Uncle Roger and me at the 2013 Hines Family Reunion

Somewhere in Georgia tonight my Uncle Roger is looking at the time of night and perhaps reading something.  Maybe he picked something up and put it down earlier than he planned.  For all I know he sat down today and read an entire novella in one setting.  The truth is, and I know many would attest to this, I just don’t know.  I have not talked to Uncle Roger in some time.  We have exchanged emails in the last month which means we put a few lines to each other’s way to acknowledge our existence with a few kind words thrown in for good measure and earnest faith.

I emailed him because I had stumbled across, thankfully, a piece of writing he penned that is over twenty years old.  I told him it is one of my favorite pieces of writing.  As I read it this many years on, I can still hear his kind, distinctly southern, life-giving voice.

A short time after I sent Uncle Roger an email,  I discovered he was going to have heart surgery.  I have heard the term “routine” thrown around when this procedure is mentioned.  Routine…until it needs to be done on you, I say.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have complete faith that Uncle Roger will come through his “procedure” just fine and he will press onward.  Whatever a mitral valve prolapse is,  I am confident that with the help of a skilled surgeon, Uncle Roger will kick its butt.

I’m sorry you won’t get to hear about Uncle Roger in the context he deserves.  If you have driven on Interstate 20 east of Jackson, Mississippi, you have driven a road he helped to plot.

Working ahead of a his time in 1960-something…I am bound to get the year wrong…he volunteered to teach at an all black high school in Meridian, Mississippi.  I have seen the photo of the faculty from that school year.  My uncle is the only white teacher and none of them could have been prouder to be there.  Isn’t it a shame that Hollywood won’t make a movie about Uncle Roger and his heart and desire to help students…black students…in that day and time in Mississippi.  He didn’t cause enough trouble for Hollywood.

I referenced the first paragraph of this post as a mirror to what I might be doing if I faced what my Uncle Roger is facing on April 16th this week.  I know he is also staying close to his wife Nancy and I know they are praying together.  If two kids were ever meant for each other, Roger and Nancy would be those two kids.

Roger and Nancy have four children.  I know they are faithful to our God and still anxious as they think about their beloved earthly father as he goes through the stress and anxiety of what April 16th will bring.  These are my cousins.  I love them and my heart is with them.

My Uncle Roger is an English teacher.  He always will be.  Did I take up a career in education because of him?  No… I did not.  Still it has been great to discuss and chew on with him the things that make students better students and better people.  The catalog of students’ lives he has touched is immeasurable.  Move over Mr. Holland.

Uncle Roger was a State Representative in Georgia for a number of years.  He even ran for Congress.  Had the dollar signs gone his way, and enough people had good sense, he would be taking a respite from Washington to have this procedure.  Or would he?  With his strong sense of service, I am delighted he is not in Washington.  I am glad he is outside of Atlanta trying to take care of himself.

The best thing I have left to say is that I am looking forward to visiting him again…perhaps this summer.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I spent a couple nights with Uncle Roger and Aunt Nancy a few years ago.  To hear those stories about his sixteen brothers and sisters, my mother being one of them, was pure joy and discovery.  We sat and talked into the night until the clock told us the next day had crept up on us at about story number forty-seven.  Good times.  Good times indeed.

Our hearts and prayers are with you, Uncle Roger…and Aunt Nancy….and cousins Christy, Wendy, Jeff, and Reagan…and their families. I look forward to the day we look at each other and talk about how it all went.  Uncle Roger will surely lead the discussion, as he should.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

A couple folks, sports minded gents, have asked why I have not been posting comments about the NCAA basketball tourney.  I told them I did mention it some time back.  That is about all you are going to get out of me during basketball season.  It is not that I don’t like it…I just don’t take the time to look at it until this grandiose tournament goes on that..by the way…has paid an immeasurable amount of STUPID TAX given the semi-finals were on CABLE TV and not on over the air television like I think the Good Lord intended.  I know..I know…the College Bowls were just as bad.  In fact…worse.

I have been watching this tourney closely.  I am shocked that Kentucky got put out by Wisconsin.

The McDonald’s All-Americans got knocked off by the Culver’s All-Americans.  Four of the starters for Swissconsin are natives of the Cheesehead State.

I have been to Wisconsin.  I could care less if I ever return.  Much like many folks talk about Indiana.  Or as one North Carolina newspaper columnist referred to Indianapolis as Indian-no-place.  I drive through Raleigh the day that column ran.  What has this guy been smokin’?  That is what I wondered.  While I love the Tar Heel Sate…probably more than my native soil because I can…I have been to both State Capitols.  I have spent time in both Capitol cities.  They are both better places to be than Wisconsin, in my puny opinion.

The Final Four.  I hope I don’t get sued for using that term more than once in a speaktherights.com post.

I remember 1978 when Goose GIvens scored 41 points to lead UK over Duke in the final.

I remember the 1979 classic of Bird v. Magic.  Indiana State vs. Michigan State.  The Sycamores were undefeated going in to that game.  How great would have that been if they would have won.  Perhaps the term “mid-major” would have never seen the light of day had ISU beat MSU that day.

The next year Louisville, led by Darrell Griffith,  won it all in Indian-no-place against…wasn’t it UCLA?

The next year Indiana won it…1981.  The game was played in the Philadelphia Spectrum.  Their opponent?  I have no clue.  I just know they won.

Those four years I was 10, 11, 12, and 13.  I never enjoyed basketball more.

I think my affinity for basketball waned after I procured the ability to watch more TV channels.  Cable and satellite came along.  I was no longer relegated to three solid channels and an independent cheesy one.  During the antiquated TV era, I watched more basketball.

My Dad and I even watched the NBA on Sunday afternoons when I was a kid.  I caught the tale end of Celtic dominance with John Havlicek and Dave Cowens and Sidney Wicks and Jo Jo White.  Good teams with Bird and those boys followed.  I enjoyed the guys from the 1970s much more.

Of course my favorite team was the 76ers and my favorite player was Dr. J.  He wore number 6.  He was Walter Payton on the hardwood for me.

My Bracket for this year’s NCAA Tourney?  For a guy that did not watch a game from tip to final horn until the tourney started, I did pretty good.  I had 6 of the 8 in the Elite 8.  Shame on you Iowa State and another I can’t remember.  I had three teams in the final four.  Two of those will be playing for the championship tonight.  The other two I picked to be playing in the championship.  I picked Kentucky to beat Louisville.  Why?  I suppose I wanted to see a game like that being played out.  Tonight’s game will do.

Go Duke!  After all they are from my adopted North Carolina and Millard Dunn went to school there.

Say no more…just…

Speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

I can’t let go of it.

I am listening to an old cassette tape I made years ago.  It is a compilation of many favourite songs ( I like to spell favourite like the Brits do).

This cassette tape is going on twenty years old at least.  It is full of songs whose original recordings I lost track of many years ago.   The last time I saw my tape of “When in Rome” was 19-something.  Their song “The Promise” is on this tape.

Long before I ever recorded a song or picked up a guitar, this tape was playing in my car and in my home stereo just like it is in 2015.  It was a heavy duty magnetic sort of cassette…quite expensive at the time.  Heck…I doubt if these things are still made.

This one is special to me.  It has songs I never want to forget or lose touch with.  Now and again I just need to hear Billy Joel sing “And So it Goes”.

I hope and pray all of you had a blessed Easter Day.  Ours was fantastic.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I went to a Sunrise service at the church we were married in.  Later in the day we hosted Easter vittles for our families.  We had a  house full and it was a great time.

We ate.  We laughed.  We remembered those we have lost and are still getting used to being without.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

I have been fortunate enough to be able to say I have been in a few places that just feel very significant.  You know, you get that shiver up the spine, or that hushed feeling of reverence, or just sometimes you just darn well know.

Every time I walk into the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville I feel this way.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I have seen The Moody Blues play there twice and we have attended a few Grand Ole Opry shows there.  The history in the place is palpable.

When I took my Dad to see Notre Dame play at Notre Dame Stadium I knew I was in a special place.  I have never been an Irish football fan.  I am, however, in tune with the history of college football.  When I walked to our seats I couldn’t keep my eyes off the field and the places etched in my memory where heroes made contributions to the game of college football that should never be forgotten.

