I wish I had my camera last night.  I meant to bring it.  Truth is, I was actually a bit anxious as the late afternoon became evening on what Neil Diamond would appreciate….a Hot August Night.

NEWSFLASH….MY DEAR WIFE, CARRIE, TOOK SOME PICTURES WITH HER PHONE!

Last night the North Harrison Cougars played host to the Corydon Central Panthers.  The team in blue, the Cougars, won by a score of 49 to 0.  What I witnessed on the field was one of the finest team efforts ever put forth by a North Harrison team and know that I have seen plenty.  When quizzed what the difference in the teams were, I came up with one thing that stood out.  We were ready.  I use the pronoun “we” because I have strong ties to the school I attended and played for and am now employed by.  We were ready to play.  That included at the top of the list a well conditioned group of players.  They put in the work prior to getting here so they could reap the harvest.  Our linemen were in better physical shape than their backfield.  You win that way.  Thanks goes out to Coach Williamson and his staff.  You can’t imagine how much time and effort they have put in to have these young men where they are right now.  You have no idea.

While the Panthers were with hands on hips and thigh pads and knee pads looking for some remote quality to come through the thick August air they were looking for, the Cougars were still on the field bouncing around like prize fighters.  I was very proud of the Cougars last night. The season record stands at two victories and no defeats.  Next week we host the Salem Lions.  I hope it is a little cooler next Friday, though I doubt the NH Cougar Football Team cares.

At some point during the halftime, a gent showed up over my shoulder.  He is a stealthy sort.  I can’t tell you how glad I was to see him.  It was my old friend Mick Rutherford.  When I say old friend.  I mean it.  I have written of him before on these pages.  It was a hot August morning in 1979, my first day of school as a 6th grader at North Harrison Elementary.  He and Kelly Samons came and sat down by the new kid.  Am I ever thankful they did just that.

When I was punting the football and kicking the football on the field we were looking upon last night, Mick gave me the ball each time.  He was the long snapper and I can tell you…”Old Porter never missed a snap!”  Porter is a nickname that has a long derivative lineage we won’t go into here.  Just trust me.  Mick was a great teammate.  I wish we would find a way to get together more often.  Our euchre games are stuff of legend.  I am blessed.

Was it good to see him?  What do you think?

We were missing one old friend last night and I would be remiss not to mention him here and now.

Our dear old friend Malcolm “Corner King” Lincoln died 19 years ago yesterday.  Above is a picture of the two of us the day Carrie and I were married in 1996.  It is a treasured photograph.  It hangs on a wall in my home office space.  I look at it often.  Ironically, the good fellow that took this picture, Bryan Moss, was gathering up photos at the NH-Corydon game last night.  It is always good to see him.

On October 23rd,  Mick and Kelly and Gus Stephenson and I will be playing our 17th Annual Corner King Classic Golf Tournament.  It is a one round event.  A golf course can only take so much punishment from four old hackers.

Good game, good game, good game….that is what is usually repeated and repeated and repeated during a scene like this.  There is not much time for anything else to be said.

And so it goes.  And the band played on.

By the way, the North Harrison High School Band sounded great last night.  We are blessed to have Mr. Dathan Echols leading our fine high school instrumental music charge.  Keep up the good work.

As it was winding down last night I sat relieved, happy, and very content next to my old high school football coach and my always dear old Dad.  A nice way to take in an evening.   Thank you, Carrie.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

• Coming soon…Week 1 College Football Picks.

This morning, as my dear wife, Carrie, and I were heading east to our place of work, I heard a song on the radio that came back to me very heavily.

What possessed an 8 year-old kid to fall in love with this song is beyond me.  But it was me in 1976.  Released on The Eagles album “Hotel California” on December 7, 1976, “New Kid in Town” was the A-side of a 45 that featured the tune “Victim of Love” (great guitar lick) on the B-side.  I was not a new kid in town in 1976.  I was living in Brownstown, Indiana  the same town I was living in when my Mom and Dad broght me home from the hospital.  Still, there was a dark tone that resonated with me even when I was eight.  I know that sounds silly.  It may be.  It may not be.  When I hear two particular phrases in that song, time stands still.  There is still the same angst that presses up against my spine that did all those years ago.

“There’s so many things you should have told her,
But night after night you’re willing to hold her, just hold her.
Tears on your shoulder….”

“Where you been lately? There’s a new kid in town.
Everybody loves him, don’t they?
And he’s holding her, and you’re still around…”

Those just hit me just right.  They seemingly always have. There is a twinge of desperation…a sort of cry in Glenn Frey’s voice that is not to be found in many straight-forward Eagles songs.  It was a nice reminder this morning.  It was neat to go back for a few minutes and think about a song that should not hit an eight-year-old like that one hit me.  But…I have always had a funny musical sensibility.  When my friends wanted to hear Hank Williams, Jr. or Alabama or David Allan Coe…I wanted Elton John and Neil Diamond and Paul Anka. Don’t even ask how The Moody Blues were considered.  And…I knew it had to be that way.  They are still my good friends.  We don’t listen to music together.  We never did too much even then.  The football locker room and the high school weight room were where we listened to music.  We did pretty much depend on 96 WQMF in those hallowed spots…rock and roll…fast paced tunes help the muscles move.  I don’t care what Richard Simmons says.

