My dear wife, Carrie and I have spent a few days in Chicago.  I now share with you an few images and some commentary to go along with them.

A photo out the hotel window.  We are less than a block from Michigan Avenue on the Lake side.

I got to have a sit down with Johnny Carson at the Museum of Broadcast Communications.  Johnny is a nice guy.

Carrie told a few stories to Carson as well.  She was glad he had Lewis Grizzard on…twice.

This is the actual camera that caught Nixon looking less than graceful in his debate with John F. Kennedy, a debate that went a ways in making Kennedy even more likable.

I let out a sigh of relief when I found Captain Furrillo and the Sarge.

A Chicago legend, I listened to Larry Lujack when I was in high school.  He was on 89 WLS The Rock of Chicago.  It was AM’s last vestige of rock and roll significance.  I loved it.  When the sun went down I could pick it up 300 miles away.  When the sun was coming up…it would fade away as I listened.  It was a friend you tuned into when you knew you could.  Animal Stories was a bit he did with partner Tommy Edwards.  It was the greatest thing I ever heard on the radio next to this guy…

Listening to Jack Buck call a football game on the radio was pure significance.  His voice made each play sound like a time you needed to straighten up and pay attention to.  Class.  Pure class.  He and Hank Stramm did Monday Night Football on radio and it was wonderful.

The Chicago River.

A cup of coffee before going to The Art Institute this morning.

The Art Institute of Chicago.

Remember the painting Cameron looked at and stared at and stared a little bit more at?  The Seurat.

My dear Carrie admiring a piece of work.

Carrie looking at Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks”.  This is my favorite piece of art in the the world.  I wrote about it many many posts ago.  It has been a friend to me. I keep a copy of it in my office.  We also have one at home.  I was 16 years old when this painting took me in.  Painted in 1942, I still get nervous before I walk in to gallery room 262 to see it.

Carrie and me by The Bean.

Speaking the Chicago rights…

Danny Johnson

Got a great deal of catching up to do.

I plan on doing just that this weekend.  I will have my camera ready.

There will be a picture or two.

One of my favorite movies was not a blockbuster.  It was a story about how a father and son communicated back and forth on a HAM radio over a span of 30 years or more.  I know…but it was still a good story.  I really enjoyed it.  The movie is called “FREQUENCY”.

My two word title here is a nod to that movie’s grand climactic scene.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

A friend of mine asked that I smoke a rack of baby backs on Super Bowl Sunday.  Make that FOUR racks of baby backs on Super Bowl Sunday.  My arm did not have to be twisted too much to acquiesce.  I was glad to do it for my old friend, Carl.

In my travels over the years I have seen both coasts of the United States with 2 folks…my Dad and Carl.  Know that my Granny and I saw the Atlantic Ocean together and we saw the Pacific Ocean as we were surrounded by it in Hawaii.  Deference goes to Granny.  I think Granny and Carl would have gotten along.

Take in there, Carl.

Carl has a friend.  Carl is the only one of his kind that gets preferential treatment from the hound Hot Rod.  Hot Rod loves his vittles too.  Hot Rod has a weakness in the extremeist for carrots.  I have no doubt that Carl is glad of that.

Hot Rod does love his carrots.

I mean he REALLY loves his carrots.

Hot Rod is a good one.  He loves his carrots

Thanks to my dear wife, Carrie, for helping Hot Rod and me tonight.

WHAT ABOUT THE SUPER BOWL?

How many folks told me they went to bed after the 3rd quarter.  I wish I were one of them.

Love them or hate them, you got to give Brady and Coach B their due.  I don’t want to watch this the rest of my life.  I am afraid we will hear nothing but PATS for a very long time.  This one put it over the top…even for us PATS nonconformists.

If only Hot Rod and Carl had been there to keep the Falcons cool last night.

Oh well.

Speaking the rights…with the help of Carl, Carrie, and Hot Rod…

Danny Johnson

At this moment I am listening to the new mix of the music I sang on last weekend.  All I can say is …Wow.  Jeff (Jefferson) Carpenter knows how to turn those knobs.   I sang about it.

Thanks to goes to all the players on this thing.  I am not going to mention them all individually right now.  That day will come.  Right now I am enjoying their gift of music and the way they bring the music forth.  It is truly amazing.  Did I say I was fortunate?  I just sit here and shake my head.  Maybe one day a few of you will get to hear some of this.

Tonight is a big night for the North Harrison Lady Cats.  They are playing the Charlestown Lady Pirates  for an Indiana High School Sectional Championship.  The winner gets to move on to the Regional, ironically at Charlestown next week.  The winner gets to keep playing.  The winner gets the good sweet memories.  The winner also gets a nice trophy to put in the school’s trophy case.  Last night the Lady Cats dismantled the Corydon Pantherettes 55 to 11.  With that game well in hand in the third quarter, my dear wife, Carrie and I headed to the exit.  We drove into the cold Southern Indiana night sky…dodging a few deer on the way…to the Class A Orleans Sectional.

There were a few seconds left in the 1st period as the West Washington Lady Senators, coached by my old friend Darrin Russell, took on the Medora Lady Hornets when Carrie and I got there. They just stopped collecting the 6 dollar admission.  We were not disappointed with that.  The game was not a match.  West Washington won easily.  But I can tell you that the Medora team, small and mighty, did not give up.  They did not quit.  They did a great job.  I was proud of them and my friend, Brad McCammon, their coach.

Right now I am listening to a cover tune we recorded.  It is the first of such I have ever attempted to undertake.  I recently heard a nationally famous recording ladyperson say how singing the National Anthem was difficult.  Like many I have heard talk about singing it they call it a “hard song to sing”.  I have never thought that.  I have sang that song on occasion.  It is a pleasure to sing.  The song, no matter the national horizon, is still “our song”.  I enjoy singing it and I don’t think it is difficult.  Singing the chorus of “Nights in White Satin” is much more demanding.  I just listened to myself sing it.  We pulled it off.  But…it sounded like paint was being gently ripped away (in a good way) as that chorus was going on.  It sounds good…but man is it a powerful tune.

I suppose it is what you put into it.  It’s like that for most things though, isn’t it?

The greatest compliment I ever received from singing came from my friend Pat Bahan, a former Army Ranger, when I sang the National Anthem at a high school basketball game.  Pat told me it was the best rendition of the song he had ever heard.  He said that is how it was meant to be sung.  Hearing those words was a humbling experience…but one I will treasure.  He didn’t have to say it.  He did.  He didn’t have to mean it.  He did.  That is what makes it so very special.

And so it goes.  The song of life keeps playing along.  We all have an important stanza to offer.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson