball.  So be it.

One bonus about being in Seymour Saturday came to fruition as I hoped it would.  I met up with Dr. Bob Mahan.  He is the most accomplished school man I have ever known.  He was the superintendent of schools at North Harrison when my family moved here in 1979.  He left North a few years later to be superintendent at Seymour.  He has since worked on an interim basis at 9 different school systems needing his help and expertise.  He told me he reports tomorrow to Crothersville for the sixteenth year in a row to oversee that school while their chief, Terry Goodin, a State Legislator, is in session in Indianapolis.

I worked with Dr. Mahan during the 2007-2008 school year while he was the interim Superintendent at Medora Schools for a year.  It was a pleasure to spend time with him and I enjoy and appreciate our visits now more than ever.

In April of 2008, Dr. Mahan and his wife were at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville taking in a Moody Blues concert.  I saw him there, as I knew to look for him.  The mans knows music too.

Leading me to the sadness.

I got word today that Ray Thomas has died.  Ray was one of the original Moody Blues.  He was to be with the group at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in the coming April. Ray left the group in 2002.  He was not in the best of health and decided to hang it up.  Justin Hayward, John Lodge, and Graeme Edge have soldiered on ever since.

Ironically, the current Moody Blues were hosting a fourth “Moody Blues Cruise” when Ray died.  The band and other musical acts and a literal boat-load of Moody Blues fans were at sea to enjoy the music.  Ray’s passing was not announced until the cruise was ending. Certain this news would probably cause distress at sea, it was withheld.  I don’t blame them.

I saw Ray perform with The Moodies twenty-three times.  The last time I saw him was in September of 1999 at Deer Creek.

Ray is holding the flute in this picture and his autograph is above.  This photo celebrated the Red Rocks concert that marked the 25th anniversary of the album Days of Future Passed in 1992.  I saw the 50th anniversary concert in 2017.

A photo of a photo, this was taken in 1994….Ray is beating on the tambourine.

I’m sorry Ray won’t be at the Hall of Fame induction.  He was a Hall of Famer a long long time ago!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

This was the sunrise on the North Carolina shore my dear wife, Carrie, and I were looking at yesterday morning.  Yesterday the temperature got to the mid-50s and that was a heat wave my friends.  Right now we are in a warm hotel room in Asheville, North Carolina and there are cars running off the roads out there as I type these words.

After Carrie and I checked in to our hotel, we went walking around and it was spitting snow in this mountain town.  It is a beautiful place, I would suggest a visit to anyone.  That big house is not far, the Biltmore Estate, and the Asheville Tourists play baseball in the summer and there are more unique eateries here than you can begin to name.  Carrie and I settled on pizza after a wandering period.  We ate slowly and watched football on a large television and just enjoyed each other’s company and occasionally enjoyed the particular sound of a young man’s unique, genuine laughter sitting near us.

After our meal we went out to discover a light glaze of ice EVERYWHERE!  Our hotel was two blocks…uphill.  Where we could find dirt, we walked on it.  Where we could find a crack in the sidewalk, we hoped for traction from it.  In a town that had always been kind to us, we were wondering if we would make it up the hill without the aid of an ambulance.  We lived to tell the story.  I was worried.

It was the year in microcosm out there.  Never quite knowing what we were going to get and hoping and praying we would live through it.  I am glad this night will be over and a new year will begin tomorrow.

These photos we from the sound side of Topsail Island at the end of the day yesterday.

It was forever beautiful.  I wish I could have held it and Carrie together for just twenty minutes longer than we were given yesterday.  Note the bird on the dock.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a mess.  I knew it before the latest news.  On December 13th The Moody Blues’ nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was confirmed into Induction status and the ceremony is to be held April 14th in Cleveland.

The Moodies had never been nominated before, even though they had been eligible for induction since 1989 and had never gotten so much as a smell before this year.  Well, they got their nomination…and then they got more than what they had bargained for.  In it’s pathetic infinite wisdom, just before Christmas, the Hall of Fame included Denny Laine to the line-up of members of the band to be inducted.  That is a problem.

Denny Laine, Clint Warwick, Ray Thomas, Mike Pinder, and Graeme Edge were the first group of guys called The Moody Blues.  They lasted from 1964 to 1966.  Denny and Clint left.  The other three recruited Justin Hayward and John Lodge in the fall of 1966.  They released the classic Days of Future Passed album in 1967 and released six more albums through 1972.  These are called the Moodies’ core 7 albums.  In 1978 Mike Pinder left the band.  In 2002 Ray Thomas retired.  But, those five guys belong to the classic Moody Blues line-up.  I won’t argue that.  I never saw Mike Pinder play with them.

So the classic five member line-up finds out they are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Fine.  Then the Hall higher-ups decide Denny Laine, who never played with Justin Hayward and John Lodge in the group, is to be included.  Hogwash.  The only hit song that old Moody Blues recorded was the single “Go Now” (a song written by someone else)  and that is exactly what Denny Laine did.  He left leaving the door open for Justin and John to join and the band changed their image and the way they approached music and starting writing their own songs…the songs The Moody Blues are famous for.  You know…Nights in White Satin, Tuesday Afternoon, Question, Ride My See-Saw, I’m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band),  Your Wildest Dreams, The Voice, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere.

The real Moody Blues have had a career longer than 50 years of making great music.  Denny Laine wasn’t around long enough to buy a new pair of shoes.  But…Denny Laine did play in Wings with Sir Paul McCartney and that in itself holds more influence than the the two measly meaningless years he had playing with Ray, Mike, and Graeme.  Graeme has said as much as that the “Go Now” Moody Blues were not the real Moody Blues.

So on April 14th it is going to be odd there with Justin Hayward standing near to Denny Laine fifty-two years later and having never shared a stage before as band mates.  I suppose the real question is: How dumb is that.  Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Dumb…that is how dumb.

But that is where we are these days.  This is the dumb age.  Just watch the television news channels.  But, if you do that, I suppose that means you have taken sides.

I never expected to see such a divided country in my lifetime.  Me, a life-long Republican, I am embarrassed by what I see out of the GOP these days.

The problem, I think, is we are dealing with a leadership crisis.  It won’t get better for a long time.  The generation nearly two decades behind me, I will be fifty in March, will be the next group ready lead with brain cells in tact.

The children of the Summer of Love are in charge now and they are as lost now as they were then.  They argued in 1967 and they still argue and their vitriol has permeated and poisoned our country in the process.

Bridges are being built.

Here’s to 2018!  It has to get better!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

It is cold in on the shore of southern North Carolina.  I mean cold.  There is no snow.  There could be.  It is 32 degrees at nearly 5 o’clock this evening.  The wind is strong.  It is howling down from the North.  It is cold.

My dear wife, Carrie, and I have never been here in December before.  We have visited here many for many years now, but never in December.  What is good about that?  The place is desolate.  There are not many folks here.  It is peaceful, but then again it is always peaceful.  The air is clean and clean.  You can see for miles up and down the coast North and South.  There is still fresh seafood to partake in.  We bought some shrimp and some flounder for preparation later tonight.  There are bargains to be found if you are shopping.  We have not done much of that.  What is not so good about being here this time of year?  It is cold.  But it is still good.

Last night looking to the South.

It only looks like summer.  It is cold.

The fish market.

I hope all of you had a great Christmas.

It is almost New Year’s and we will continue to speak the rights!

Danny Johnson

Wow.  I still say it…wow.  That was my reaction when I heard that the North Harrison Cougars Boys Basketball team had taken care of business against Brownstown Central at Braveville last night.  52-51 in OT.  Wow. Fantastic. Great job!

As many of you know, on Wednesday it was announced that The Moody Blues will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 14th.  Better late than never, I say.  I appreciate the emails and text messages I have received from folks I don’t hear from often telling me they heard the news.  Now, go listen to The Moody Blues.

Tis the season.  Time for the speaktherights.com College Football Bowl Prediction Extravaganza!  It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

The overall record for the season is a respectable 120 winners and 47 losers.  The bowl picks are what I usually really screw up.  We’ll see what happens.

New Orleans Bowl: North Texas beats Troy…The Mean Green have had a tough plight in Texas and they will shine.