For the record, I have never been too enamored by The Eagles.  I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt…but  if anyone ever called The Moody Blues “pretentious”…they never heard of The Eagles.  I was at a solo concert given by Don Henley, “Mr. Desperado” at the Louisville Gardens in 1990 at the HEIGHT of his solo hit album “End of the Innocence”.  He sang 13 songs.  That was it.  He did make a bleeding heart plea about saving Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden Woods Project”.  The Eagles did not pursue Thoreau’s plea to “simplify” unless it meant simply charge more for your concerts when folks show up to kiss you musical ring.

Here is what I know.  When The Eagles reformed in..what was it…1994/95?  They hit the big barn circuit with their concerts and charged out the nose.  A few years earlier I had seen Pink Floyd play for over three hours at Rupp Arena for 18.50.  When The Eagles came to Deer Creek in Noblesville the pavilion seats were 85 bucks.  This was over twenty years ago.  This is when the concert ticket prices decided to sky-rocket.  The Eagles got it and so did everyone else.   I can say not all have gone this route.  Bob Seger has been kind.  The Moody Blues have been relatively kind.  Garth Brooks is kind.  Paul McCartney is not kind….but he does sing 36 songs!

Last week Joe Walsh, Eagles guitarist and singer, played The Louisville Palace.  He sang twelve songs.  I knew the set list beforehand.  I wanted to go.  I think he is great.  I will not, however pay 7 bucks a song to hear anyone…The Moody Blues included…so far.  Carrie and I saw Joe Walsh open for Bob Seger in Detroit in 2013.  Walsh played seven songs then we heard Bob Seger’s huge set…and the tickets were comparable to Walsh’s ticket prices at The Palace.  Not good. Not good at all.  But that is the way it is.  Some groups just like to milk the old cow.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

There is a blue sky above my screened in porch and I can see it between the trees and under the side of the porch I look form.  It is clear.  It is nice to be afforded a luxury to be out on the porch in the middle of the day without having sweat permeate my shirt and shorts as my demeanor grows less and less optimistic.  Not so this day.  Though I am dumbfounded that it is already Sunday afternoon, the weekend has been a good one.

This is a beautiful day on the porch.

Friday Night…

On Friday night my dear wife, Carrie, and I picked my Dad up at his house and the three of us drove over to Crawford County High School to watch the North Harrison Cougars play the Crawford County Wolfpack in high school football game.  It was the first game of the season and to tell you the truth it was a bit of a clunker.  North won 38 to 8.  The game started like a season ending contest when at the end of the season both teams barely have a pulse and are ready for the season to be over.  I am not sure why?  North had the better team.  The eye test proved that.  North had a better record last year.  North had three times as many player as Crawford.  Still…it did not seem like game day when the ref blew his whistle and waved his arm to move the kicker to approach the ball for the first kickoff of the season.

I know better games are in store for North this year and that we will no doubt see the plot in full, juicy thickness next week when the North Harrison Cougars host the county rival Corydon Central Panthers in Ramsey.  The band will be there.  The hill will be full.  The smell of pork wieners will fill the air and the pads will no doubt be popping a little bit harder with more regularity.  But as I told a few near me: a win is a win is a win and you take’em however you can get’em.

Topsail Beach is well represented on the back porch.

To my right is my great-grandmother’s “floor fan” and it packs a punch.  It can flat move the air and it runs like a sewing machine.  As a child I sat on it to cool off after baseball practice circa 1977.  She lived in that house on Bridge Street some 53 years before she moved in 1979.  I am sure this fan was there many of those days.

Friday night/Saturday Morning…

My in-laws needed a ride from the air port on Friday night.  Carrie and I were glad to provide the ride.  While at the  Crawford County football field,I got a call from Mike, my father-in-law.  They were in Phoenix.  The plane they were to board heading for Denver was not going to be on time.  Thus, their plane coming into Louisville, where Carrie and I were to pick them up, was not going to be on time.  We started the evening with the plan of picking them up at the air port around 11 PM.  We saw them walking down the pedway from the guarded secure gates to regular groundlings waiting to meet the passengers after 2 AM.  It was late.  I was quickly reminded yesterday, when I got out of bed, that I am not as equipped at handling awkward hours anymore.

This is what I look at as I am speaking the rights.

Saturday afternoon.…a little after 1 PM yesterday, I met up with Jefferson Carpenter, his wife, Mary Kennedy, and drummer-good guy extraordinaire John Hayse at Jefferson’s recording studio in Louisville, KY.  It was my second trip into Louisville of the day.  It was odd.

We sat and listened to the songs we recorded in June.  The got some more treatment in July.  We sat there and listened to each of the songs and compared notes as to what could be done to make them better.  Re-sing this one.  Put fiddle here.  Put backing vocals there.  Put keys here and there.  It is all good fun.  It is also kind of sad.  When you get to this point in the recording process, you know things are on the down hill.  The songs are there….written and recorded (rhythm track wise) and the rest is a tweak here and there and an extra layer here and there and it is wonderful.  But…it is a process that is hard to say good-bye to.  You are having fun dear friends (the songs) and there comes a day when all you can do is open up the album and remember.  That is not a bad thing.  That feeling is not as great as having fun with friends.  Is it ever?

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

For the third year in a row on the same weekend in August,  I am sitting on the porch ready to speak the rights about the upcoming College Football Season.  This is usually a marathon of a post, and I know many of you don’t care about the ACC or how North Texas is going to fare in Conference USA.  Given that I nearly dislocated my right shoulder today (it still hurts) moving a piece of furniture with my brother-in-law Stevarino, all I can say is read on anyway.  I am here for the team.

As has been the case in the past, I will post college football predictions each week.  I pick games based my opinion of the outcome, though my heart may lead the way now and again.  With that said, know that I do not pick and will not pick games based on point spreads or overs and unders or sideways.  Gambling and football don’t live together with me.  I just plain love the game of football.  I always have.   I have played it.  I have coached it.  I have called high school games on the radio.  My Dad coached it.  I know football better than I probably need to.

Personally, my college football allegiances have not changed.  I root for the Marshall Thundering Herd.  Reference one of the earliest posts to find out why.  With family roots running deep in Mississippi, I pull for the Ole Miss Rebels too.  I attend at least one game at Indiana University out of a combination of loyalty, obligation, and pity.  And I also attend hoping they will win one more.  Last year when I prefaced the Atlantic Coast Conference Section, I made mention of how the Duke Blue Devils give cause for Indiana Hoosier fans to take heed and stay optimistic.  Little did we know they would meet in New York City for the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium late last December.

In the third paragraph of last year’s preview, I wrote the following sentence:

“I still dream about one day seeing a game at The Rose Bowl where UCLA plays their home games.”

Yesterday I received these in the mail:

Here’s the thing.  I want to go to The Rose Bowl to see a game.  My Dad wants to go to The Rose Bowl to see a game.  The crosstown rivalry game between UCLA and USC is a game that captured my imagination as a child.  If you are not going on January 1 to THEE Rose Bowl, and I doubt I see the Indiana Hoosiers in it as I have been here 48 years and it hasn’t happened in my lifetime, then the UCLA-USC game is the best thing going.  Dad and I will be there, as he would say “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise”, on November 19th.    My thanks goes out to Jasmin Rowland in the UCLA Athletic Department for helping me with making this trip the best it can be.  Mostly, thank you to my dear wife, Carrie, for looking at me and saying you and your Dad need to make this trip.

Now…let’s get down to business.

THE ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE

A nod here to my friend Brian Smith.  Brian was in my office this week and noticed my University of Louisville Mini helmet on display.  He enjoyed the fact that the UK helmet was smaller than the Louisville one.  Symbolism knows no bounds.  And for this year, Brian will be a happy man.

I will continue to root for the Duke Blue Devils.  Coach Cutcliffe is still there and could be for life.  If he enjoys Durham as much as I do and can find peace with not being the microscope darling of the sports world that the guys in the basketball gym are, he may be there for life.  He doesn’t have to win much.  Kind of like coaching at Kentucky.  If the team stinks in October, most of the attention is not on you…it is on the sound of basketballs bouncing down the road from the football stadium.

THE ACC ATLANTIC DIVISION

1.  Louisville:  Call me nuts and see how it turns out.  Lamar Jackson for President.
2.  Florida State:  Because Clemson got’em last year and they won’t stand for it.
3.  Clemson:  An injury or two will hurt them and so will overconfidence.
4. N.C. State:  They are hungry in Raleigh and Notre Dame comes to town.
5.  Boston College:  A downer last year lead to some hard work.  They’ll be better.
6. Wake Forest:  A kind non-conference schedule should help out.
7. Syracuse:  I drove through Syracuse this summer.  Heard basketballs

THE ACC COASTAL DIVISION

1.  Miami:  Coach Mark Richt is back home wondering why they weren’t winning.
2. North Carolina:  Coach Fedora has them on the rise.
3. Virginia Tech:  Coach Beamer will be missed; they’ll play in front of 150,000 at Bristol.
4.  Georgia Tech:  That running game is getting caught on to.  Don’t fumble.
5. Duke:  I am afraid the Dukies are going to get it handed to them now and again.
6. Pittsburg:  The upside?  Same coach…so far.
7. Virginia:  I hope I get this one wrong.  Coach Ruffin McNeil is on the D side of Cav ball.

THE BIG TEN

The best thing the Indiana Hoosiers have going for them is Purdue.  The Hoosiers will not be the worst Big Ten team in the state of Indiana.  If not for basketball, these two teams would be working on their second season as members of Conference USA.  Harsh?  Yes.  But the football has been that bad.  Well, maybe worse, Purdue got beat by Marshall last year.

I gave IOWA the love two years ago and used restraint last year.  The Hawkeyes then went 12-0 in the regular season.  I was delighted.  I was sick when they laid an egg against Stanford in the Rose Bowl.  Another good reason to go toThe Rose Bowl when UCLA is playing USC.  You don’t have to see the Big Ten team get whipped in the Pacific Time Zone.

The balance of Big Ten power is still in the Big Ten East.  Michigan and Ohio State.  Where they go, so goes the power.  But so also goes Michigan State.  They are no slouch either.

BIG TEN EAST

1.  Michigan:  All that blowing off Coach Harbaugh does will pay off.
2. Ohio State:  Great team has Oklahoma on the road and going to Sparty.  Tough stuff.
3.  Michigan State:  The two big boys ahead of them visit East Lansing.  Interesting….
4. Indiana…Call me optimistic.  Defense?  This blind squirrel will find some nuts this  year.
5. Penn State…their meeting Nov. 12 with Indiana will decide if this is flipped with them.
6.  Maryland:  Goofy helmets…Oct. 29 meeting at Indiana will be good day for Hoosiers.
7. Rutgers:  New York Big Ten Network Dollars franchise.  Big Ten in New Jersey?

BIG TEN WEST

1.  Iowa:  Still like them.  Coach Ferentz has done a great job keeping ship together.
2. Swissconsin:  Schedule is tough LSU at Lambeau?  It’s true.  They will rebound well.
3. Northwestern:  Coach Fitz has a brutal schedule.  The Wildcats are getting better.
4.  Nebraska:  I have committed treason here. Hope my friend Tom Osborne isn’t reading.
5.  Minnesota:  Hope Goldy climbs up soon.  I like this bunch.  Coach Kill will be missed.
6.  Illinois:  Coach Lovie Smith is three years away…if he stays that long.
7. Purdue:  Purdue?  Purdon’t.

You can bring the whole family here and have a great time…with room to spread out!

THE SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE….THE SEC

A game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium is Oxford, Mississippi is NOT a place you will find room to spread out.  The only single game tickets they have left…and they are sparse…is to non-conference games.  The mighty Wofford comes calling to Oxford on September 10th.  I can’t say much.  Carrie and I be watching Marshall host Morgan State that evening.

The SEC.  Football.  That is the connotation that folks get when they hear those three letters in succession….S…E…C means football.  For all you perception is reality fans out there, you have never seen LSU play Ole Miss.  The reality is better than any perception you can fathom.  By the way, as an old English teacher with four different quality dictionaries  in the house, perception is not reality.  That is like saying connotation is denotation.  I digress.  Someone please kick the soap box beneath me!

The SEC.  As a child I bucked the notion that the SEC was better than the Big Ten.  To quote Niles Crane, “Was I ever that young?”  No…I was that dumb… and ready to argue with my Dad about it.  He wins.  Hey when Woody and Bo were coaching and Lee Corso was making chalk dust fly on his televised weekly show when he was the coach at Indiana, I was enthralled with the Big Ten.  Rick Leach and Archie Griffin and Lee Corso convincing me that the play he drew up on TV was going to work.  I learned.  Maybe I gave in.  Maybe I knew all along.  That was Archie Manning hanging on my cousin’s bed room wall in Forest, Mississippi.  It wasn’t Rex Kern.

THE SEC EAST

1. Tennessee:  With a nod to my friend Bob Biddle, the tuba player better have plenty of wind!
2.  Georgia:  Coach Kirby Smart is back on campus…this time as the coach.
3.  Florida:  10-4 last year under Coach McElwain may have this group ahead of 3.
4.  South Carolina:  Folks want to write’em off since Coach Spurrier left.
5.  Missouri:  Folks want to write off this bunch too.  Maybe they’re right?
6.  Kentucky:  I want to make them 3 or 4.  Just can’t do it.  Hope I am wrong.
7.  Vandy:  Have you been to Vandy?  Not very SEC-like.

THE SEC WEST

The toughest division in football…any league.  This will be LSU’s year.  Bama is going to get beat by USC in Dallas.  Ole Miss is going to get beat by Florida State in Orlando.  LSU is going to beat Swissconsin in Green Bay.  This is just week one of life in The SEC before conference games begin.

1.  LSU:  Coach Les Miles will have this bunch winning the National Championship then he will quit and go somewhere else.
2. Alabama:  It is not for my Brother Tim that I am this kind.  Bama will have issues.
3.  Ole Miss:  It is for me that I am this kind.  Ole Miss already has issues.
4.  Auburn:  Coach Malzahn needs help from the War Eagle…hope he got fed during summer school.
5.  Arkansas:  Pig-Sooooie may be higher than this with some help.
6.  Texas A&M:  Hope they can fill all those seats in that stadium…12th man is all theirs.
7.  Mississippi State:  Cos I hope they lose every game!  Hotty Toddy!

OTHER CONFERENCE WINNERS

PAC-12:  UCLA!  Their win over USC will propel them to the PAC-12 Championship game.  Keep an eye on Josh Rosen at quarterback.

C-USA:  Marshall…The Herd is ready to get another 10 win season. Coach Doc Holliday has done a great job and Chase Litton isn’t a good freshman QB…he is better.  Running game looked good in the spring game.

Carrie and I are ready too.

AAC:  Cincinnati…I refuse to give up on Gunner Kiel.

Big 12:  Texas…Coach Charlie Strong has to have it…or he is G-A-W-N gone!

MAC:  Ohio…Coach Solich will have the Bobcats looking even better.

Mountain West:  Boise State again.

Sun Belt:  Arkansas State…though I give some love to App. State and the job they have done.

Enjoy the games!  Enjoy the upcoming season.  I know I will.  I also know I will start with the games of Labor Day Weekend in picking the winners of the week at speaktherights.com.

A MOODY BLUE NOTE.

On July 27th I posted about a concert that I almost missed at King Island in 1988.  Well, today marks 25 years since The Moodies’ last appearance at Kings Island’s Timberwolf Amphitheater.  I was there.  And unlike the day in 1988, when my buddy Virgil and I barely made it to the concert, the young lady I was with on this occasion, Christy, and I had all day to ride the rides and have fun before we took in the show.

Two things stick out in my mind.  I shared one of them in the July 27th post.  I was bound and determined to impress Christy and anyone else caring to watch with my ability to throw a football.  The dreaded football toss into the cut out hole in particle board…the one where the ball can barely make it through.  Well…I asked Christy which one of the prizes she wanted and she pointed to a big pink stuffed bear…one so big we would have to take it out to the car before we could continue with our day.

I took the ball and instead of trying to lean over to make my toss, like a cocky smarty pants I took a deep five step drop and whizzed the ball toward the booth and it didn’t hit anything except what was behind that little hole it went through.  I did it.  I never doubted I could.  And I would try it again.

After the concert, Christy had never seen The Moody Blues before, she looked at me inside the packed 10,000 seat venue and said “What are these guys doing playing here?  They should be playing at Riverfront Stadium!”  I agreed.

The Moody Blues were touring in support of the recently released (at the time) “Keys of the Kingdom” album.  Below is the ticket, the CD, a T-shirt, and the program.

By the way, Hall and Oates did not show up…a group called “Neverland” opened.

The next year The Moody Blues moved on to the larger Riverbend Music Center closer to Cincy.  My buddy Tim Mullins attended that one with me in June.  They played Riverbend four times.  The last one was in 1996.  My dear friend Todd “Corner King” Lincoln and I went to that one.  I’m sure glad we did.

I’m so glad football season is here.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

In less than a half an hour the Pro Football  Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies will begin.   I must say I am not much of a fan of Halls of Fame.  I think I have made this clear on these pages before.  I still think Ken Anderson, the former quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals, deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  The Moody Blues are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  They deserve to be there…but I hope that call never comes.  They are much better than that address in Cleveland.

I won’t try to pretend to know everything about all the Hall of Fame inductees tonight.  Dick Stanfel was a player and a coach I know of.  I can’t hold forth on him.  Eddie DeBartolo Jr. was the owner of the 49ers.  They beat Ken Anderson’s Bengals in Super Bowl XVI.  I hope his time on TV tonight is short.

Kevin Greene was a sack master.  He played for the Rams and the Steelers.  He was fun to watch and is deserving of his place in Canton.

Ken Stabler died last July.  He was a quarterback and played the game the best way he knew how…his way.  Paul Anka could have been thinking about Ken Stabler when he wrote the song “My Way”.  Though I doubt it.  It was a hit for Frank Sinatra in 1969.  Ken Stabler was fun to watch.  The Raiders were must see TV before there was such a thing.

Tony Dungy.  There is not enough room on this post to give him.  Quiet.  Solid.  True.  Tony Dungy was a large part of a group that reinvented football in Indiana.  As the coach of the Colts, with a guy named Peyton Manning at quarterback, he helped lead a renaissance of football in my home state.  I am forever grateful.

Orlando Pace was a lineman.  It is always good to see a lineman getting his due.  What I remember about Orlando Pace is that his college coach John Cooper sat next to me at a coaches clinic in 1993 and had video of Orlando to share with us to show good lineman technique during his presentation.

Above is the commemorative USPS envelope that honors the record 86 TDs that Peyton Manning threw to Marvin Harrison.  It happened on October 17, 2005 on Monday Night Football.  I was fortunate enough to be in the Hoosier/RCA Dome that night.  It was awesome.  Marvin was one of those football pioneers in this state.  He was a part of it.  We love football in Indiana like never before…thanks to Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison, and the leader of that charge, Peyton Manning.

Brett Favre is going into the Hall tonight also.  Enough said.  We miss his child-like enthusiasm.  I do.  I saw Brett play for Southern Miss in 1989.  Missed the greatest finish in a college game since Doug Flutie’s miracle against Miami when he threw the pass the Gerard Phelan in November 1984.  Favre threw a miracle of a pass that bounced off the helmet of a University of Louisville DB and landed in the hands of a Southern Miss receiver who took it the rest of the 79 yards on the game’s final play.  We missed it.  We were taking my five year old brother to pee.  In 2009, my dear wife, Carrie, and I went to Minneapolis and watched Brett play for the Vikings in a game against the Baltimore Ravens.  The Vikes won 33-31 when the Ravens kicker missed a field goal on the last play of the game.

And so it goes.

Football is here.  It’s about time.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Too long…too long I say.  I have been away from these pages way too long.  It is time to catch up.

I am back to work.  Have been since July 18th.  My work as a school counselor at the local high school up the road has me busy and my head in that mode right now.  I try to give it all I have.  Hence, speaktherights.com has been a bit silent…even this past weekend.  I can tell you that I heard Brad Paisley singing on Saturday night.  I was not at his concert, but my dear wife, Carrie, and I were within earshot of what we used to call Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana and could hear him playing.  The hotel where we were staying is about five good tee shots from the music venue….depending on the bounce.  I have seen the Moody Blues there six times.  Five of those were orchestra shows.  Hearing Paisley was reminiscent of a day when Carrie and I were visiting some relatives in Mississippi some twenty or so years ago and Brad Paisley was playing a festival of some kind there and it was all quite simple.

On Monday after school, Carrie and I stopped by to see my folks.  Earlier that morning on my way to work, I dropped off a cooler full of burgers, hot dogs, and chicken I had grilled the evening before.  I picked up the empty cooler that evening.  Empty cooler aside, I can tell you I so enjoyed the hour we spent, Carrie and my folks and I, just sitting in the living room talking and telling stories and enjoying each other’s company.  It was almost like a throwback moment.  We told stories and laughed.  Time flew away.  Not the minutes we spent that went by so quickly, but time in the relative sense.  We were somewhere else enjoying our speaks and our laugh.  It was 2016.  It could have been 2006.  It could have been 1996.  That is when you know you have caught lightning in a bottle.  These times are most defined by laughter.  On this day, we laughed and had a great time doing so.

Football season is approaching.  Thank you, Lord!  I mean that.  It may sound a bit unrealistic.  I do believe that the Good Lord doesn’t care if the receiver or the corner back catches the ball, no matter how much credit the receiver may give the Good Lord.  I do, however, believe that the Good Lord doesn’t mind that we enjoy and revel in our football.  We were made for joy in this crazy world.  Joy is not a bad thing.  I find great joy in watching football and rooting for my team.  Is it brain surgery?  No.  Is it important?  Well, it is important.  More important to folks in Alabama than in New Hampshire, I can attest.  But know there are a few fans rooting for the New Hampshire Wildcats just as hard as millions of Tide fans root for Alabama.  It is relative.  It is not a bad thing.

I cam across the following pictures recently.

Carrie took these as I was writing songs for my current project.  It is a work in progress.  I am glad she took these, even though she was being a bit stealth about it.  I have never seen a photo of me writing a song before.  I don’t mind a bit.

Did I say I was looking forward to football season?  The speaktherights.com College Football Preview is on its way.  I did a little studying this summer.  I discovered one thing for sure.  I believe there will be a team come on the scene and we’ll ask…where did they come from?  Kind of like when Wake Forest made some noise a few years ago with Riley Skinner playing quarterback.  He was fun to watch.

We’ll get there.  Hey, at least we are here!

Speaking the rights….

Danny Johnson

Somethings just come back in a hurry.  They don’t mean to.  They just do.  Usually when that happens, I think it is time for that precious thought or memory to come back.  To know you were changed and look back, if you are fortunate enough, to see how good fortune and blessedness turned out over the years.  I have many of these moments.  I hope we all do.

It was twenty-eight years ago today.  I can show you the very spot in the Sears show stockroom at the Greentree Mall.  It was 8ishAM.  I was stocking shoes.  Using a broom stick with a shelf on it to move sizes and brand up lines of vertical shelves.  It was a maze of a place at times.  Judging what would fit and how so was an education all its own.  Problem solving.  As I listened to the radio that morning I discovered I had a problem.  I had a real problem.  Thankfully I was where I was when I was.  The Moody Blues were to play a concert at the Timberwolf Ampitheatre at Kings Island  outside Cincinnati on August 18, 1988.  I had tickets to the show.  I had plans.  We were going to have a good time.  Her name was Elizabeth.  She was going to the show with me.  All that changed when a radio DJ informed the listening world that The Moody Blues show at Timberwolf had a change of date.  The day?  Today!  And I had no clue until I heard it.

My work shift ended at 3:30 PM.  I made a few calls and found my dear friend and fellow rock and roll aficionado (Beatles fan), the great Virgil Ragland, interested in going.  We made the show.  We had a good time.  What was supposed to be a nice day spent with a young lady as we rode roller coasters and ate cotton candy and I impressed her with my ability to throw a football at the carnival games (something I would seriously accomplish in 1991 with a different young lady I took to see The Moodies….when I took a five step drop and threw a football through a hole that had no clearance and got quite the ovation).  Instead, I think Virg and I rode the swings and ate a hot dog before it was time to head to the show.  We didn’t even make it to the Eiffel Tower.  Still, I thank Virg for cruising over to Kings Island that hot July evening.

All these years later I do have great memories of that day.  I have greater memories of that song.  It was my second Moody Blues concert.  Little did I know that in 2016 I would be talking about hearing one of their favorite showstoppers, “I Know You’re Out The Somewhere” make its concert debut 28 years ago.  But that is how it has turned out.  It was the first show of the tour supporting a new album Sur La Mer.    The week it came out my mother and I were on the road traveling to Shreveport, Louisiana to tend to an ill relative.  We played that song on a new cassette tape all night long  until it nearly snapped in two.  It is still Mom’s favorite Moodies’ song.

Looking back I say that change of concert date was a blessing.  My dear wife, Carrie, is my Moody Blues concert partner and we are not finished yet…I don’t think.  It turned out just as it was supposed to.  Thank God.

This is a special, optimistic song.  It has grown over the years.  From a song for those yearned for, to a song for those missed, a song for those out there somewhere, and a song I start to sing when I am looking for Carrie at the grocery store.

Thank you, Justin Hayward.  You have given me a masterpiece that I will never tire of listening to.  How do I know?  It would have happened by now!

Speaking the I know you’re out there somewhere rights…

Danny Johnson

Wow it is hot outside the door in my little piece of Southern Indiana.  Yesterday it was over 90.  Where wasn’t it?  And humidity?  This morning it was 88% and all the windows in the house were fogged up. My heart goes out to anyone without air conditioning.  I remember those days when I was a kid. I know it got hot then too.  But it sure does not feel like it ever got THIS hot.

Star Trek.

My dear wife, Carrie, and I went to see the third installation of the new Star Trek incarnation.  What is this Mark V or VI?  I don’t know.  I really did not pay any attention to the ones that came on television with Captain Picard.  I think they were Star Trekkers?  Anyway, this new bunch playing the crew of the USS Enterprise are very entertaining to watch.  I know that this stuff is not everyone’s cup of tea.  I respect that.  I also know that while I was never much enamored with the old William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy Star Trek…the original one…I do like this new movie bunch.  Speaking of television and space, I enjoyed that old Gil Gerard show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.  I also enjoyed the small screen offering that was Battlestar Galactica.  The guy that played the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, Ray Bolger, was a guest star on that show in 1979, I think it was.  He would have been 75 at the time.

Carrie and I did not like this new Star Trek movie.  We both like the characters.  The story was a little shallow compared to the other two new ones.  The action of the movie was set in darkness a great deal of the time.  That might be great for someone whose played video games looking at something one can barely see.  I have never done that. Things did pick the last twenty minutes and all was not lost.  I won’t tell you what happened.

I do know that the actor that plays Chekov , Anton Yelchin, was killed in June due to a freak accident that had to do with an auto’s inability to stay in park.  That was sad.  He seems like such a bright spot on the screen.  It is hard not to believe he was a great chap in life as well.

A NOD TO LEWIS GRIZZARD

One thing the readers of Lewis Grizzard, the former Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist appreciated was the fact that he just put things out there.  Lewis had health issues.  He died at the age of 47 in 1994.  It is hard for me to fathom that Lewis has been gone so long.  Like him or not, he was the genuine article.   When he struggled with his health, he wrote about it.  He was blogging before blogging became blogging.

There is a history of back ailments in my family.  My mother’s side of the family is full of a number of folks reaching back with their right hand to rub on a side here or a piece there. My mother is dealing with this mightily as I write these words.  She, on occasion, wears a brace and has been given a list of ailments that are back related.  So, yes, I had an injury thirty-some years ago.  I know what the family history is.  One day, I too will get my news that the back is not what it should be.  I am 48 years old.  That news should come to me in say 10 or 12 years.  Wrong.  This week I had a conversation with a doctor about degenerative discs and arthritis and how fusing discs with surgery is probably not a good option.  Heck, I don’t remember what all was said.  So there you go.  New habits need to be made.  Sitting positions need to be decided upon.  Though I don’t carry around nearly as much poundage as I did ten years ago, I will be making a concerted effort to “lighten the load” as they say.  No fun, but I know I can do it.

Whatever comes,  we still need to press onward.  I may be holding my back…but I won’t hold too much back…I will still…speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

There is a guy outside my house working on a satellite dish receiver.  I am getting what they call in the Satellite TV business an “upgrade”.  I may not get anything today the way the wind is whipping up with a threat of bad weather out there.  It ain’t worth it, my friend!  Get in here now.  Unless you’re just about finished with the outdoors part and hurry up!

For years and years my dear wife, Carrie, and I have been looking at a big old box of a television that just refuses to play out.  If I get as much quality life out of the new TV we just bought, I will be shocked and delighted.  Right now I just hope I don’t get shocked by lightning.  I got struck once before, you know.

The cabinet that held our land-locked smallish to today’s standards of a television set is gone. Well, it is dismantled waiting in the garage to be picked up.  With its demise came the opportunity to get a larger television for the room I look at football games when I am sitting on the couch and not sitting in the floor doing sit-ups during commercials like I did when I was a much younger man with a much smaller gut.  I remember having sit-ups contests with a friend of mine.  We’d call each other after every one half hour during prime time commercials…back when we had four TV stations and one television oddity that played Big Bird, Mr. Rogers, and documentaries by folks that sounded like they were doing either promotional work or auditioning for NPR.  PBS has come a long way, baby.

As the sky gets darker and the threat of a storm is still with us, if not getting stronger, I still have not heard from the young man whom drove up in a blue and white van filled with stuff that will.. or so they say, enhance my football on television watching experience. The television I recently procured looks like a drive-in movie screen compared to the postage stamp of a picture we once had in there.  I watched Manning brothers win four Super Bowls on that postage stamp.  How can I get rid of it?  Well, I watched the second half of those games on the postage stamp after watching the first halves over at my folks’ house on a TV bigger than my postage stamp.  I still have not gotten rid of that TV…yet.

I hope the fella outside working in my TV infrastructure is still hanging in there.  He is still working.  I think.  If he would have been struck by lightning I am sure he would of hollered.  Maybe I should check.  I just heard some furious thunder to the west.

Never mind.  He’s okay.  I hear him using a drill out there.  Sounds like he is hustling.  Sounds like he is changing tires in the pits at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  It is forevermore dark out there.  I would take a picture…but then you would look at it and criticize me for not going out and telling the boy to get in the house.  Hey, he is a professional.  Let the man do his work.  While he does, I think I might head to the storm shelter.  Its looking worse all the time.

Gotta go and think about speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

I was not raised to be calculatedly critical of others.  If someone does me wrong, I need to chose a careful path.  I was never good at knee-jerk reactions.  Many a “jerk” came out of exactly that.  Turning the other cheek and letting things go in one ear and out the other are abilities that I have been blessed with.  Some might interpret that sort of action as being “uncaring”, a mistake in the world of getting a facebook timed reaction.

Here I am trying to make the best of a good situation.  That too is contradictory happenstance.

I am looking at the Atlantic Ocean along the North Carolina Coast.  This is my favorite place to be in the entire world.  I doubt a delicately fried piece of flounder could be as good anywhere else on the planet.  Here I am next to my dear wife, Carrie.  She is reading a cooking magazine in between glances and gazes at an ever-changing sky in front of us.  Yesterday evening we were blessed with the sight of a herd of dolphins bobbing up and down in the water in front of us.  One little fella even decided to jump out of the water to show off for us.  It is easy to care when things are going as good as that.

It is easy to care when things are going our way…when the practice of caring is not relentless…when the circumstances before us are calm and, well, just plain nice.  What we would give to have that on more days than not.

Even in the face of an ocean of peace and calm like we see in front of us this morning, there is always the possibility of troubled waters on the horizon.  There are times the skies will look grey and ominous.  Just ask Carl.

On Sunday, the Rev. Duke Lackey of Faith Harbor United Methodist Church in Surf City reminded us of the story of the Good Samaritan.  Duke’s sermon was titled “Do This”.  Do as the Good Samaritan did.  Help the helpless.  Do as Keshia Thomas did in Ann Arbor, Michigan twenty years ago when a KKK rally was happening.  The protesters turned violent toward one of the Klanpersons.  Keisha Thomas, a young black lady, came to his aid.  She threw herself over the white man and told those inflicting punishment upon him to stop, declaring… “You can’t beat goodness into a person.”  Do as our military members will do for us like no one else we know.  Do like Duke Lackey and say the right things that are led by God’s word.  Do this.

I wish I knew why two black guys were shot by police officers.  I wish I knew how a girl could sit next to a dying man and be that calm while recording video of the situation.  And I wish I knew why she would do that.  I wish I knew I was right when I looked back on news footage of 1968, the year I first saw the light of day, and was so sure and glad we had come far enough not to “do that again”.  I am afraid of what the upcoming National Political Conventions will bring.  I wish I knew why so many people hate each other for no other reason than the color of their skin.

In teaching I often use a personal example of how problems between black folks and white folks can show themselves.  I tell students that they are being affected by fear of something they don’t know anything about.  Fear and ignorance is the truest recipe of racism.  And, yes, it works both ways.  White v. Black and Black v. White.  And yes, that is a damn shame.  I end my speaks to students with this sentiment:  In my life I have been called names, kicked, pushed, made fun of, punched, shot at, and had my heart broken…all at the hands of folks that were white and not black.

I wish I didn’t see one step up and forty-eight years back.  Makes my time on this earth so far a little less meaningful.  But…I must get over that and press onward.  I need to get the negative out of my system in cathartic ways like this one.  I suppose that is one reason why I do press onward, I do look for a better day, I do try to do something about it, and I do…

Speak the Rights.

Danny Johnson