This is post number 542 on speaktherights.com.
This past week’s college football picks saw 10 winners and 4 losers. I thought I would do better. Season record is 68 winners and 30 losers. Not very good at all.
This beautiful fall evening the sun is going down to the slightest of breezes. No leaves falling right now. Many have already fallen.
I have long enjoyed the fall. Football season? That may have something to do with it. Really I love everything about the fall. The weather. Knowing that winter is on the way and how you enjoy a beautiful day that comes along that you don’t really expect. Seeing a change in the trees and how the environment changes drastically around us as the leaves fall and the time changes and the sun goes down earlier and earlier as December approaches. Kids enjoying Halloween as they dress up in trick or treat. I loved that as a kid. It was fun. We all had a chance to be something else for a few minutes. I remember a time or two, when the weather was not so kind at Halloween, being ready for November 1st to get here cos my mask was warm and made me sweat. That is what happens where you are full of hot air, someone once told me. They looked like they meant it.
On these speaktherights.com pages I have enjoyed sharing tales and spinning yarns and holding forth on things that matter to me. Family, faith, music, laughs, wonderful friends and memories, travelling to here and there, and just sounding off a little bit. I have enjoyed it all.
But there comes a time when it is time to interject a caesura. A pause from speaktherights.com is needed right now. No, I didn’t see it coming. But, as my dear wife, Carrie, and I spent a little time on Topsail Island last week I saw a few things a little bit clearer I think. I asked what it would feel like to give speaktherights.com a little time off and a silly little smile came to my face I think.
And guess what? Tomorrow may bring a new day and I will be bringing another tale to these very pages. I don’t feel that way tonight. I don’t expect that to change either.
There is a bit of responsibility that goes along with doing this. I started in July 2014. My catalog of pictures on this webpage is mind boggling. I have been blessed and I have been to and seen so many wonderful places. The best were when my dear wife, Carrie, was within arm’s length. I am blessed that way. I don’t know why.
Talk about irony that is in place right now. As I type these words I am listening to John Lodge’s just released greatest hits CD that features some new work as well. Yes, that is Roger Dean artwork on the cover.
I shook John’s hand in Huntsville, Alabama in 1994. We actually had a conversation during a pre-show meet-up. Thanks to Ivy Stewart, he knew I was coaching football at the time and players called me Coach Moody. It was all too cool.
Of course I was standing next to him in 2012 when Carrie and I had our picture taken with The Moodies.
The irony here is that I feature John Lodge on this post. Y’all know my affinity for the music of his fellow Moody Blue, Justin Hayward. Double irony. Justin’s 73rd birthday is today. In sixteen days Carrie and I will be seeing and hearing Justin in Nashville. The last time we saw him was last August in Kent, Ohio. I am 51 years-old. The first time I saw Justin and The Moodies in 1986 I was 18. Like I have said time and again, I was blessed to pick the right group. What a great story.
So I need to leave you with some great pictures that were taken this past week.
I wrote about it before…but it was in a patch of rocks and shells like this that I looked down last week and found this…
This stone will go everywhere with me.
Wanna talk about a beautiful sun rise?
Wanna talk about being blessed? Taken before the early service at Faith Harbor UMC.
The guys at Thomas’ Market. The best place to buy fresh seafood on the planet.
Be still my flounder eating heart!
Carrie and I met Pat Conroy in 2013. He is gone but not forgotten. Too many great words to live on and remind us of who we are and who we need to be. He was so kind to me. I think in audible terms. It is the songwriter in me. When Pat Conroy introduced himself to me I thought I needed to turn around. Who me? Yes. Me. He loved educators. I told him he never stopped teaching.
On Saturday I paid a solo visit to The Joan. Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington, WV. Home of the Marshall Thundering Herd. The Herd won over Old Dominion. They needed a victory.
Kickoff, of course.
It was a beautiful day for college football. But, aren’t they all?
So that is that.
Regrets? Not really.
My mother knows nothing of this. Each day she fires up her computer and looks to see if I have posted something. That may qualify as a regret. I don’t want to disappoint her. She won’t be. She will tell me she understands. She may not like it but she will understand. That comes with her trusting my judgement. I am blessed that way too.
At the Moody Blues concert in 2016 at the Louisville Palace. After the show, my Dad said “That was the best show I have ever seen.” He has seen some concerts over the years for sure.
I have to wrap this up.
Am I melancholy? Not at all. I think I am relieved.
I have some other literary pursuits to tend to. I am not writing songs actively. I am just listening and trying to write what I need to.
I could be back here next week. I doubt it. If you have been here with any regularity I thank you. I plan on being back. After all, there will always be a need for someone to …
Speak the rights!
Danny Johnson