Cure Bowl: Western Kentucky beats Georgia State and it is ugly.

Las Vegas: Oregon beats Boise State…New coach for Oregon might help team rise up.

New Mexico: Marshall beats Colorado State…The Herd farted at the end of the year.  7-5…they win if they show up.

Camellia: Arkansas State beats Middle Tenn. State U.  Camellia, Pansy, whatever bowl.

Boca: FAU beats Akron…and to think I will actually watch this.

Frisco: La. Tech beats SMU and I am saved by a Christmas Party!

St. Petersburg: Temple beats FIU

Bahamas: Ohio beats UAB and they all get a tan.

Idaho Potato:  Wyoming beats Central Mich.  and I hope it snows.

Birmingham: South Florida beats Texas Tech…Charlie Strong has done a good job with the Bulls.

Armed Forces:  San Diego State beats Army as SDS finds the Army runners and tackles them early.

Dollar General:  Bargain Bowl Baby…Toledo beats App. State.  Bet the Pop is more than a dollar at the concession stand.

Hawaii:  Houston beats Fresno State and will be glad to be there to eat Pineapples.

Heart of Dallas Bowl:  Opposed to Kidney of Dallas Bowl but give them time…WVU beats Utah and Rodeway Inn couches better beware of becoming flammable.

Quick Lane:  Duke beats Northern Illinois. I called the ticket office to ask about kickoff time and the lady asked what time we could be there.

Cactus Bowl:  Kansas State beats UCLA and it hurts me.

Independence Bowl:  Southern Miss beats Florida State like Brett Favre was there again.

Pinstripe Bowl:  Iowa beats Boston College and it will be one of the best bowl games to watch.

Foster Farms:  Purdue beats Arizona.  Boilers act like Minnie Pearl before the game then turn on the heat with a passing game that will wrinkle and dazzle.

Texas:  Texas beats Mizzou.  Texas Bowl, Texas, I see a pattern here.

Military Bowl:  Navy beats Virginia. I originally had UVA. We’ll see.

Camping World:  VA Tech beats Oklahoma State and I have been called nuts for calling this one.

Alamo:  Stanford beats TCU in a very entertaining game as the Alamo Bowl usually is.

Holiday:  Washington State beats Michigan State…great match-up and WSU passing will confuse Sparty a bit.  Traditional favorite to watch.

Belk:  Reminds me of Burp…Texas A&M beats Wake and has more fans in Charlotte than the Demons do.

Sun:  A bowl I would like to attend one day with the right match-up and this ain’t it…NC State beats Arizona State…Go Pack!

Music City:  Kentucky beats Northwestern…don’t ask me how…they just will.

Arizona:  Mew Mexico State in their first bowl game since 1960 and only their 4th bowl ever beats Utah State…Aggie Bowl.

Cotton:  Now we are getting somewhere…USC beats Ohio State and Sam Darnold looks great.

Gator:  Louisville beats Mississippi State…No cowbell can stop Lamar Jackson.

Liberty:  Memphis beats Iowa State in another home game.

Fiesta:  Washington beats Penn State in a close one…just changed my pick.

Orange:  Miami beats Swissconsin…Shred that cheese!

Outback:  Michigan beats South Carolina…and Harbaugh will find something else yet to complain about. When he decides to coach more and complain less, look out for the Wolverines.  Until then, he won’t be acting like a Michigan man we expect.

Peach:  UCF beats Auburn in a Scott Frost farewell party.

Citrus:  LSU beats Notre Dame…talk about a good one on New Year’s Day.  Classic.

Rose Bowl Playoff Semifinal: Georgia beats Oklahoma…not a Big Ten or Pac 12 team in sight.  Tragedy.

Sugar Bowl Playoff Semifinal:  Alabama beats Clemson…Tide Rolls.

CFP Champs:  Alabama beats UGA.  The Master outlasts the pupil.

Have a Merry Christmas Everyone.

I have been working on some other writing and I hope to get back to speakingtherights.com a little more often in the New Year!

Love one another.

Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson

THE MOODY BLUES
Class of 2018 ROCK and ROLL HALL OF FAME

It is December 1st and I will be taking most of the month off from speakingtherights….here anyway.  I will dig up some of my favorite archived speaks and put them back on here.  I look back once in a great while and find something I like to reflect on.

