Cleaning snow off the driveway…again.  Had a first go at it last night.

The skies opened and dumped a great deal of snow on the Ohio River Valley.  That is what we refer to this region that is a harbinger of the great unknown we know as interesting weather and allergy problems most areas read about and are thankful they do not have to contend with.  Weather is a picky thing everywhere I suppose.

We got at least ten inches of snow yesterday afternoon into this morning when the snow finally gave out.  We will be talking about this “big March snow” for a very long time.

Give the bird a seed, I say.

We had very little of what resembled a harsh winter around here through the month of January.  I figure if we are going to have bad weather it, some of it is bound to get to us before the end of the NFL playoffs at least.  I remember joking to my dear wife, Carrie, at the end of January that it looked like the bad winter so many prescribed was not going to show itself.  Wrong.  February was one of the coldest on record around here.  We have seen snow ion the ground now most of two weeks running if not longer.  I am through with the weather business.

I’m not the only one through with the weather business.  Seems the weather people on TV are through with it too.  Seems they don’t want to make a forecast.  They want to show me “models”.  Where does the “European Model” come from?  This is America, isn’t it?  What in the name of Chuck Taylor is going on here.  No…not the tennis shoe Chuck Taylor.  I refer to a former television meteorologist in the Louisville market whom never tried to scare anyone into buying bread and milk.  Chuck Taylor is gone now.  His memory isn’t.  He didn’t wave his arms and make speeches while he gave the weather.  He told you how cold it was going to be.  He told you how much snow he thought would fall.  He never mentioned a “model” forecast.  We trusted HIS forecast.  Had he waved his arms or raised his voice, that would have caused more people to fall down than any patch of ice he ever “spoke” of.  If Chuck said it was going to be cold, you grabbed your coat…you didn’t wonder what the “.com Model” said.

There is a song I have been listening to over and over again as I am writing this post.  The first time I heard it, I couldn’t help but to cry.  I couldn’t fathom.  A day and a half later, I am listening to it over and over and over again and I am oh so appreciating it.  Many of you have already heard it.  Look, I told you I don’t watch that much television when it is not football season.  This particular song made some noise at the Grammy Awards and the Academy Awards of late.  The song is some of the last original work Glen Campbell put together.  The song is called “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”.

Glen Campbell is in the late stages of a nasty disease called Alzheimer’s Disease.  He won’t play anymore concerts.

I never saw Glen Campbell in person.  Not that I didn’t or don’t appreciate him.  Glen Campbell is one of those iconic entertainment figures that seem almost ubiquitous to us.  He appeared on television.  He appeared in movies.  He appeared on stage.  He appeared on record.  He became like a kitchen table.  Always there.  Not nearly appreciated enough.  When’s the last time you looked at a dining table and thought about how glad you were to have something to prop up your eats?

I posted here…probably months ago…about the struggles Carrie and I had while taking care of her grandparents.  They both had dementia.  When one had to leave home for good, the other was not long behind.  When they were no longer in the house they shared for decades, it was over.  Memories were gone.  In a matter of a few months, Carrie’s grandpa died.  His wife was in a nursing home…and she “did not miss him”.  She couldn’t.  She did not go to his funeral.  She couldn’t.  She died a year and a couple months later.

So Glen Campbell knew his memory was going to go.  He did what true artists do when they have a chance.  He tried to make sense of it in a song that will live longer than he will.  My hat is off to him.  Is it a sad song?  Maybe the saddest.  Is it a good song?  No, it is a great song.  This is the answer to the question that gets knocked around by music historians amazed at the longevity of careers like that of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson and yes, The Moody Blues.  We went from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to “The Long and Winding Road” to “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”.  And to think, we thought we knew the day the music died.

Trying to speak the rights.

Danny Johnson