The Art Institute in Chicago.  How can so many people be that quiet in that small of a space in a VERY LOUD city?  Centuries of great art…that is the answer.  I love the place.

When I visited the Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta a few years ago I knew I was somewhere special.  Though Carrie and I were among the very few white folks I saw there that day, it was a day of discovery.  Not all we discovered was to  be proud of.  We learned none the less.

This catalog could go on…as I said, I am a fortunate man.

Yesterday I was in one of those great historical spots.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Down the front stretch.

The other side of the front stretch.

The Pagoda from the Infield

Yesterday I was on a field trip with 4th grade students.  To its credit, IMS spends nearly two months inviting school groups in to learn about the track and the history of the Indianapolis 500.  This was the third time in four years I have gone on the field trip, thanks to Mr. Disque.  He is a great American.

Students learn about the cars and how they maneuver around the track.  Did you know the tires on these cars are about the width of a credit card?  I picked one up and it felt like I could throw it twenty yards!

Speaking of yards…I “kissed the yards of bricks” along the start-finish line.  This was my third trip and the first time I kissed the bricks.

I doubt I will kiss the bricks again.  Here, however, it is recorded that I did.

This is the car driven by Gordon Johncock that won the 1982 Indy 500.  To date this is my favorite race.  I doubt that will change.  Yes, there was a classic duel between Johncock and Rick Mears that day.  That is not why I remember the race.  I remember this race so fondly because of the guy that finished in 3rd place behind Gordon Johncock and Rick Mears.  His name?  Pancho Carter.  A Hoosier native, Pancho  is my favorite driver of all time.  My dirt track hero was Paul Crockett.  Paul was also the first guy to cut my hair.  He is a Brownstown Speedway legend.

Pancho Carter?  Thankfully my Dad took me to the Salem Speedway when I was a youngster and I fell for Pancho Carter and his aggressive driving style.  He raced Midget cars and he was more than great on that half-mile high banked track west of Salem proper.  I remember his driving to this day.

When I am in the Museum at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, I get nervous when I see the cars of the guys I so admired when I was a youngster.  A.J. Foyt’s 1977 winner is there.  Mears, Sneva, Johncock, Unser…these cars just make my knees weak.  Why?  Because these cars are important to me.  I never enjoyed racing like I did when I was a kid watching the races with my Dad.  When I was a kid we listened to the race on the radio as it was being ran and then the replay of the race would be on television later that night.  That is how I know what Foyt’s 1977 winner looks like.  I can still see it in my mind…watching that tape-delayed broadcast.  I can still see that checkered flag.  Dreams are made of such stuff.

A Famous Address…

The Rolling Stones are playing a concert at IMS on July 4th.  Why would anyone want to see a British group play on July 4th?  My big question is….why would IMS schedule a British group on July 4th?  Did someone just shout out “Money!”?  I’d say you are correct.

Two years ago my sweet Carrie made this field trip with us.

Being a Hoosier has not been easy the last week or so.  We have gotten plenty of bad publicity.  I am so thankful Indiana has a venerable old tradition that is both relevant and respected the world over.

Thank you Indianapolis Motor Speedway for giving us what is truly THE GREATEST SPECTACLE IN RACING.

Speaking the racing rights.

Danny Johnson 

April Fool’s Day…April 1st.

I used to get a classroom of gullible 9th graders going about a story that involves a lady not paying for her food at a fast food restaurant and how I turn the tables on said lady and then…at the grand crescendo…let the youngsters in on the fact that is indeed just an April Fool’s hoax.

Not that it needs mention with this silly day, once I hijacked the 50,000 watt airwaves of WHAS 840…heard in 39 states..I think…the night the great Joe Elliott was hosting “Joke Night” on 84 WHAS.  I told the longest joke in “joke night” history.  I am not going to tell it here.  But know..that Joe Elliott interrupted me about two thirds of the way through my spectacular joke to tell me that his show only lasted three hours.  I was most proud!

I have told that joke on occasion since, but it never meant quite as much as it did when I was clogging up hundreds of other callers trying to get through to Joe that night.

April Fool’s.  It is a silly event, I suppose.  But what is wrong with that?  Have you heard the headlines coming out of my native state of Indiana lately?  We could use a good joke or two…the ones in Indianapolis notwithstanding.

A good joke.  What makes a good joke?  Content?  Timing?  I fall in this sub-category.  I think timing is everything.

Who got more from less than anyone in show business history.  The answer…easy…Bob Newhart.  How many guys need just to show up on the set and employ a purposeful pause before he says three subtle words that can make a guy spew ginger ale across the room? Just one: Bob Newhart.

My lovely wife, Carrie, and I watched the show Newhart starring Bob Newhart last week.  We were in North Carolina and we were at a place that has something called Antennae TV.  It was on the local cable station.  I would give anything to get Antennae TV at my house!  I have DirecTV.  Translation: my money goes directly from my bank account into that of DIRECTV and I assure you they are much happier than I am.  HBO?  A joke.  Most of the channels on DIRECTV?  More jokes.  April Fool’s!  That is what I am for paying for this crappy service.  Okay…soo I got on a tangent here.  I do not apologize.

While we were in North Carolina we watched Newhart and it cracked us up.  I looked the series up on the interwebbers.  The show ran from 1982 to 1990.  I would have never guessed it ran that long.  I remember watching it as a youngster and enjoying it.  Cerebral humor has always enticed me.  That would be a miracle.  But I am a true believer in miracles.

Speaking of which…on April Fool’s Day in 1983, I found out my mother was pregnant with the last of her third children, my brother, Darrell Lee Johnson.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  As was the custom, we attended Good Friday Church services when I was growing up.  Good Friday in 1983 just happened to fall on April Fool’s Day…April 1st.

No one at church believed my mother when she told them she was pregnant.  They were waiting for the big proclamation:  APRIL FOOL’S!  Not so.

On November 14th of 1983 Darrell Lee Johnson found his way into the world at Floyd Memorial Hospital in New Albany, Indiana.  I had and still have a brother!

To put this into context, know I was born in 1968.  I have a sister, Lynn Benson.  She was born in 1966.  Fifteen years and change after I was born, I had a little brother.  I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am to be able to report this to you.

Will I forget April Fool’s Day?  How could I?  It is a day to celebrate…for me.  The rest of you?  Just don’t try to be too gullible.  But then again, who cares?  It is only one day.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

I felt a warm breeze flow today.  It hit me in the face.  I enjoyed it.  Perhaps this is a portent of better days to come.

Saturday Carrie, my dear wife, and I ran across snow…albeit a smattering…on the ground in the mountains of both Virginia and West Virginia.  At one stop, a SHEETZ station, Carrie got out of the car, looked at the snow on the ground and purposefully rolled her eyes.  She was there for three minutes and she had enough.  So did I.  We went from reasonably warm, including a  77 degree day on Thursday, to wind-chills that I hate to think what they registered.  It was COLD.

Today’s breeze was warm.  Thankfully.

Spring is an optimistic time.  New life.  New flowers.  New chances.  New reasons to feel better.  New.  In some contexts that word seems very meaningful…new.  I’ve never had a brand new car.  I have had new shoes.  In fact, I got two pair of new shoes last week.  I plan on wearing one of them tomorrow.  I have tried a few new restaurants.  One of those was this past weekend.  It was a eatery in Huntington, WV.  Fat Patty’s is name of the place.  I had a great burger.  So did Carrie.  We have driven past the place countless times before and after Herd Football games.  Why did we stop in there?  Our regular old haunt closed.  It was a pizza place,  The place was always busy too.  I don’t know what happened to it.  Just one of those things.

Spring.  A new golf season.  I actually hope to get my clubs out of mothballs this Friday.  I might not.  I hope to.  My swing is sad.  I don’t care.

Enjoy this Spring.  Spring into whatever you need to.  And while you are at it…

speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

Into the sky in this picture once flew the rockets of Operation Bumblebee.  Early rocketry in the 1940s dominated this piece of beach I look out on today.  The thought was there was a need to protect the coast at the time.  Some things never change.  To enhance the protection of the coast, rockets were tested that were to eventually act as long range missiles.  Where I sit typing this was government property and very secretive was the activity here.  A great deal was learned from this time of testing the ramjet propulsion that needed a little boost to get where it needed to go.  Sound familiar?

Dotted along this coast are still what we call “Towers” that served as observatories in measuring and studying the nuances of the rockets that did well and…well…the ones that did not do so well.  One of them, Tower 5, was converted in to a house that now serves as rental property.  Carrie, my dear wife, and I stayed there in the summer of 2011.  It was very cool.

What is not cool is that I had to get to the place they did this work to find out about it.  Sure, it was a secret at the time.  This secret has been too well kept for too long.  Thankfully there is museum at the south of the island in the little strip called Topsail Beach.  Missiles and More houses a plethora of history and artifacts about this special place in time.  There is, as the name suggests, more there too.  Too much for me to mention because someone would be left out and you don’t want to make the WASPs of the day mad now.  That isn’t White Anglo Saxon Protestant either.

You can look it up.

While you look that up, I will continue to look up to the open skies around here now and again.

I might see something like this…a CH 43.  It is very large.

Today alone I have seen Osprey, Hueys, CH 43s, C-130s, and something else I was not sure of.

Less than thirty miles to the north of us is Camp Lejeune.  This is a LARGE Marine Corps Base.  This is where our air show originates.  Know that Carrie and I have a soft heart for these aviators.  Our son, Jarrett, served on a Blackhawk in the Army himself.  Helicopters are our friends.

All this talk of rockets and aircraft reminds me of the guy I am reading the biography of this week.

The authorized biography of Neil Armstrong.

What a guy.

Not that this is indicative of Neil, but I must say I am so glad we had no twitter or facebook accounts when we were sending guys to into space in the early going.  Some nutball out there would have surely put together a campaign or two based on half-truths or no-truth that would have probably derailed one of these guys from making the history they made for all of us.

Never mind me.  I am going to go look at the open skies and dream about a better place.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Carl and Booker taking it easy today

Email is a good thing.  We get informed with email.    We give and receive messages via email.  We share pictures with email.  We use email while we work.  I suppose sometimes we even hide our faces behind email.  Hey, it can’t be all good.

Every now and then, however, we might receive an email that transcends this futuristic day and age where one can use a Netflix account to whittle away through entire seasons of “Fraiser” in short order.  Why and how the transcendence?  Because this email came from a voice I learned from long before email became a fixture in our lives.  We have had many conversations in person and on the phone in the last twenty-four years.  I can count on two hands…barely…how many emails we have exchanged.  This fact does not disappoint me.  I am old-fashioned that way.

I reached out via email to Millard Dunn earlier this month.  An old college chum and I had been reliving a space in time that was both funny and educational.  This story was conveyed in a post I entered in September.  Dr. Millard Dunn was the teacher in the room that day.

I did not receive a reply, as we call it, to my email with any sort of swiftness.  In fact, I figured Millard had not gotten his message.  I figured his email address had changed and I would sooner or later have to call his home phone number.  I still have it memorized.  I suppose he is still using it.  Some of us have allowed land lines to go east with the geese and exclusively use cell phones instead of what we used to call BELL-phones.

A few days ago I looked at my email.  I had indeed received a “reply” from Millard. His email had changed.  He said he felt he was fortunate to find my message.  It was so good to read his words and to “hear” his voice.  One of the most distinct voices I have ever heard, I would be content listening to Millard read the rules of soccer to me….and I have no time for the game whatsoever.  I covered my thoughts on his teaching and his caring spirit in my September post.

So I listened in to the voice as I read along.  Delighted at Millard’s timing that rolls along like a river that turns corners that are swift but easily maneuvered.  Again, he is a good read.

He had kind things to say about my Henry David Thoreau project.  That he still remembers it is an honor.  If you read about it, you probably have no doubt he still remembers it…given his ending reaction to the play I put on.  I also believe he truly does enjoy that memory.  That makes me prouder still.  I was able to give a little…as I took a great deal.

As I type these words I am less than thirty miles from where Millard Dunn went to high school.  He went to high school in Wilmington, North Carolina.  He went to Duke University after that.  They taught him well.  I doubt they taught him as well as he taught me.