I have some other writing to work on this month…that is all I can say.

speaktherights.com has over 380 entries and I still enjoy it.  I don’t plan on giving it up anytime soon.  Now…I will chime in on the College Football Bowl Picks for sure.

Happy December everyone…make it a great Holiday Season. God Bless all of you.

College Football Predictions Week #14

USC beats Stanford…PAC 12 Championship

UCF beats Memphis…in a good one for AAC kingship.

FAU beats North Texas….Lane Kiffin does it.

Toledo beats Akron…I think they will in MAC day.

Oklahoma beats TCU…Big 12 snoozer.

UGA beats Auburn…Tigers can’t keep this up.

South Alabama beats New Mexico State…if they can quit sightseeing long enough.  Long way from Mobile.

Boise State beats Fresno State…One I could get bad wrong.

Miami beats Clem(p)son…With a spelling nod to Lewis Grizzard.

Ohio State beats Wisconsin…Would lover to be in Indy for this game again…but not if Swissconsin is anywhere close to Lucas Oil.

Southern Utah beats Weber State…No idea why?

Troy beats Arkansas State…Should be a good game.

For the season the record is 111 winners and 44 losers.

Last week was good with bonus games….11-4.

The real question is what loser goes to coach Tennessee?  Wow.  What an Orange heap of whooey.  A job once considered a plum can’t get a date.  Mike Leach?  That would be awesome…but it won’t happen.  I don’t think so.

Eli Manning gets sent to the bench and I hope the Giants get their butts handed to them.

The Colts could use another Manning at QB.

Now that is speaking the rights!

Danny Johnson

How many times have you come across someone who has said that phrase…”You can’t make this up!” If you have been there, chances are you were having a good time at the moment.  Or maybe the circumstance was so dire that you thought the situation was so bad you could not believe it.

I have been there…on all counts.

I got beat beat up one night by three thirty-somethings when I was eight years old.  You can’t make that up.

What happened was that after my dear friend Jim Brown hit the shot heard round Jackson County in December 1975 and Brownstown Central beat Seymour 61-60…if memory serves…a great deal of Brownstown showed up behind Zabel’s Furniture where there was an empty lot of asphalt.  We had a bon-fire there to celebrate that night’s victory over the county rival.  A piece of wayward fire met my “eskimo-fur lined coat” that was fashionable in the day.  The fur was around the hood.  You remember those things.  Well, some of you do.  This piece of wayward fire landed around my face and took off.  My Dad, Bill Sweeney, and Dick Burrell all took to beating the fire out and beating on me at the same time.  I lived to tell the story.  No one went to jail and all was good.  It was a simpler time.

You can’t make that up.

I once asked Karl Malone if he played basketball.  True story.  To make things even more dumbfounding, I was in the football locker room in 1986 and Karl was sitting next to me.  He struck up a conversation with me because he heard I was from Indiana.  Karl Malone coming to sit next to me…not the other way around.  You can’t make that up.  I sized him up and told him he looked like to me like he could play basketball.  He laughed. He only was playing for the Utah Jazz after a stellar college career at Louisiana Tech.  He is only the second leading scorer in NBA history behind Kareem….and I asked if he played basketball.

You can’t make that up.

I was in a recording studio in 2004 and my friend, the late great Tim Krekel, was pinching at his scruffy beard telling how he had heard from Billy Swan the night before.  Billy was living in Los Angeles and according to Tim he was ready to move back to Nashville.  The backstory….Billy Swan’s 1974 hit “I Can Help” was the first song outside of church that got my attention when I was six years old.  He I am in a studio with Tim Krekel.  He toured as Billy Swan’s guitar player in 1974.  They opened for Willie Nelson during a European Tour…and Tim was there talking about Billy Swan while we were in the middle of recording songs I had written.

You can’t make that up.

You know what I am talking about.  You have been there.  I got more, believe me.

I had a baby-sitter kill over on me when I was five.

Don’t want to get into that.

You can’t make that up.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

The photo above was taken 40 years ago, if memory serves.  That is me in the huddle on the far right.  I was wearing that same shirt in my 4th grade class picture that was taken in 1977.  We were in the yard at my Uncle Bob and Aunt Nell’s house.  This is where the Thanksgiving Hines Family Reunion was held. My mother, Tressie Hines Johnson, is the youngest of ten sisters.  She had seven brothers.  These reunions are cherished times.  We would get together, try to remember everyone (I have more cousins than I know), and eat and laugh and tell stories.  Many of us, during halftime of the Lions-Bears game, would go out to the yard and split two teams and play touch football.  It was so much fun.

We drove to Mississippi from Indiana to these reunions.  My parents moved to Indiana in late summer of 1967.  I was born the following March.  We were the only “Yankees” there then.  They loved us anyway.

This many years on the one regret I have always had about living so far away from these folks is that I never got to spend any quality time and get to know any of my cousins very well.  I knew a few better than most and could hold forth when the opportunity presented itself.  We had football in common.  We had music in common.  We a large family to discuss and enjoy.  Still, there was never a connection past a few fleeting moments that were so precious.

Whilst I have never spent a great deal of time engaging in social media over the years past posting here the last three-plus years, I am glad that one particular cousin, Darrell, and I have emailed and texted with one another now and again and that has been pleasant.  It is good to hear from a cousin.  I am as guilty as any I suppose.  I have not reached out to them myself.  We are all so busy and at times too busy for our own good.  Henry David Thoreau would attest to that.  Still, I look at this photo above and think about my cousin Darrell playing quarterback and rolling out to his right and hitting me with a dart between the flower bed in front of the house and large pine tree in the yard.  That was my Thanksgiving in 1977 and I am still very very Thankful!

This is Thanksgiving today.  I am not in a huddle this morning.  I am at the kitchen table behind a three pronged crockpot and a cup of coffee. In a few hours our house will be filled with more familiar laughter and the Lions and the Vikings are going to be playing football.

On to the College Football picks Week #13.

The picks record after 12 stands at 100 winners and 44 losers.  Iowa has not been kind to me this year.  Neither has Minnesota.  Nor have the Ole Miss Rebels.   And me, well, I have made some bone-head picks out of spite for sure.  This week will be no different.

TONIGHT:

Ole Miss will beat State…And with any luck Dan Mullen will call the moving van.

FRIDAY:

Miami beats Pitt…The Hurricanes are blowing strong…for now.

Iowa beats Nebraska…The worse thing about college football this year is that Nebraska doesn’t make any team nervous.

Virginia Tech beats Virginia…The Hokies should win by 17.

SATURDAY:

Georgia beats Ga. Tech…Lewis Grizzard will smile down old Silver Britches.

Indiana beats Purdue…I know.  The game is at Purdue.  But…last week in Memorial Stadium, the safest place in America, the Indiana Football Hoosiers were like “The Ship That Found Itself”….if you know that story.  They put all of their pieces together in a windy Memorial Stadium.

A few pictures from last week…

THE WINDIEST GAME I HAVE EVER BEEN TO.

If the Hoosiers wore these uniforms every week…they will get to the Rose Bowl quicker and I want to be there!

The Marching Hundred…

The opening kickoff in the safest place in America!

This is not a bad team and they are getting better.  Look out next year.  I keep telling folks to remember that Coach Bill Mallory was 4-18 in his first two years.  The Hoosiers could be 6-6 Saturday with a win over the Boilermakers.  That is progress.

Louisville beats Kentucky…Last year’s loss is motivation for Cards.  Look for Lamar Jackson to set a record or two in his Bluegrass farewell.

Ohio State beats Michigan…J.T. Barrett may look like he just got up from a nap…but it is some good sleep.

Duke beats Wake Forest….as I type fast cos I am running out of battery Duke need this for 6 wins.

Alabama beats Auburn…Jalen Hurts will finally get the Heisman attention and it won’t be too late…Tide rolls like no one will expect.

NC State beats UNC…Wolkfpack looks forward to more football while UNC is shooting hoops.

Penn State beats Maryland….Nuff said.

Michigan State beats Rutgers….

Tennessee beats Vandy

LSU beats Texas A&M

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson