Someone is paying attention, I found out.  They asked if I would comment further on some of the pictures I have put on speaktherights.com over the years.

Here’s the thing.  I keep moving.  I don’t stop and look around a great deal.  I wish I did that just a little more.  I was much better at that skill when I was 17 than at almost 52.  Responsibility to blame?  I don’t think so.  Things change.  Photographs don’t change.  That is part of their appeal I think.  When I stop and look at the catalog of photos on this page I look around and wonder how it happened.

No great order here.  But I will acquiesce and throw some meaningful photos on here.

At the top of the list is this photo of my dear wife, Carrie, and my Uncle Stanley Chambers.  Stanley is gone now.  I miss him.  He and I could relate like few I know.  I got Stanley.  And he got me.  This was taken in Forest, Mississippi during a Hines Family Reunion.  My mother’s family was from W.E. and Levi Jane Hines.  Seventeen young’uns for those of you keeping score at home.  Stanley was married to Aunt Reat, my mom’s sister.

Me pensively looking over The Moody Blues display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I did not think either of us would ever get there.

My Mom and Dad at a Moody Blues concert at The Louisville Palace in March of 2016.

Behind us was the fictional Hill Street Station from Hill Street Blues.  We walked through a COLD Chicago day to get to this place.  Still my favorite TV show of all time.

I don’t think I have a better football story than the one I can tell about taking my Dad to The Rose Bowl to see the UCLA play USC.  When we walked into that stadium it was the most surreal experience I had since placing the last punctuation mark on a 74000 word story I finished writing in 2007.

The first picture I ever posted on speaktherights.com.  Who could blame me?  I didn’t know what I was getting into to.  But did I ever have a great start!!!!

I miss this guy.  Luther was our pup for fourteen years.  He gave it up in 2010.  I still miss him so.  This photo was taken about a week before he died.  He looks tired.  He did not look so tired when he planted him near the walnut tree in the back yard.  I mean that.

I kicked, Samonhead held, and Pete snapped it…in this order.  I love these guys.

Me and Carrie at a Train concert in Kingsport, TN.  Were we really that young?

The closest I ever got to a hole in one.

The last time Jarrett and Cody and I went fishing together.  Proud of these boys!

My Dad and I saw the last Notre Dame game played on grass on ND Stadium.  The coldest I have ever been at a game.  It snowed.  Dad had the time of his life.  I thought I was going to die until I ate a whole pizza at the hotel afterward.

I started speaktherights.com in July of 2014.  Four months later we lost my Granny.  I chronicled her illness and it was a cathartic thing for me.  She was amazing.

There is only one place to KISS THE BRICKS…Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

With my Uncle Roger at a family reunion.  He too taught English.  We are both still learning, I suppose.

Carrie and me atop the Empire State Building.

At the reflecting pools where the Twin Towers fell.  I don’t know that I have ever looked at a photo more.  She was there for someone I am sure.

My key to Indianapolis Motor Speedway on more than one occasion, Mr. Adam Disque and the 4th grade Medora Elem. class.

The NHHS girls on the podium at Banker’s Life in 2016.

Making music with Jeff Carpenter has been one of  the thrills of my life.

John Elway thanking me for sending him football cards of his Dad when Jack Elway coached in the World League.  It was the right thing to do.

Barry Hall and my Dad a week before they tore down Blevins Memorial Stadium as we knew it.

Humbled to be in this barn where Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville chewed the fat in Pittsfield, Mass.

The last Moody Blues concert we attended at The Ryman Auditorium.  No better place to end it.

Honored that Ben Waynescott presented me his road jersey for Senior Night.

Robert Becker, curator of Rock and Roll on 96.3 WJAA in Seymour, Indiana.  The best in the business.

Where The Miracle on Ice took place In Lake Placid 1980.  I need to go back and make sure I was really there.

Walking across The Brooklyn Bridge.

Carrie and me hanging with our friend Julie Ragins before a music gig she was playing and singing in at Kent, Ohio.  I am still hoping to write a duet good enough to talk her into singing with me.

Dining with Cody and Jarrett and Sarah in Florida.

No Pier Pressure under the Santa Monica Pier.

Carrie and me in an empty Rose Bowl where I was 2 for 2 kicking just beyond extra point territory in Brooks.  Look at the new field.  I was not about to put on my kicking shoe, though I had it with me.

Working through a musical part with Dan Trisko.

Brother Tim Petty finally got me to Alabama to see Ole Miss play Bama.

The last Justin Hayward gig we saw last October at The City Winery in Nashville.  Julie Ragins is to his left playing and singing as lovely as ever.

Watching the Hoosiers play with Adam Disque.  Love it!

Carrie and Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.  No better way to wrap this up.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

The year is 2020.  For a few reasons I suppose, I just don’t feel quite as young as I used to.  I’m not complaining.  I’m just speaking the rights.

Yesterday, for a few fleeting moments I felt like a kid again.

As I sat on the couch and watched a recorded earlier in the day Eli Manning retirement speech, I felt a warm metal rail under my chin for just a minute.  Under my rear was another rail I was sitting on.  I was ten years old and it was 1977.  Behind me were the metal bleachers of the Wilmington College Football Stadium.  In front of me on the field was # 14 Ken Anderson and my eyes were affixed to every single move this quarterback made as the Cincinnati Bengals were deep into summer camp.  Anderson’s straight over the top delivery.  His foot work that was text book.  Throwing a deep out to Isaac Curtis and how Ike caught up to it when you never thought he could.  Waiting to get my autographs after practice.

As my chin was now resting on top of my folded arms, an older gentleman inside the rail  meandered over to me with his arms crossed looking ever so attentively at the quarterback play also.  He spoke up.

“You really like that Ken Anderson, don’t you?”  I responded, “He is the best ever, sir.”  The man walked side to side for a moment and said, “I really like him too.”

When I caught up with my Dad, who was in the stands, he asked what Paul Brown and I were talking about.  “Ken Anderson.  What else?”

And so that was how it was for me growing up as the son of a football coach.  Though I could throw a ball over sixty yards once upon a time and make a few good throws around the field in pick-up games, I was center and kicker material.  I was not quarterback material. As a senior in high school I saw Ken Anderson start the season opener against the Seattle Seahawks in 1985.  He got hurt.  So did I.  The last time I remember seeing him play on television, he was holding for points and field goals his last season in 1986 on a Monday night against the Steelers.  I was in a TV lounge at a residence hall across the rail road tracks from the Thomas Assembly Center at Louisiana Tech begging for another Bengal score so I could see him run out there just one more time.

On June 3rd of 1987 we opened up sports pages and found this.  What do I do now, I wondered?

My football rules go like this…Root for the home high school.  Root for your favorite college teams.  Root for your favorite pro player.  I have never been a die-hard pro football fan beyond rooting for my favorite player.  Ken Anderson did that to me.  When he was done, so was I.

Living in Southern Indiana, I was not even impressed when, as a high school sophomore, the Mayflowers delivered the Colts to Indianapolis.  That all changed in 1998.  Peyton Manning was now a Colt and I made it a point to get to see him play at least one game a year in the old Hoosier Dome.  I have yet to see the Colts play in the house that Peyton built.

A year later in 1999, while in Oxford rooting on the Ole Miss Rebels against the Georgia Bulldogs with Quincy Carter at quarterback in a game the Rebs lost 20-17, my Aunt Barbara and I were watching the team make the walk to the stadium in their suits and ties.  Eli was a scrawny little fart.  200 lbs was his weight listed in the program, only if his pockets were filled with biscuits.  But there he was.  Having been a Rebel fan, given my Southern lineage, I knew this was a big deal.  I knew that Archie caught some stupid grief when Peyton went to Tennessee instead of Ole Miss where Arch was and still is a legend.

I was fortunate enough to see Eli play at least one game in each of the seasons he played at Ole Miss.  I found my favorite player again.  Then he joined the New York Giants and I was able to see him play a couple NFL games in person also.  Now there is no reason to think about the NFL Sunday Ticket again.

Both Ken Anderson and Eli Manning played sixteen seasons with the same team. Both were quiet leaders.  They are both Hall of Fame guys in my heart and that is where they will stay.  In football, as in music (The Moody Blues), I have known how to pick’em.

As I raised up off of the couch to walk away after Eli Manning’s announcement, I realized I will never sit on that rail again.  But is sure was fun while it lasted.

Speaking the football retirement rights…

Danny Johnson

Listening to a remastered version of The Moody Blues’ 1986 The Other Side of Life.  That was the one that is credited to bringing the last great wave of fans to the band.  I can tell you that not many from that generation showed up in great numbers in the last years of the band’s touring life.  Not to say they won’t tour again, but, they won’t tour again.  And that is okay.  In July of 2017 I walked out of The Ryman holding Carrie’s hand having just heard the band play Days of Future Passed in its entirety.  I’m done! That is what I told myself when I walked out and that is what I meant.  A solo show to be had by Justin or John is always a possibility I suppose.

We had to put Holiday Pete away.  But every year he finds his way to be affixed to a kitchen cabinet.  This picture was taken long before I knew Mick Rutherford or had stepped foot onto the North Harrison campus.  But, I did.  And it has been a good thing.  I only wish I had been his classmate when he was sporting this getup.  I would have probably hit him in head with that broom instead of the silver metal lunch box I clocked him with one day in Mrs. Lambert’s room in the back of the room by the coat pegs.  He forgave me.

After Christmas my dear wife, Carrie, and my sister, Lynn, and I went to Mississippi for a few days to look around and visit kin.  It was a marvelous time.  The last time I was on the Ole Miss campus for a football game was Eli Manning’s senior year.  I have made it to Nashville and Lexington, and even Winston-Salem to watch the Rebs play since.  The campus at Oxford has grown up a bit.  Somebody added water and money and the place really grew.

The stadium has grown.  Carrie and I were there in 1996 for a record crowd of 44,000-plus. Both end-zones have since been filled and the last record crowd was in 2016 against Alabama with over 66,000 in the house.

You know, I would give anything if this guy would sign with the Indianapolis Colts for a year or two.  That would be fun.

The square in Oxford was a beautiful sight.  The place has a true charm that doesn’t work you over. This charm takes you in.  That is a compliment I don’t dole out lightly.

It was a good time.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

With a nod to Billy Joel, I am not Saying Goodbye to Hollywood, though I was unimpressed with the place when I saw it.  I am Saying Goodbye to Facebook.

This is post number 548 of speaktherights.com.  On these pages, that began in July of 2014, I have type nearly a half a million words.  I have enjoyed them all even when I wasn’t enjoying them.  My long-time readers know what I mean.

I made a conscience effort this past fall to cut back on speaktherights.com.  It has not worked out very well.  In the interim I have paid more attention to facebook than I have speaktherights.com.  It has not worked out very well. I say it again.

I was not made for facebook.  I realize most of the folks I know on facebook would never fathom having a blog that produced a half a million words.  I don’t expect them to.  It is not what they do.  It is, however, what I do.  And what I need to get back to on a more regular basis.

Facebook is a vehicle that I don’t travel well on.  I love words.  I dissect them.  I breathe them.  I look at them upside down.  Know that I will never ask anyone to understand any of this.  It is my bane and my glory.  I smile when I think about writing.

I thank Mr. Bart Bigham for allowing me to come into his 11th grade classroom each Spring to expound on writing in one shape or another whilst tying it to a guidance lesson for life.  Even if he reads this, he will never know how important this is for me.

When I taught English I imparted on my classroom that I believe firmly in what is right and wrong and what is good and bad.  Fair, I told them, is either a degree of something or a place where you can get a really good corn dog along Indiana Highway 250 outside of Brownstown around the last week of July.

Facebook, to me, is good to a degree.  My problem is I get hung up on words…words my friends have not thought about or examined that I turn my head sideways at have brought me here.  I see way too much “Re-post and make a rational decision (or no decision at all) later”.

Guess whose problem this is?  Mine.  I will OWN IT.  There is novel idea these days.

So there it is.  I am not unfriending anyone!!!  I am suspending my facebook account tomorrow evening.  This is the right thing to do. Perhaps I will be back.

I will still have my twitter account.  I encourage you to stop in to speaktherights.com to see what is new or browse some of the old material.  I have been blessed beyond measure in this writing endeavor.   Hopefully I will pick it back it up a bit.  I told my dear wife, Carrie, I would like to put a few quick hitters on more often instead of 700-1000 word columns.  For better or worse I am driven by the 700 word column.  If I don’t get there I feel like a weenie.  I must get over that!

Thank you.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Two days in and the Indiana Hoosiers are still playing football.

Happy New Year, Everyone.  Let’s hope 2020 is as clear as it name suggests!

The Indiana Hoosiers play the UT Vols tonight in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, FL.  It should be a good one and I BELIEVE the Hoosiers will win the game and their season will end with nine wins against four defeats.  Know that I have never seen a Hoosier football team win 9 games in my lifetime and I got here in 1968.

If the Hoosiers win, I think they will have a chance to be in the final 2019 Top 25 for the first time since Anthony Thompson was a junior in 1988.

I think he could still play myself.

It has been a great season and I certainly appreciate the efforts of Coach Tom Allen and his staff.  Thanks also goes to Athletic Director Fred Glass for helping the football program gain some ground.  It is amazing what can happen when a school administration gives a program the support and resources it needs to be successful, be it on a high school level or the college level.  No one can do it alone.

This year I was fortunate to attend some great college games.  Got to see five Indiana games, three Marshall games, and attended the hottest game of the year when Ole Miss played at Tuscaloosa against BAMA in late September.

I won’t be holding down the couch tonight watching the Hoosiers.  I will be pacing the floor I would say.  I have not done that since the last Eli Manning/New York Giants Super Bowl.

It is going to be fun.  We don’t want to listen to Rocky Top all night, I assure you.  Been there and done that in Neyland Stadium watching the Rebs get their Hotty Toddies handed to them.

Go IU!

Speaking the rights,

Danny Johnson