As my dear wife, Carrie, trotted upstairs as I declared I was going to work on post #7 of this series she said, “Write something funny.”

My brain went into overload.  So many good times and funny things came to mind.  I am fortunate and blessed that I have that.  But when I sit here and try to conjure up the words to bring these moments together it seems rather difficult.

When I first thought about Day 7 in this series I naturally thought about 7…as in 7 points…a touchdown and an extra point.  When I was in the 4th grade I won a competition among all 4th graders at Brownstown Central Elementary School and it was called “Shoot to the Moon”…maybe because we had, in 1977,  just seen out first pictures of something called a “Space Shuttle” piggybacked on top of a Boeing 747 in Weekly Reader.  That is a true story.  Anyway, I won the contest.  It was a combination of time and accuracy.  50 simple multiplication problems on a single page…who can get them done first with accuracy?  It was Mrs. Lahrman’s 4th grade math class.  I can only tell you that I attribute my multiplication dexterity back in the day, as I was never a great math student, to being able to put together football scores.  2pt conversion.  3 pt field goal.  6 pt touchdown.  7 pts touchdown and extra point.  8 pts touchdown and 2 pt. conversion.  Down by ten?  Need a field goal and TD and extra point to tie.  6 touchdowns and 6 extra points later?  42 points of course.  It was a football scoreboard that has allowed me to this day put that mental math in place.  But that’s not funny.

Yesterday I was talking to my sister, Lynn, about some of the shenanigans I use to pull when I worked at the now CLOSED Sears store in Clarksville.  Store 2160.  I was employee number 119644.  I had a time card and punched in and punched out when I started working there in 1987.  I had just turned nineteen.  A few years later the time cards were replaced with “swipe” cards…electronics and the modern way had found us.  I can tell you I am glad I caught the tail end of the old time card days and the “CLUNK” sound the clock made when one clocked in and out.

Thirty years ago I worked on the dock at Sears at the Greentree Mall.  It was hard work.  A trailer would come in and my boss Ed Caldemeier would open the trailer and almost get hit by garage door opener falling down.  Ed could cuss in complete sentences and was one of the finest men I have ever known.  He respected the work we did on that dock.  Because of that, we worked our butts off for him.

One day, when I knew that the ONLY manager on duty was a friend of mine, I pulled a joke on one of my co-workers.  His name was Guy.  He was much older than I was.  He had worked at the old Sears store on 8th and Broadway in Louisville and many of those folks transferred to the Clarksville store when it opened.  I can remember many of those folks and I loved hearing them tell their old 8th and Broadway stories.  I know where their store was located and every time I drive by there I can hear their voices.

The day I pulled the joke I was only interested in Guy’s voice.  I knew the only manager there was a friend of mine.  I knew I could pull this off and not get too much heat.

I was on the dock and we had a phone on the wall next to the swinging doors that led to where we would unload trucks.  I have never been afraid of a phone.  When it was time to make a page out on the sales floor to get a manager’s attention, I was voted to be the big mouth to do it.

One day  I picked that phone up and dialed the STORE WIDE page.  Sales floor, stock room, break room, bath room, everyone listening as I punched in the store page number…and looked at Guy.  “Guy, it’s for you!” I yelled, knowing whatever he was going to say would be heard by half of Clarksville.

“Hello?”  Guy heard nothing.

Again, “Hello?”  Guy heard nothing.

He pulled the receiver away and looked at it and yelled, “Well who is this?”

The whole store busted out laughing.  I let Guy in on the joke and he told me it was a good one…that I had him.  Thank God he was a good sport.  I haven’t seen Guy in twenty five years or better.  He was a good man.

All of this reminded me of another funny…and it will have to wait.

Cos I got 43 more of days of this assignment to…

Speak the Rights.

Danny Johnson