I spent an extensive amount of time in three large shopping areas outside of Indianapolis yesterday.

These days one takes one’s chances on what type of behavior will surface when in a public place with all ages abound.

We have taken a few steps back in America, when it comes to the general comportment of the populous.  I don’t enjoy hearing someone use profanity in public, especially around children.  Those who partake in such behavior are general losers in my book.  Football games are subject to such base behavior.  This has been going on for some time though.  I remember watching IU play Ohio State in Bloomington one rainy cold Saturday in the mid-1970s.  Of course the Hoosiers were getting pummeled by the Buckeyes, as it is the natural order of things.  The last time the Hoosiers beat Ohio State, Nancy Reagan was calling psychic hotlines from the White House.  I digress.  During the game some forty years ago, there was a guy sitting close to me.  He was smoking Kools in the rain.  He probably graduated from IU’s school of business.  He also had a potty mouth.  The first time I watched Forrest Gump in 1994, I thought about the guy at the IU-Ohio State game when Forrest started describing the guy at the war rally on the Mall in Washington…the one who used the F-word a great deal.

These days folks cuss too much at ball games where kids are listening.  Stop it already.

Look, I am no puritan.  If I am playing cards or playing golf with my buddies…with no youngsters around, mind you, we are probably going to say a few words we won’t be sharing with the Sunday School Class.  That is as far as that will go.  Some things are special and sacred…like cussing with your oldest buddies.

Before I stop here, know that I was totally impressed by the diverse…young and old…folks I was in the company of this past weekend.  Never once did I hear something in the background that offended me or was not suitable for children.  Does this mean it went on all day in the mall like this?  I doubt it.  But, maybe it did.

Thanks to the nice folks I ran into this weekend.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Sitting in a library…like I am doing now…does something to me.

I feel smaller in a library than I did when my dear wife, Carrie, and I were standing at  a place called the Devil’s Golf Course in the Mojave Desert inside Death Valley National Park, California.  The vastness of the physical wide open space one finds in the Grand Canyon or looking into a star-filled sky on a lonely country road or listening to the sound of absolutely nothing but your heartbeat in a solitude farm like Devil’s Golf Course is no comparison to me as the vastness that I experience as I am in the company of shelves and shelves and shelves of books.  Home to ideas that came to fruition and somehow managed a way to find the light of day through publication…the library.

What started with a light bulb of a moment over the head, or a heartache that manifested itself into a tome that will be followed and studied, or a two line poem by Ezra Pound that still gets a shine of a spotlight in college classrooms, or a humorous story that entertains children as it teaches a lesson, or a compendium that will lead a student in the direction he or she is looking for, or a compilation of comic strips to share for laughs, or a biography to learn about or from…stories…good and bad…are on these shelves.  Lives are on these shelves.

Perhaps I should not be so appreciative.  Maybe I should be more desperate.  Well…I am not.  I speak of my appreciation for those who have made it to the book shelves as one who has not.  Did I write a book?  Yes, a novel.  It is near 75,000 words.  Do I wish it would find an audience?  Yes, I do.  Am I satisfied that it has not?   Maybe.  Otherwise I would be raging hard against the editorial machine that holds so many back.

I know this: I am proud of my work.  I am proud of the fact I completed a large volume of work I had a joy penning.  It has helped me immensely as an English teacher.  I have not knocked myself out trying to get it published.  I am VERY careful with this.  This book will either get the treatment I believe it deserves or it will not find its way to bookshelves plural. I am fine with that.

I have never looked at a bookshelf in a library or a bookstore thinking I deserved to be there. I have never been jealous of a title on the shelf.  How can I be?  I am just very fortunate I was given a piece of material with which to work and produce something I am very proud of.  It is already important to me.  I have gotten more out of the story I wrote than I ever put into it.  Call me Minnie Pearl.  I’m just proud to be here.

Over the years I have had a few folks ask me about the novel I wrote.  I finished it a few years ago.  Friends are surprised to find I am not frustrated with its solitude.  This is not to say that I don’t think it could entertain a good audience.  I suppose there is a time for everything.

In the top left drawer of my desk in my home office, a business card sits and is jostled around now and again, I suppose, given a couple of its corners are wearing a bit.  The card is from the…

BERKSHIRE ANTHENAEUM                                                                                                    Pittsfield’s Public Library

This is the public library of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  “ANTHENAEUM” is a fancy sort of word for library.

Carrie and I visited this place last summer.  Inside the Berkshire Anthenaeum is the Herman Melville Room.  This room has the best collection of Herman Melville’s personal affects you will find, I think.  Melville was a prolific writer. His Moby Dick clocks in at well over 200,000 words.  He wrote other classics including Billy Budd.  The whale story, however, is probably why he has a room named after him inside a New England library with a fancy name.  Nearby Mount Greylock, and its whale shape, proved inspirational for Melville in writing his most famous work.

This is me trying to look intelligent outside the Berkshire Anthenaeum.  It  doesn’t work out very well for me.

I always admired another New Englander, George Plimpton, for looking so blamed intelligent.  Even before he opened his mouth to pour out his intelligence, he just looked like the smartest guy in the room.  The night I was in the room with Plimpton, I wrote about it on this sight some time ago, he was the smartest guy in the room.  Maybe it was a tie between him and Millard Dunn.  That or Millard had him beat.. slightly.

Speaking the Literary Rights.

Danny Johnson

There is a winter storm warning for my environ.  We are supposed to see near a foot of snow where I live.  Where do I live?  I live in near the northwest corner of Harrison County, Indiana.  Harrison County borders the Ohio River to the South.  Across the Ohio River is Kentucky.  Translation:  I live in extreme Southern Indiana.

Know this…I don’t have to go to work tomorrow…thanks to our Presidents, especially the biggies like George Washington and Abe Lincoln.  Tomorrow is President’s Day.  Most schools…like mine…are off.  The snow won’t be a factor for us tomorrow.

We are due a winter storm.  The biggest snow we have had around here this season was on November 17th.  It is February.  Compared to our friends in the Northeast, we have have had no winter.

Bring it on, I say.

Whenever I think about snow and storms, I think about the past.  I think about storms from the past.  I remember the Blizzard of 1978.  We missed near a month of school and I know we did not make much of it up.  I remember a February when we didn’t see the grass.  I remember 22 below zero.

I also remember my mother, who was raised in Mississippi, did not let us go out to play when I was kid if it was below 20 degrees.  They are laughing about that in New Hampshire.

Hope you have plenty of bread and milk.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

A great American I work with and hold court with now and again surprised me with a nice gift.  The gift, an ordinary object seen day in and day out, is a reminder of my youth.

We were having speaks one day about this and that.  The subject of said object came up and we had a good chuckle about it as we were speaking of things from an era that won’t return…only in memories and the occasional surprise gift.

I am not going to divulge the contents of said gift here today.  That will be for another day.  The day after I get around to showing it to some of my cronies, whom I don’t want to ruin the surprise for here, I will post about it again in complete earnest….instead of being obscure and less than forthcoming.  That doesn’t suit one used to speaking the rights. That is why I need to halt this action.

Regardless, I am thankful.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

speaktherights.com has been back and forth of late with a guy named Gordy Marshall.  His is a gentleman worth knowing about.

I reached out to him and asked that he be the subject of the first interview on speaktherights.com.

I hope he acquiesces.

Gordy is a musician.  I have seen him play drums and percussion…and the flute.  He is a machine of a performer.  He tells great stories of his own that can be found if you look for them.  His “Postcards” are interesting reading in that medium and interesting listening via podcasts that are entertaining and insightful.

In his “Postcards” book, he took us around America and told us of places and sights he sees as he is running, as he is in transit, and as he is behind a drum kit doing most of the heavy beat lifting for The Moody Blues…my favorite band.

Here is Gordy Marshall playing drums behind John Lodge at The Lawn at White River State Park in Indy in 2010.

Gordy has been playing with The Moodies since 1991.  I first saw him north of Cincinnati at Kings Island’s Timberwolf Amphitheater in ’91.  I suppose it is still there.  His drumming ability and his robotesque performance during John Lodge’s 1972 standard “Isn’t Life Strange” is worth pushing through the turstile to see any Moody Blues show.

So…we are waiting Gordy…to hear from you.  I have an enticing line of questions for you.  I hope you enjoy them too.

Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson

My dear wife, Carrie, and I attended church this morning at Hancock Chapel.  I sang what we used to call in the old church services…and I know some still do call it… a “special”.  I know some more contemporary services have left “specials” to be extinct.  It matters not.  The message is what counts…whether it comes from a three piece suit or a guy walking around in sandals sporting a beard and a robe.  I don’t think I have ever seen any pictures of Jesus in a cardigan.

I sang a song today that I wrote a few years ago.  This was the first time I had a chance to sing it at Hancock Chapel.

Know this…Hancock Chapel is old school.  There is one building…there is one room.  There are privies for men and women no farther than ten yards from the front porch of the church.  A privy is an outhouse for you not familiar with the word privy.  Those of you with no knowledge of an outhouse…well…that is an outdoor toilet.  The church has been there for a long time.

The song I sang was a bit of charged tune…charged as in “take charge” and do the right thing.  The song is called “Lord Lead Us On.”

My dear Carrie and I were led to get married.  It was the right thing to do.  We loved each other.  We still do.  We wanted to make a life for ourselves and our sons Jarrett and Cody.  I think we have done that.  They are both fine, charming young men.  Carrie and I are still here.  I love her now more than ever.  The thing is…I had no idea what I was doing nineteen years ago when I looked at Carrie and said “I do.”  The truth?  My life with her has been better than I ever imagined.  She is my best friend.  We were married 19 years ago this Tuesday.  Our wedding was at Hancock Chapel.

Am I fortunate?  Yes.  I know I am.

Did we get turned around in New York City?  Yes…about seven times.

We found Times Square.

We found that North Carolina Shore.

We found the front stretch at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

We have found more football games than we deserve.

Most importantly…I found her…Thank God!

Now that is Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson

It was supposed to be a wonderful day…then tragedy struck.  How many times have we heard that sentiment leading up to a story?

The good news?  No one got killed.

The bad news?  I am not over the proverbial hump yet.  I still have the disease.  The disease of fear.

I pay as much attention to the news as I can to keep somewhat informed.  No, I do not watch Fox News or CNBC…and neither should you.  Just a bunch of windbags separating the country while they make money doing it.  Not a healthy thing for anyone.  I pine for the days of Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor and David Brinkley.  They gave it to us straight.  Well, maybe they didn’t…but it sure seemed liked it.  This was a time when the World Series got better ratings than college football.

I digress…I digress because I am stalling.  I don’t want to go on…but I need to.  I have studied counseling theory.  I need to continue for my own good.  I need to discuss it.  I need to let it out.

I do watch some news.  Perhaps I am paranoid.  Anyway, yesterday I saw news footage of a plane crash landing in Taipei.  You might have seen it.   It made me cringe.  It made me remember.  It made me uneasy.

Follow along.

I made plans for the greatest two weekends of pro football I could ever imagine.  In 2012 the NFL schedule makers actually got it right.  In the first two weekends of November the Cincinnati Bengals were playing host to the Denver Broncos and the New York Giants.  Translation: the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli, were bringing their teams to the Queen City for games against the Bengals in consecutive weeks.  Being the Manning fan I am, it was a time to behold.

The first week the Denver Broncos came to town.  I was for the Broncos.  This was also a time for me to get to a game with a couple of my childhood cronies I have managed to maintain good times with thirty-some years later.  I went to this game with my pals Kelly Samons and Mick Rutherford.  They were both in my wedding to my dear wife, Carrie.

We had a great time, the three of us.  Peyton threw his touchdown passes.  Having attended Colts games and rooted for him in the Horseshoe, it was odd to see him running out on the field in that choppy gate of his in a blue helmet.  He went from being a Colt to being a Bronco.  What does that mean?  The Broncos won the game handily.

Me, Kelly Samons, and Mick Rutherford

The next week my favorite team, the New York Giants, came to town.

This week I took my Dad and my dear Carrie to the game.

We parked across the Ohio River in Kentucky.  We walked over the bridge at Newport and made our way to Paul Brown Stadium.  As you can tell by our attire, the weather was kinder than is was the week before.  It was a very pleasant November day in Cincinnati, Ohio.

It was Veterans Day, November 11th.  The stadium was decorated and a card section was in the stadium to pay tribute to our country’s veterans.  This was of great significance to us. Our oldest son, Jarrett,  was in Afghanistan at the time, stationed there by the US Army.  He was a crew chief on a Blackhawk helicopter.

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The field was adorned with a flag and the East stands spelled out Thank You Veterans.

Then…as fate would have it…a plane came in from the Southeast to make a flyover of Paul Brown Stadium.

This plane changed me.

If you can see the bank of the plane from left to right…you can tell it is heading opposite of the stands I was sitting in.  I have witnessed many flyovers of sporting events in my time.  Each and every time it has always been the same.  The flyovers are maneuvered over the length of the field…from one end zone to the other across the length of the field.  Not so this day in Cincinnati.

Carrie and Dad and I were sitting in just a few rows in the upper deck that is on the West side of the Paul Brown Stadium.  It was the side of the field the New York Giants were on.   When the cargo plane came in for a flyover it was heading in from the Southeast over the Ohio River toward Paul Brown Stadium with its nose down in the direction of the West stands we were sitting in.

In short, I looked to my right when the public address announcer said this plane was approaching and all I could see…and I can still see them…were cockpit windows close enough that I could easily make out the windshield wipers that sat at rest below the windows.  I had never seen such a sight at a football game flyover.  Being that my whole point of reference for flyovers went out the “window”, and that what I saw was the nose of a plane heading in my direction…well…it wasn’t pretty.

The body can do some physiologically strange things.

Translation:  When I saw this plane seemingly heading my way, my brain told the rest of my body to brace for impact.  My body did just that.  When the flyover was over, my wife and my Dad saw me humped over in my stadium seat.  Neither one wanted to address me. They thought I had become a bit emotional given the Veteran’s Day acknowledgement and they thought I was just caught up in the moment thinking about Jarrett.  They gave me my space.  When I never seemed to be doing better after a minute or so, one of them asked me if I was okay.  I told them I was not.

In the course of my brain telling the rest of my body to brace for the impact of the plane I had no doubt was going to crash into the stadium, my rear personage from my neck down to my Achilles tendons became a two inch thick muscle cramp prompted by my brain.

It was the perfect storm, I thought.  This plane was going to crash into the side of the stadium behind the New York Giants.  The team from the same town that was terrorized by planes in 2001.  That is what my brain told the rest of me.  My day was done.

We stayed for the game.  The Giants got beat.  I got beat worse.  I was a nervous, mentally unstable guy.  I had a babysitter die on me when I was five.  I have known loss of family and friends that would make a man sick for three days.  This was different.  This was involuntary.  I didn’t think about any of it.  I went from getting ready to watch a game I had been waiting on to hyperventilating as my Dad thought I was having a heart attack.

Things didn’t get better very soon.  I went to the Doctor  three days later and told him I needed something for my nerves.  I was walking on eggshells and when I drove to work I was convinced I was going to be hit by most oncoming vehicles.  Two weeks later I finally got to feeling better.

Last summer I suffered a huge setback…a panic attack if one ever existed.

For the first time in my life I was driving up the New York/New Jersey Turnpike.  Little did I know that on one of the busiest, nastiest roads I have road I have ever driven, there would be the view of Manhattan and the new Freedom Tower where the Twin Towers sat on my right…and planes coming in low and hard into Newark International Airport on my left.  It was too much.  I went into panic.

Want to stop on the New York/New Jersey Turnpike?  Good luck with that.  I was at the point of no return.  Breathing heavy if I was breathing at all.  I was so scared that I was putting my dear Carrie’s safety in jeopardy.  I couldn’t enjoy driving past the Metlife Stadium where the New York Giants play their home games.  I was concentrating on the lines I was trying to keep our Ford Edge in between and nothing else.  We drove over the George Washington Bridge.  I remember it.  I can’t see it.  I was scared.  Finally, we got into the country North of New York City.  I found a place to pull off to breathe and convince myself I was going to keep living.

The plane that crashed in Taipei looked a great deal like the one that flew crazily into Cincinnati that day in November 2102.

If I had the pilot of that plane in front of me, I would kick him in the shins…both of them.  Then I would ask him what he was thinking.  I don’t for a minute believe the maneuver he pulled over that stadium was up to regulation.

Will I get over all this?  I sure hope so.

If you are wondering, yes…I have flown since this debacle.  I have no beef with getting on a plane and taking a ride.  It helps if I don’t have to watch.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

We favorite stuff…usually with the click of a computer mouse or the tap of a finger on a key pad or a phone.  That is in my favorites…

Before we get started, understand this is my FAVORITE lady…my dear wife, Carrie.

So I was asked about my favorites recently.  No no…not websites in a computer’s memory. We’re talking about my memory.  Believe me, it can rival the computer.  Ask my cronies.

In no great order my friend rattled off an inquiry of my favorite this and that.  I asked him to slow down as I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled my responses in shorthand.

Favorite Pro Football Team:  New York Giants.  As long as Eli Manning is playing quarterback, I will root for the Giants above all others!  I have made mention here before…my pro game allegiance belongs to my favorite player.  Eli is the man.  I watched him play for Ole Miss in Nashville, Lexington, and Oxford.  I never tire of watching him chunk it down-field.

Favorite College Team:  Marshall…closely followed by Ole Miss.  My allegiance to the Herd is documented on this site.  With a nod to Annie Savoy…you could look it up.

Favorite Basketball player:  Julius Erving.  Doctor J was my basketball hero.  The only one I ever had.  I just don’t care that much about basketball.  Oh my, I do so enjoy the NCAA Tournament in March.  Wow.  That is good times.  Dr. J just seemed so cool…so fluid in his movement.  Poetry in motion…I think that is what we called it.

Favorite Baseball Team: Cincinnati Reds.  I still have visions of the Big Red Machine in my head.  Like a guy lucky enough to see the 1927 Yankees…I saw The BIG RED MACHINE!

Favorite Baseball Player:  George Foster.  He played left field for the Reds in the 70s and part of the 80s…I think.  He was a wiry  guy hitting 52 homers and driving in 149 on 1977.  His bat was black too.

Favorite Food:  I like a good pizza.  If I am ordering, I order sausage, onion, and black olive….though I appreciate other veggies as well.  Beware.   Some sausages can keep me awake for days.

Favorite City:  Chicago.  The Art Institute of Chicago has my favorite painting when it is not on loan.  NIGHTHAWKS by Edward Hopper.  The first time I saw it I wept.  Just thinking about seeing it again makes me nervous.  The last time we visited it was on loan to a museum in France.  Maybe it helped them out.

Favorite Concert:  WHOOOAA!  Back up.  I am a fortunate man.  I have seen too too too many concerts to pigeon-hole this category.  Okay, narrow it into categories.

Group:  The Moody Blues.  It is the music I most relate to outside of the church house.  This music makes sense to me…not just on an “oh, I love that song” sort of way.  A good Moodies concert resonates in my soul.  I remember an orchestra show they did in Evansville in 1994.  It was the best of the orchestra shows I saw.  The Ryman Auditorium Show in 2008…their first concert at the Nashville legend was special.  Too many to mention.

Male Solo:  Tie.  Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues playing in a shoe-box of a venue in Newberry, South Carolina this past October.  I heard him sing a song from a 1971 album I never thought I would ever hear in person.  It is a special song to me.  His simple three piece with no drums was an intimate evening.  Paul McCartney…Carrie and I have seen Sir Paul four times.  The first time we saw him was in 2002 in Indianapolis.  When I heard him sing a song dedicated to John Lennon I cried like a baby.  The song reminded me of my friend Corner King Lincoln who passed away in 1997.

Female Solo:  Alicia Keys.  No question.  This was a great concert in Greensboro, North Carolina on the way home from Spring Break a few years ago. What a voice.  What a fun crowd.  It felt good to be in the minority for a change.  Most of folks sitting around us were black.  Like Fred Sanford called Lena Horne “The Horn”…I will forever call Alicia Keys “The Key”.

Duet:  If you can call it such…Billy Joel and Elton John at Louisville’s Freedom Hall.  That concert was like listening to the soundtrack of your life.  Glad we were there.

We have been so fortunate to see so many concerts over the years.  The list of artists is staggering.  Honorable Mention goes to Huey Lewis and the News, Don McLean, Train, Bob Seger, Allison Krauss, Tim Krekel, Jimmy Buffett, Pink Floyd, Gordon Lightfoot, Garth Brooks, and Celine Dion.  I better stop there.  My apologizes to Harry Connick, Jr.

Favorite Restaurant:  I wrote about the place a few posts ago: Hyman’s Seafood in Charleston, SC. There is not a eatery I enjoy more.  The Riverview Cafe in Snead’s Ferry, NC is the restaurant I look forward to eating at the most…just because it means we are a few miles from our favorite vacation spot.  Can you say fried flounder fillets and oysters?

Favorite State: Tie…North Carolina… because I have seen more of it and know more about it than I do Indiana. Vermont…We have been there once and it made such a favorable impression…I can’t explain it.  Felt like we were on a movie set or something.  There is a beauty there in late June that is exquisite.  Hope to get back there some day.

Favorite Sport:  Football.  Duh!

Favorite TV Show:  Tie…Monday Night Football…for obvious reasons.  Hill Street Blues because I love it.  I was thirteen years old when Hill Street premiered and I got it.  I watched on Thursday nights with my Dad for all the years the show was on the air.  Dad and I have not always had the same taste in TV shows.  We both loved Hill Street.  We shared it together. These days I have been watching the complete series on DVD as I exercise.  I am almost through the next to last season.  Season 7 will be the last one.  When I am finished, I am going to pass them on to my Dad and let him watch them.

Favorite Movie:  Tie…Children of a Lesser God 1986…no movie ever got my attention like this one did.  The setting.  The music.  The story.  The acting.  Got robbed at Oscar time.  Platoon?  Please….  The Prince of Tides 1991… Master storyteller Pat Conroy at his best.  Carrie and I met Conroy once.  He was gracious.  This movie was the last favorite I have known.  Emotion. Emotion. Emotion.  I still listen to parts of the Soundtrack on my IPOD every day.

Favorite Book:  The Holy Bible.  Amen indeed.

Favorite Author:  Lewis Grizzard for fun.  Henry David Thoreau for sense.  Pat Conroy for relativity.

Speaking the favorites rights.

Danny Johnson