GAINING GROUND…

Word has gotten back to Indiana, perhaps by email, that I fell victim to some bad vittles after we got here in North Carolina.  I am just glad I was the only one.  My dear wife, Carrie, is getting over the flu.  Our son Jarrett and his sweet Hilary, from New Mexico, are here too and they don’t deserve to get that sick.  I did.  Lewis Grizzard once called one his illnesses a case of “you gotta feel better to die sick”.  In 56 hours I ate two cans of soup.  Both coming in the late late stages of that time.  I never dreamed I would go on vacation and lose ten pounds.

I am gaining ground….and…

speaking the rights near a beach getting some dredging work done to help some beach farther north, hence the giant black hose.

Danny Johnson

I received many well wishes and cards and a few presents that all reminded me I am another year older.  Thanks to all of the gracious sentiments in my direction today, March 18th.

I am a blessed man.

I have a great family.  I have great friends. I have my health.  I have a CD collection that makes me a bit shameful, given most of them have not been so much as spun in a very long time.  My book shelves are filled with poems and short stories and anthologies and inspiration and biographies and compendiums and novels and college football programs.

So here is to another year!

May the next year be filled with new challenges and new opportunities.

Thanks again.  May God bless you all.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

It was a warm day outside my door this sunny Sunday.   I cleaned the screened-in back porch today.  My dear wife, Carrie, was at a play with some of her friends and I decided to roll up my sleeves and get the porch back to being presentable again.  It was fraught with leaves that managed to get in somehow.  Along with a considerable amount of topsoil that came in with some snow that was sifted through by a strong west wind.

I like this porch.  I featured it on a few other posts on the site last year.

We have a sign that steals from the slogan that…perhaps is copyrighted… and goes “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”.  Our sign says “What happens on the Porch stays on the Porch”.  It doesn’t really.  A great deal of my speakingtherights has come from this very chair at this very table.  It is a good spot to think.

I was asked recently if I was ever going to get my interview with Gordy Marshall, a drumming virtuoso, who plays with The Moody Blues…and has since 1991.  Gordy and I have been back and forth.  I am waiting on him to make the next move.  He must be a busy man.  If you have ever seen him play the drums, you would not forget it.  If you ever read some of his prose, you would not forget it.  He is very talented.

A couple nights ago we hosted some friends for dinner and good old fashioned fellowship.  There were stories told and laughter abound.  The food was not a grand ordeal.  I picked up pizza on the way home from work.

In the house were our friends from New Hampshire, Bob and Michelle and their young’uns, Davis, Sabra, and Siera.  Bob’s grandmother passed away last week at the age of 102.  She was laid to rest on her 103rd birthday.  Wow.

Also in the house were Tim and Michelle.  They live just down the road a piece in the neighboring county.  That is a bit shameful, given that we don’t get together as often as we should.  How many of us can relate to that?

Note:  When I say they live in the neighboring county I am talking about ten miles or more in that county.  I can see that same county across the river from where I am sitting on my back porch right now.  Just in case you were wondering.

Finally there will be basketball on television I am very interested in.  I don’t watch college basketball much.  I might sit in on a  bit of a game until I become unaccountable with it and find something else to do.  I have yet to watch a basketball game from tip off to final buzzer this season.  And since Dr, J, Julius Erving, no longer plays in the NBA, I don’t watch that either.  I do…however…have a positive affection for that thing they call March Madness.  It is a bit of Madness.  There are teams that make this tourney that have no more business being there than an Indiana Hoosier Football team that is 6-6…if they ever get there…has going to a bowl game.  I still enjoy it and I watch it with vigor.  I have said it before, I watch enough football for all of us and I give my eyes a break in the wintertime and most of the spring.

Who is going to beat the Kentucky Wildcats?  I doubt anyone does.  I will be filling in one bracket of the teams and the games and pick my winner.  I have to pick UK, I suppose.  They are that good.  I’m not a fan of them, mind you.  But I do have a father-in-law and a sister-in-law and another dear friend that root for their Cats.  I hope they are happy.  I think they will be.

Of course there are folks north of the Ohio River in Indiana that don’t want UK to go undefeated because the last team to do that was an Indiana Hoosier team coached by Bob Knight in the mid-70s.  Forget that argument.  IU and Bob Knight are no longer friends.  I say 40 years later that it is time to move on.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson