Cue John Fogerty!  Lookin’ Out My Back Porch!

Just got home from Illinois I wish!

About this time of year for the last I don’t know how many, my dear wife, Carrie, and I usually head down the road for a little R and R.  No five papers with my name on them waiting at the bottom of the hill at The Country Store in the Berkshires.

Last year’s last haul of papers the morning we left.  Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Times, New York Daily News, and the Berkshire (Pittsfield) Eagle were waiting on me every morning.  I miss them.

For self-preservation purposes, we have not gone too far down the road in a while.  The last time we went anywhere over night was to Bloomington in February to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

We did spend the night in Illinois after Christmas on our way back from visiting with relatives in Mississippi.  Haven’t crossed the state line too many times since then.  Strange days indeed.

Went back and forth with an old friend yesterday via text message.  I still call him Mulllcat.  I have not seen Tim Mullins in longer than I can remember.  He’s one of those.  If you have a few of those in your life, consider yourself fortunate.  When we go back and forth via text or an all elusive phone call, it is just like we spoke at length the day before.  Wish I could explain.  Even more delighted that I cannot.  Our conversations usually ruminate from our shared joy of music.  He took me to see George Thorogood at Coyotes in Louisville back in December of 1993.  Seems the ceiling in the place was like twelve feet high.  We were leaning on the stage.  My hearing recovered by the next March when I saw The Moody Blues a couple times that month.

I took Mullcat to see The Moodies a few times.  We sure had a good time wherever we went.

I wish I had the motivation to get more writing done.  I have had great intentions.  I  put a nice tune together on the guitar a couple of days ago but just could not find the right words.  Oh I had some to go along.  But we are in a point in history when you want to get it right.  Mistakes are going to be blown up more than ever and there is a critic, for better or worse, around every corner.  I am trying to be realistic here, not cynical.

I think about the Greg Walker’s of the world and I say a prayer for all of them.  Greg is the superintendent of Paoli Community Schools.  He and all school superintendents are in a spot as we move forward with what to do as far as opening schools back up in August.  Surveys go out.  Dialogue flies back and forth.  Prayers are sent up.  You just want to do the right thing at the end of day.  It does not matter who gets the credit.  It is the unwarranted blame that bothers me. Leadership and competence certainly come with a price.  I am thankful for strong leaders.

As I said, I wish I had the motivation to do more writing these days.  I think back at when I turned 50 in 2018 and I wrote a post a day for the fifty days leading up to my birthday.  That is just too much ambition for me right now.

I hope and pray you and yours are doing well right now.  It is tough.  But we still need to find a way to…speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

I have never met someone who got married and said how much they are looking forward to getting a divorce.

Have yet to hear from a friend about how much they are looking forward to being in a car accident the next day.

When I was in the ninth grade, after an afternoon run on a frozen cross country course in February when the temperature was about 12 degrees, I was not looking forward to getting under a squat rack moments later with a frozen back and not being able to come back up with the weight I went down with.  My back has not been the same since.

Yesterday morning I was so excited.  I was heading into my office at Paoli High School to get some work done.  Working at the workplace is a joy after working from home for so long.

Still in the process of getting my office in order, aesthetically and otherwise, I was collecting some mini college helmets, most of which are of a local variety that I display and make reference to should the need arise.

These helmets were on the top shelf of my bookcase in my home office.  As I have done many many times to simply retrieve them, I took my metal retractable Air Force pointer and extended it to full length.  Reaching up with the pointer to connect with the face-mask of the helmet as a means to lower it.  It works every time.  Only yesterday it did not work.

There was a reaction to an action.  That sounds familiar.

As the Ball State helmet I had leveraged with the pointer was ready to be turned loose, the pointer, in my right hand, sprang back a couple of inches.  It was just enough distance to make contact with something on one of the shelves of the book case.  One of my many mementos on display.  The pointer somehow had to bring down the last thing on that shelf I would want to lose.  It is broken and so am I.

This thing broke because something went wrong.

My Great-Grandmother, Ivy Nowling, she lived in Brownstown on Bridge Street for 53 years, brought this back from Niagra Falls a VERY long time ago.  When my dear wife, Carrie, and I last visited the falls, I brought back some water from there to replace what had evaporated inside the little ceramic barrel over many decades.  Just looking at this picture makes me want to reach for something that is not even there.

