One of two things happened with my last post. No one read the title or the title was read and then just chocked up as one of those things this nut does. I was not given a single word of question or warning. The title was messed up a bit. I learned a few things. I am left to question a few things. I just hope I am not the only one reading this stuff.
I prefer laughing over crying. I like to laugh. Seems the older I get the less I do of it. Not sure what that means. I suppose it means the opportunity to laugh is not as omnipresent as it once was. Responsibility and the things that go along with that are some of the factors that may limit one’s laughter time. That is to be expected I guess. What I do know is that I still have the full capacity to enjoy a good laugh. I hope folks don’t ever look at me and think that I have changed so much, we all do evolve you know, that I have lost my zeal for a good laugh.
When I am together with my cronies, and those times are few, my dear wife, Carrie, might ask, as my pals and I are in the throes of laughter that renders one a bit silly, “What are you…twelve?”
Well, I am not twelve. In less than a month I will be twelve times four. You do the math. Lord knows ISTEP expects a pre-schooler to get that one correct in 2016.
Yes. I like to laugh. But I also I like to look around and take things in. I enjoy looking for the big picture. Sometimes that will present itself in terms of finality. When a loved one dies, the big picture shows up. There is a spot on Indiana State Highway 135 between Salem and Palmyra. I drove past this spot well over 6000 times as I driving to and from Medora Schools where I worked for a very long time. I always crept up on that spot with some sort of reverence. I was handed some great ideas for writing and songs and a sense of direction there at that particular spot. I don’t drive past there anymore and I miss it. I don’t, however, miss it enough drive up there and back everyday.
I had a good idea in 1980. What was I? Oh, yeah, I was twelve.
When I was eleven, our family moved to Harrison County. My Dad had taken a job at North Harrison High School in Ramsey, Indiana as a Social Studies teacher and the head football coach. My Mom got work, does anyone say that anymore “got work”, at the Floyd Memorial Hospital in New Albany. We moved from a town about 50 miles to the North called Brownstown.
I had it made in Brownstown. We lived in town and I could ride my bike all over every inch of it. There were some challenging hills. I climbed them. There were some dangerous ditches. I had terrible wreck in one of them. I rode my bike to baseball practice. I rode my bike to the town pool. I road my bike to my Great-Grandmother’s house. It was a safe place. In the summer after our obligatory 5:30 PM dinner time, it was not uncommon to hear my mother tell me to be home before dark. Or she could tell me a certain time to be home. I had no excuse. The county courthouse with one of the largest time pieces with four offering sides in the State of Indiana was within eye-shot of our house some ten stories towering over the town. That I experienced good fortune my first eleven years is an understatement. I was blessed beyond belief.
So there I was at a new school in the fall of 1979 on an outpost of a campus in Ramsey, Indiana. No town pool. No Great-Grandma (she moved to Shreveport). No riding my bike all over my town. No town. Football was my saving grace. My Dad was coaching the high school team and I was consumed a bit with just that. It took my mind off all the things I was missing. That included my friends back home.
In late August of 1979, I walked into the 6th grade elementary classroom of Mrs. Fiona Lambert. She was nice. I was scared and anxious and lonely. Kids started milling around the room. No one came over to talk to me. Two more guys came in. At the behest of a kind girl-person classmate, she told them to go see the new guy, these two fellows came over and sat with me. Turned out one of them had a brother on my Dad’s high school football team. I told them I was from Brownstown. Kelly, whose brother played football, said something about the new football coach being from Brownstown. I told them he was my Dad.
That is where it started. The first day at my new school was all it took. Did I say I was blessed man?
Watching the Broncos play the Bengals.
At Kelly’s daughter’s wedding 2014.
This photo is in the order of how we played high school football together. Mick snapped the ball. Kelly held the ball. I kicked the ball.
We met in this classroom.
I assure you it has changed a great deal in 36 years. The old coat racks are still back there, sans the pegs, as you can see.
The classroom is behind the door below.
This is where things get interesting.
As a twelve year old I saw a big picture. This classroom was important to me. I met some life-long friends there and I knew we would be friends for life in 1980 when we walked out of that door for the last time and moved on to the other end of campus in a different building the next fall. I didn’t want to forget that room. I took an artifact before I walked out of the building. I put that artifact back this week for the sake of posterity and record. I inserted Mrs. Lambert’s room label in the slot in the door where I had removed it in May of 1980. Thirty-six years later it was Mrs. Lambert’s room one last time.
A look down the hall from this door:
Take a good look.
These images will soon turn into that of a parking lot. This structure is scheduled for demolition. A new building project is large and happening right now.
Below is another part of the project. My old high school, now the middle school, is getting in on the action too.
Progress? Yes. You better believe it. I am delighted to see these images and what they mean. I won’t miss the building. What I received from the building is what I take with me. That and a door’s name plate that was part of the big picture for a twelve year-old.
Speaking the rights.
Danny Johnson