Forever intrigued with the Flowering of New England literature of the mid-1800s and that great chasm of misunderstanding and stance between the transcendentalist and anti-transcendentalist, I think a visit to those literary stomping grounds gave me the impetus to begin this writing endeavor known as speaktherights.com.
I have written here before about the influence Dr. Millard Dunn, my favorite English professor, was on my writing life and my music life. I thought of Millard when I visited Walden Pond in 2011 and Herman Melville’s home, Arrowhead, in Pittsfield, Mass last year. I studied the work of Melville and Henry David Thoreau in earnest when I was in Dr. Dunn classes. Many of those days and actual class meetings are still so clear in my mind. It is special.
My dear wife, Carrie, and I first went to New England in 2011. We went there to see friends, Bob and Michelle in New Hampshire, over our fall break. Bob and his son, Davis, and I went to see the UNH Wildcats play the Rhode Island Rams at a UNH home game. It was great.
The next morning there were 18 inches of snow on the ground. A good old fashioned Nor’easter came through. It was something.
In 2014, Carrie and I went to The Berkshires in western Mass. We loved the place. We have been back every year since and plan to return for a fifth year in a row in late June. Not far from Hancock, Mass, where we stay, is Pittsfield where Herman Melville wrote Moby DIck and lived for a number of years.
Here I am doing my best George Plimpton imitation outside the Pittsfield Athenaeum…a fancy name for a library.
Melville’s house.
The barn where Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne chewed the fat. I was in awe.
Not to short Thoreau, of course, this is Walden pond which is also on the header of speaktherights.com right now.
When Carrie and I came home in 2014 from our Northeast visit, I had writing ants in my pants. In July of that year I began speaktherights.com. This is the 400th entry on this site. It is hard for me to believe. In the fall of 2014 I wrote extensively about my Granny’s illness and eventual passing. It was cathartic for me. It is nice to have to look back on, as well as so many other days and times and hopes, wishes and dreams.
So here is the first post…
Why Speak The Rights?
Good question…
Hopefully a good answer.
I like the sound of it. It sounds true. Truth is a very good thing. The truth will set you free from the bondage of untruth. That does sound good.
I tell many folks I don’t believe in fairness. It is the stuff of mythology. I gave a eulogy at a friend’s funeral in May of this year. I looked at his grown son and I said what I had to: life is not fair.
While I do not believe in fairness I do believe in good and bad. I do believe in wrong and right. When we speak wrongly we have screwed up. We all do it.
It just feels good to speak the rights.
Hopefully no one out there will mistaken the connotation of “rights” with political overtures. That would be to err. Just like we are not talking about “rights” as a notion of…gulp…fairness. That would be a painful mistake.
Speak the rights really took on a life of its own when I was broadcasting high school football games. My buddy Gus Stephenson and I had a grand time for a while relaying the plaudits of the athletic endeavors of teenage heroes on the gridiron. We enjoyed doing so for a number of years until it was time to move on. When I would agree with Gus at times, I would steal a line from a Shakespearean play where the character says to another: “Thou speak’st aright”.
I would say to Gus in agreement of his explanation to what happened on the following play: “You speak the rights, Gus”. It became a part of the lexicon of many around me. I just figured it must be time to share.
A number of years ago I wrote a weekly human interest column for a fledgling and now defunct local newspaper. I was flattered by the offer to share on a regular basis. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got a kick outta folks agreeing with what I said. I enjoyed it much more when I made someone laugh. I did not enjoy getting chewed out by my mother for using the word “hell” in a column. I’ll try not to do that again.
I will, however, within the confines of this space…quite oxymoronic in the year 2014. Does anyone else out there still want to date a document starting with 19…? I am guilty, on occasion.
Let me thank my dear wife Carrie for putting me behind each letter I type here today. She reminded me that…and convinced me that…all the column writing I did needed a comeback. She was right when she told me folks enjoyed what I wrote about. I just hope that will find a way to continue as I write some more.
I will write about friendship, sports, love, faith, music, time, work, movies, travel, family, history, heartache, politics, movies, schools, and whatever else may present itself that day.
Regardless…and sometimes it may hurt a little…I will speak the rights.
Oh, and Happy 50th Birthday to my dear friend Kelly “Samonhead” Samons.
I am on my way to join you as I…speak the rights along the way!
Danny Johnson