My little barrel isn’t the only thing broken.  We have a country that is broken.  Something or some things have gone wrong.  The death of George Floyd in such a senseless, cruel fashion was the last straw for many.  Now, during a continuing Pandemic that has crippled the country, America is burning.

Cities are being shattered by protesters.  I sit on my comfortable couch in the middle of the woods in Southern Indiana and I see cities that Carrie and I have visited.  Many of them, including Minneapolis, have been wonderful to us.

I could go on and on about what is wrong with the protests.  I could also go on and on about what is right with the protests.  That is up to you for you.

Yesterday I saw a post on facebook that personified the US and THEM finger pointing so prevalent in America today.  Divide and conquer seems to be the recipe for politics today and it is backfiring.  Or it may be a case of…you asked for it…what the hell did you expect?

Three things rattle consistently in my head when I see this action being played out in real life and not in the candy land of social media that some seem set to rely on for an alternate reality seeped in fear and indifference:

3.  Billy Joel singing WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE.

2.  In the movie A TIME TO KILL when Matthew McConaughey’s character, lawyer Jake Brigance, was describing to white jurors the torture at the hand of white men that  happened to a young black girl…and in closing he asked the jury to imagine that the little girl was white.

Watching George Floyd die on television brought that back to me in a hurry.  I don’t think a white George Floyd gets a knee to the neck.  Do you?

In classrooms over the years I have talked to students about race issues.  Some hate it when I talk about the root cause of racism: fear and ignorance.

When I discuss race issues with students I tell them I have had my heart broken, been punched, been kicked, been shot at, been made fun of, been called names, and been considered by some as an outcast.  All this and I can’t tell you of one black person responsible for this catalog of ache.

1.  President Jimmy Carter and his Crisis of Confidence speech that included:

…First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: “We’ve got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.”

Are you prepared to help to change the course?  I hope so.  We can do better.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Had a good day when I took this photo at Topsail Island a couple years ago.

With no disrespect to those who lost their lives fighting for the freedom of this country, this Memorial Day Weekend feels a little different, doesn’t it?  At this writing nearly 100,000 American have died at the hands of an enemy we could not foresee.

Still there is time to take pause to remember and be thankful for those whose shoulders lifted the rest of us up to help us stay standing.  Thank you.  God Bless You.

In Boston, there is this moving place.

They gave it all they had.

New York where the towers fell.

So this year there will be no I – 5 this weekend.  I call the Indianapolis 500 the I – 5.  Don’t ask me why.  I just do.

I mentioned to a cousin in Mississippi yesterday that even though I live 45 minutes from Churchill Downs, not having a Kentucky Derby during the first Saturday in May 2020 did not really phase me much.  I watch the race and have some specific memories about it.  Most of those memories have little to do with the horse race.

The Indy 500 is different.  To know that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway won’t be roaring today makes me sad.

The First Winner 1911 with Ray Harroun behind the wheel.

I always tell my Mother the rain has to start and stop somewhere.

Yesterday I was caught up in proof of it as I walked.  Mostly sunny skies behind me and ominous skies in front of me.

When it started to lightning, I did an about face.  I did get more than 5 miles in yesterday and that was nice.

The Topsail Beach flag is flapping on the porch.  

Take care of each other!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

I will gladly import a photo from the Paoli Jr-Sr High School facebook page. Hope I don’t get chewed!

This is Emmett Dunn, Class of 2020, Paoli High School.  With him are Mr. Greg Walker, superintendent of Paoli schools and Dr. Sherry Wise, PHS principal.  This photo was taken earlier today at the Washington County Courthouse in Salem, Indiana.  This was a graduation ceremony for area graduates that have enlisted in the Armed Forces.  When their schools finally get around to a graduation ceremony they won’t be here.  They will be serving all of us.  I wish I had been there today.

Not long after this ceremony, I exchanged emails with Emmett.  I told him to make sure I have his mailing address when he gets to where he is going, Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Thank you to Mr. Walker and Dr. Wise for being there.  And thank you to Emmett’s parents.  I know a thing or two about these circumstances.  Our son, Jarrett, an Army vet, is working at the US Embassy in Iraq as I type these words.  He was due home April 17th.  I know he will get back home eventually.

I will never be able to thank Emmett and his family enough.

To be a school counselor for a graduating class I have yet to introduce myself to, my first day at Paoli was to be March 30th, is the most surreal professional challenge of a long career in education.  The students and parents I have met via phone or email or video conference have all been most gracious.  I can’t thank them enough.  Y’all have made an ocean of lemonade from this place and time we are in.

With that said, I would be remiss if I did not give a HUGE thank you to the folks at Paoli I have worked with from afar.  Dr. Wise, Rachel Robinson, and Sara Parks…I so appreciate your effort and your patience and your passion for helping kids.  Thanks also to the teachers I have spent time with in meetings, be they general faculty or specific conferences.  You are pros!  All of you.  And don’t get me started on the football coaching staff!  We could be here for a while.

Oh what a difference two months can make.

In March I wrote a post about the walking path I have been using for, well, two months.

The time has gone by quickly at times.  Most of the time it has not.  These are tough times.

I walked six miles today.  With the help of an American Top 40 rebroadcast from July of 1988 and Justin Hayward’s Spirits Live album, I kept pushing.  I did not come in for a drink of water.  When I got to the kitchen after my walk, I was like a water buffalo refilling.

During my walk I reflected on so many things.  I thought about the school business, of course.  I am so glad I made the move to Paoli.  Even though I have yet to spend a day in the building, I know I am where I belong.  When we eventually get there like we are used to, it will be a true celebration.

I thought about my Uncle Roger in Georgia.  Earlier in the day I emailed him quite a few words.  I was ashamed when I looked back at my email at how long it had been since he and I had been back and forth.  He had been the last one back…in March.  During my walk I checked my email on my phone.  I was delighted to see that he had responded.

Earlier in the week my brother Darrell put together a video of a song I wrote a long time ago.  I gave him pictures and Darrell did what he does and made magic.  It has been well received via facebook.  I was singing along to the song last week and it just struck me.  This is a song for the times we are living in.

The video is here…. I hope it works for you.  I am not a techno wizard.

https://www.facebook.com/100013659552726/videos/914461705685806/?id=100013659552726

And so it goes.

Take care of each other.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

So my friend and FM radio king Robert Becker from WJAA 96.3 in Seymour was playing Bob Seger tunes three mornings ago.  It was to celebrate Bob Seger’s 75th birthday.

Yes, that is what I said, Bob Seger is 75.  In 2006, when we were needed a concert more than any one I can recall as we were caring for her grandparents, my dear wife Carrie and I saw Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band at Freedom Hall in Louisville.  It was a hot show on a cold cold December night.

This photo was taken at the last Seger show we saw at the new YUM Center; could there be a more goofier name for an arena?  This show was in December of 2018.

Bob Seger was always a staple in the football locker room when I was kid growing up in Brownstown.  The mono 8 track player on the training table in front of the showers in the bowels of the now demolished original James T. Blevins Stadium at Brownstown Central was a place where I got a music education.  LIVE BULLET was played a great deal.

That night in 2006 at the first Bob Seger concert Carrie and I attended, I took this picture and I thought this was so interesting in contrast to the old album cover.

In 2013 Carrie and I went to The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan to see a concert by their native son, Bob Seger.

This poster is in our living room.  We went to the April 13th show.  The Palace at Auburn Hills was more a dump than a palace.  It is no longer there.  But this was sure a good time.  Joe Walsh opened the show with seven songs that, along with Bob Seger, represented a great part of the soundtrack of my life.

Bob Seger 75?  I can believe that.  I am 52 and I walked six and half miles today and my right hip hurts.  Oh well.  We are not here to have a bad time!

Two days ago I took this picture while I was walking.

It was lovely walk.  Humidity low.  Temperature was great.  I did not want to stop walking.  I got in six miles on this day too.

This weekend nine years ago Carrie and I went to see The Moody Blues play a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater outside of Denver, Colorado.

I don’t think The Moodies will play another concert.  In 2014 they were scheduled to play at Red Rocks in May again.  Well, it is Denver.  There was a snowstorm and the show was moved to an indoor venue in Denver. I am certain Carrie and I can say we saw The Moody Blues play their last concert at Red Rocks where they made the Live at Red Rocks album and video when they played with an orchestra for the first time in September of 1992.

That spawned Orchestra shows all over the globe for the next eight years.  I was fortunate enough to catch thirteen of those orchestra shows.

Liner Notes.

It is no secret that I enjoy writing a word or two.

Recently I took a handful of CDs off my shelf at random and inspected them.  I didn’t listen to them.  I read them.  Being interested in words, I read what we call liner notes.  That is what refers to the words the music artist puts on the cd packaging to acknowledge “something”.

It made me think about the liner notes I have written on the three CDs I have produced.

Words I wrote for my friend and musical partner Jeff Carpenter resonate.  How could they not?  Without Jefferson I don’t record a song.  He is the man.

On my 2006 CD The Best Thing You Did Yesterday, I wrapped up the liner notes with this… “I still miss the Corner King.  And I am quite certain that Josey is still on a vacation far away.”

I hope you all are doing well.  This is a tough time.  I told Carrie today that speaking the rights is tough these days.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

This has been the road most traveled for a change.  I took pictures of my walking route a few weeks ago.  This was taken a couple days ago as the sun was setting and darkness was creeping in.  About 61/2 tenths of a mile from home, it was a nice way to end the day.

As I type these words in the screened-in back porch, a steady rain is falling on the tin roof keeping time with the music on my little portable speaker that blurts out music via the radio signal via the internet on the 96.3 WJAA app.  Wow that is a mouthful.  My favorite radio station, Seymour’s 96.3 is coming through loud and clear.  One of Boston’s many hits from the 70s.  Keep on rocking is the message.

For some reason my mind looked to the Southeast this morning.  I was thinking about the folks in Pender and Onslow Counties.  The aircraft from Camp Lejeune  go up and down the coast of these two counties and I hope we see them again soon.

This has really been something, hasn’t it?  This virus stuff is what movies are made about and after watching we throw away our popcorn bucket and think how rotten that might be.  Well, it is rotten.  I know I am so fortunate to have some wider open spaces to roam than most probably do.  I can walk up and down my road course for an hour and a half and never see a car.  Sometimes two or three may go by.

And there, overhead, I hear a jet airplane flying the in along the West landing pattern toward the Louisville airport.  We have not heard that much lately.  The week of the Kentucky Derby it is a constant barrage of aircraft overhead here.  The small private planes come and go on that weekend like fireflies.  Now, the skies are quiet and even the vapor trails at 36,000 feet are hard to find.  Amazing how that one that just went overhead can get one’s attention.

This is a basketball goal on a tree in Mississippi.  I just saw it a little while ago and thought I would share it.  I have always thought this goal was a neat thing.  I am going to take a basketball with me the next time we visit and I am going to put one through again.  It has been decades since I did more than nod to it.

I miss Coach Doc Holliday and the Marshall University Thundering Herd during the Spring Game.  They turned the fountain back on at  10 AM this morning and very few were there to take part in this ritual of Spring.

I was asked if I had written any good songs lately with this stay-in business.  I have not.  I have been very occupied with many aspects of my new job and that has taken a great deal of concentration and brain power..

Though it is the most nondescript looking office space I have worked in over the past twenty years, I will so be glad to be working full time in this office.  As I type there is one box of my stuff in it.  Everything you see in this picture, I couldn’t tell about.  But I am certainly enjoying the folks I am working with from afar and I like purple and gold!

When this is over, I am going to grab a bag of balls and go swing my leg!

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

I would normally never ask you to do what I am about to ask you to do.

Why?

Look.  Music has been better to me than I will ever be to it.  As I type these words I am listening to a guilty pleasure… the Greatest Hits of Asia.  John Wetton’s voice is a favorite of mine.  I was elated one day when he and I went back and forth via twitter message.  John is no longer with us.  His voice will never leave me.

Near two years ago I found some new music by former Little River Band front man, Glenn Shorrock, and I was totally enamored with his new songs and his delivery.  Wow…I thought.  So much so that I sent him an email and told him of my thoughts.  In less than a day he emailed me back and, while I will allow our exchange to be private, it was inspiring.

I told Glenn I was watching so many years ago as a ten year-old as The Little River Band was playing one of my all time favorite songs, REMINISCING on The Midnight Special.  That was a late night music show I hope many of you remember.

I digress.   So today I ask that you find Glenn Shorrock’s 2019 version of the great Little River Band song COOL CHANGE.  It is wonderful.

This song will, as it is sung today, take you back and bring you back unlike much of anything I have ever heard.  It is then and today in one sweet…the word fails me.  You just need to listen.  You’ll thank me.

Now, back to why I don’t usually ask this.  Being a musician, albeit a nobody, I do have a digital sales account with a particular music distribution entity and know that my songs, delivered in multiple formats near 5000 times have accrued me about 8 dollars.  This is the reason concert tickets are what they are.  I hate to break it to you.  Album sales are a thing of the past.

And so it goes.

Give Glenn a listen.  You’ll thank me.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

The screened-in back porch is clean again.  It is Spring.  That is what happens.  As I type these words my dear wife, Carrie, is applying a new screen to the porch’s exterior door.  Thank you, Carrie.

Writing during Covid-19 season is not an easy endeavor for me.  Oh I thought it would be.  I equated more time at home to more time to move more words around.  It has not happened that way.  I think it is a concentration thing.  Yesterday I was expected to be “on” if you will.  I spent nearly five hours during the course of three different remote meetings working and collaborating with new colleagues. We were discussing students and plans and interim activities and directives from the State Board of Education and other fun things like that.  I felt envious of what my co-workers know and frustrated with what I don’t know.  How could I?  I have yet to be in the building in an official capacity with students in it.

I appreciate the patience the folks at Paoli High School have extended to their new guidance counselor.  None of us expected to be where we are today, away from the building.  My heart hurts when I think about the seniors; the Class of 2020 will be connected like no other known in my lifetime.

I went to work on Thursday, March 12th at North Harrison High School with absolutely no clue that it would be the last day I would work in that school with students in it.  I had already made plans with Mr. Bigham to come in and have speaks with his junior English classes, as has been the custom the last few years toward the end of school.  I was to come in to share with them on the Friday before Spring Break.  We never got there.

On March 13th, North Harrison had an early release schedule for professional development and I thought that to be a good day to drop in on Paoli where I had been given the green light by their school board that Monday to begin working there after Spring Break on March 30th.  There were papers to go over and folks to be introduced to.  It was a good day.

I have been asked many times why I decided to leave North Harrison to take a job at Paoli.  Having not been in a position where I was actively looking to leave, I feel like this job found me more than I found it.  When that kind of thing happens, and let’s be honest, if you know anything about general hiring practices of schools, a guy with my experience is usually not given an opportunity like this.  Translation:  Schools, given their monetary constraints, usually hire on the cheap when they can.  It is a fact of life.  So in that regard, I am honored that Paoli looked at me and said “yes”.  I look forward to working with students and parents there.

In the space of nine days and a few meaningful phone calls  to a couple friends I knew I could confide in and ask for prayerful discernment, the dominoes just started falling in a perfect line.  I told the principal at North Harrison I had a thousand reasons to stay at North but I needed one more.  I needed to know I would not regret going to Paoli. With that said, I told him I knew it was time to go.

This was not easy.  It was, however, the right thing to do. The folks at North were very good to me.  I thank them so much for giving me five years on campus again.

Before I left North Harrison I had some students coming to me telling me they had heard that I was leaving.  Each time I was met with this query my heart sank just a bit.  One student, knowing I was leaving, asked to have his picture taken with me.  The students at North are as resilient as any I have ever seen.  They will be fine.  I will still miss them, of course.  They are all Great Americans.  They know that code, politics notwithstanding.  The scholars, the athletes, the artists, the go-to friends, the musicians, the voices in the choir, the Ag prodigies, the helpers, and the ones fortunate enough to be in the room across from the computer lab.  How many times I wanted to come in and join that fray.

And so it goes.  “That is all.”

I leave you with some photos of good times at NH.  I wish the camera had been rolling during other times too when it was not.  Thank you again, Mr. Bigham.  I am sorry I missed your juniors this year.  Perhaps you can smuggle me in down the road and we can do it again!

Thank you all.  Know that you are loved.

The Lady Cats at THE BIG DANCE part 1.  How much fun was that?

Graduation was and WILL BE a wonderful time.  Always so delighted to pass out those diplomas and send out well wishes after the ceremony.

When we were younger, Mick Rutherford and I laughed like this all the time.  It was good to be on the hill laughing again.

One of my favorite pictures.  Carrie was thinking.  Sitting on the hill with my Dad.

Tony Waynescott putting the line through some paces before facing BCHS.

The end of the finest hour for this old Cougar.  Ben Waynescott’s FG wins it.

Ben honored me on Senior Night and I am thankful and still regret not being there.

A win for the ages over Batesville.

Bringing wrestling to North was a strike.  This is a great time.

My friend Barry Hall walking on the NH field.

Lilly Hatton at the line against the Lady Braves her senior year.  The hardest working student-athlete and most deserving of any accolade that comes her way.  She has earned it. This year Lilly was the Southern Conference’s Freshman of the Year playing for Wofford College.

For North,  I hope it is always 1st and Goal.

I wore a North shirt the day I kicked at The Rose Bowl!

Finally, I am glad to leave this guy behind.  There is a new field waiting.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

The numbers are not adding up on the crawl of ESPN and other sports networks.  Rolling at the bottom of the screen you can see that this team may have dumped this player to save this many million dollars of salary cap money.

Now is not the time for news like this.

As long as we have nurses and nursing assistants and doctors trying to save people whilst they are putting their own lives on the line, these dollar figures about sports and how much guys are being paid while not playing need to join the players on the sideline.

I know. The sports networks are purging anything they can to produce something current to report.  I would rather watch the Philadelphia 76ers of the Dr. J, George McGinnis, Darryl Dawkins, Bobby Jones, Caldwell Jones, and Henry Bibby vintage play a game against the Buffalo Braves coached by Jack Ramsay with Bill Russell doing the color commentary.

My hat is off to all the medical folks in harm’s way.  There are too many of you.  My prayers are with you and your families.  It hurts.

What I am enjoying in the mornings is Robert Becker on 96.3 WJAA.  Robert does an informative and entertaining radio show in the mornings in Seymour.  I wrote about Robert some time ago in a feature on these page:  http://speaktherights.com/?p=2979

This morning Robert played as many Mellencamp requests as he could get in, while he was offering hopeful encouraging words and up to date information, either from a guest of civic nature or his own cache of positive good vibrations.  That and the man just know how to flat pick good songs to play!

Thank you, Robert.  As you offer up information and song, you are truly an unsung hero in very tough times.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

It was 1988 I think.  The Rockford, Illinois quartet that brought us The Dream Police and Live in Budokan was at it again with their album “Lap of Luxury” that spawned the hit song “The Flame”.  Have they had a hit since?  If they have I don’t know of it.

Yesterday I was thinking about the band Cheap Trick and their aforementioned 1988 album.  Given the circumstance the world is dealing with, I have the luxury, if you will, to be in wide open spaces.  Yesterday I walked 6.79 miles on a county road and saw three cars.  The UPS planes heading east to Louisville outnumbered the cars three to one.

I decided to give my legs a break today before one of them breaks on me.  That would be tragic.  Over the last four days my walks have averaged 5.28 miles. These walks are nonstop, save a break of a glass of water or the need to rid oneself of some water.

I have a 1.7 mile lap.  It is my Lap of Luxury I have found.  I leave the driveway and head toward Milltown and turn around .85 miles down the road.  I walk this way because I can faintly keep a cell phone signal in this direction.  If I head east up the hill, forget about it.

Don’t tell my friend Robert Becker from Seymour’s 96.3 WJAA what I am about to disclose.  During these walks I have been listening to iheart radio’s Classic American Top 40.  Casey Kasem counts ’em down from the 1970s and 1980s.  This has been a nice diversion to the not so normal way of life we are experiencing.  This takes me away from the gamut of emotion that wants to creep in.  Sadness, worry, fear, disgust, anger, and fill in the blank.

These walks are a real good time and all four food groups of leg muscles are given a challenge at some point or another with hills and curves and I don’t know what all.

So my lap goes like this:

Head west young man!  Horace Greeley said that.  What else was gonna say?  He was three miles from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.  This is a very overrated quote, don’t you think?

Down the hill we go.

The Blue River is across the field to the left and it looks very calm right now.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I took some large landscaping rocks from a dry creek bed behind the house today.  That story doesn’t have much to do with my walking route but I thought I would bring it up anyhow.

We start to climb a little again and the left side gets a little steep ahead.  Here is where you keep a careful eye out for cars and try to listen for the sound of whining tires from 4-wheelers or the rumble of a car or truck engine.  There is a curve at the top of the hill and it is probably the most ticklish spot on the walk.

This is a wide shot.  A couple curves and up toward the highest point of the walk.

See that car on the horizon.  It was our mail carrier.  He stopped.  We kept our distance as we chatted for a few minutes.  I am a social sort to a degree.  I like to talk.  I also like to listen.  It was good to hear a voice on this route besides that of Casey Kasem.  When he drove off I was reminded of how the voices of others I have heard the last two weeks are few and far between.  Then I rallied and got back to American Top 40.  It was long distance dedication time.

Keep going. At the top of the hill in the distance I start to head down for a little while and then my .85 mile marker is found and I turn around and head back from here:

That is the one way trip of my Lap of Luxury.  I am thankful I have it.  I know most do not.

Lord have mercy I will be glad when the last of these laps is a distant memory.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson