This is post number 334.  It seems like 1000.  It seems like 54.

Time has moved quickly since I began this endeavor in July of 2014.  There have been the best of times to report on and there have been the worst of times to report on.  Either way, it has been fun.  I have been asked why I do this writing for no pay.  Not so, I tell my money-hungry never writes.  It is just what I do.

Ever since I was a youngster I have been writing something.  I remember a poem I wrote at my great-grandmother’s house in Brownstown when I was a kid.  It was called “The Silver Dragon”.  It was about her toaster.  I started writing songs when I was a teenager.  I didn’t acknowledge that being a remote possibility until I picked up a guitar at age 29 and learned to form chords that I could merge with words and make a reasonable sound.

I wrote a poem that appeared in my high school yearbook on the football page.  I doubt that has happened very often.  When it was type-set the editor of the book made an error in the verbiage and…well…screwed it up.  I don’t know if they were mad at me or just plain were negligent.  In earnest, I didn’t care much at the time and care even less now.  I knew what it was about then and I know what it is about now.  Either way it worked out.  I am still writing.

I had a few teachers over the years encourage me with my writing.  They were kind.  They were also honest…I hope.  I was told my writing reflected a sensibility beyond my years when I wrote a piece about the movie “Brain’s Song” that we watched for a Sports Literature class.  I was told on other occasions that my writing lacked depth when writing reports of other things I was not quite as interested in.

So what am I interested in?

I am interested in family.  That has been a theme that has shown itself here on many occasions.  Whether writing about my immediate family, my extended family, or my kinfolk in the South, I always enjoy writing about family.  In the fall of 2014 I chronicled the demise of my Granny.  It helped me in a cathartic way.  I think it helped others around me too.

I am interested in travelling.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I are fortunate.  We have been many places.  We never tire of getting in the car and heading for the open road….even if it leads to many of the places we have been before.

The North Carolina shore if our favorite destination.

I enjoy writing about friends.  I am blessed to have good friends.  Some have left us and some are still here.  I still get a great deal of mileage out of telling stories about things that me and my cronies experienced over the years.

Me and Jerry Brown.  He is the oldest friend I have that has shown up on speaktherights.com.  We go back a VERY long way.

I have enjoyed writing about football.  After all, I do pick the college games every week.  And I need to do better with that.   The high school football scene to has been great fodder for speaking the rights.

Being in Knoxville for the UT-Bama game was something to behold.

I have to write about music.  I make music.  I think in musical rhythm.  No one has had more fun with music than I have.  Singing for others.  Going to concerts.  Recording tunes.  I have been blessed.

Seeing The Moody Blues at Red Rocks is still the king of concerts for me.

I have written about my job as an educator.  I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to work with so many great people and be able to help so many kids wade through the ever-changing, ever-confusing education process in this country.  My hat is off to all of them.

With 4th grades at Indianapolis Motor Speedway where I got to…

Kiss the yard of bricks.

I have been speaking the rights about a fortunate life.  Thanks goes to all of you!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

I have, on occasion, been accused of being in touch with a youthful optimism and attitude to go along with it.  I think this is a good thing.  I have been told the aged axiom “You’ll always be a kid at heart.”  I think that is true.  In fact, I think that is true of most of us.

It just works out better for some than it does for others.  I have known kids that seemingly had the weight of the world on their shoulders and nothing I could do or say would alleviate the weight and…the burden…they seem to be carrying.  A day like that is a sad day for me.  I have been there.  Some of these times and looks on kids faces that I wish I could rid myself of haunt me.  They do this because I still care about them.  What I would not give in this age of social media to find out what is REALLY happening to some of those I have lost track of.  A few of them have found me recently via facebook.  I finally relented and created a real page with posts and pictures and all that.  In earnest, I have already “unfriended” a few folks.  I am not a fan of vulgarity.  I still think we should, as Mr. Spurgeon, my elementary principal, would say…BE NICE!

Even these images and bits of wispy truth don’t tell much of a story…until it is convenient  and proclaimed as the gospel someone wants to latch onto however misguided.  Facebook isn’t worth much…unless you are Mark Zuckerberg.

I am listening to something that keeps me young as we speak the rights out here on the back porch.  Huey Lewis.  Huey makes me feel like a kid.  Sounds keep me young.  Memories of sounds keep me young.  I was never the greatest fan of music videos.  I still mine through them now and again when I record them.  3 hours might render two songs I will sit and watch and listen to.  Bob Seger was against videos, if memory serves.  I know I heard him say once that the individuals imagination was where the best videos were created.  He was right.

There is a tune by a group called Moving Pictures (not to be confused with the RUSH album by the same name).  I think Moving Pictures was a Canadian group.  Anyway, they had a song called “What About Me?” on their 1982 album called Days of Innocence.  I never once heard that song on Louisville Radio.  In 1982’s Top 100 Countdown on New Year’s Eve on WLS 890-AM The Rock of Chicago the song was ranked as the #8 most popular tune in Chicago.  We can’t even imagine something like that happening now.  Chicago is 300 miles away.  That song might as been 30,000 miles away from the main-street market in my back yard.  Looking at the world in front of me…with this computer….I feel like that was another lifetime.  So why do I still feel young again?

I remember mowing my parent’s yard with a push mower singing that song to myself as a video played out in my mind.  The bulk of the action took place in Columbus, Indiana at The Commons Mall which is now defunct also.  The hero was a desperate character looking acceptance as the song suggests…What About Me?  I would sing and mow the yard and play the drama out in my head and hope that after the sun went down that night and the 50,000 Watts of WLS came wafting into my window and my JC Penny stereo that song would find a way to be played in my square bedroom.

The intro to the song is unmistakable.  It still stirs me up.  It does something crazy to my soul.  The song…well…I still like it, though it is mot quite as thrilling as it once was.  Truth be known, I have not heard it in a while.  I think I will…now I must go the the music library shelf in my home office and find it and give it a spin.  I will imagine there is some static…and it is playing in mono…and I will know that for a few minutes I was 14 or 15 again…but this time I came home today and the yard was mowed and I didn’t have a thing to do with it.

Enough of this.  I am heading to the music shelf.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

It has been ISTEP testing week over the width and breadth of the State of Indiana and the testmania will continue this week again.  I will forever be amazed at the lack of common sense that is applied by elected officials when it comes to creating demands that are included in the testing culture on the young people trying to learn and the caring teachers trying to teach.

I am dumbfounded that in a nation where so many squeaky wheels are immediately slathered in lubricant and given their “rights” as it politically correctly/media-driven goes, there is still a one size fits all mentality in school politics that seems to get worse all around that it does better.

In a twisted way, this is a compliment to the schools.  Schools are a symbol of solid civility and one of the last harbingers of goodness that are left to the definition of the blind eye that thinks it is informed because it thinks it know so much about society thanks to facebook and twitter and politicians with itchy twitter fingers and various news outlets that try to brainwash their audiences.  These entities can run roughshod over society with little repercussion, until a popular news guy has paid his limit of sex scandal hush money and runs out of favor with the network…even if it is the network that holds the torch of being a moral compass for a section of the audience that thinks very highly of itself.  I have enough respect for religion to never again mention it as a factor in politics.  That activity makes my stomach turn in wake of so much I was taught to believe as a youngster.  I can’t take it.

I digress.

Schools are still to be depended upon like no other place.

If the law makers were to put their money where their mouths are, I would be delighted to see how many of them could pass a test they are making students to pass as a graduation requirement.  It would be a mess. Those that found themselves on the failing side of the score would call for a hearing.  I think there should be a hearing as to why the ISTEP test examiners manuals are over 500 pages and cover grades 3-10 and are given to all giving a test even though that one person giving a 10th grade English section may have to only look at 25 of those pages.  And why did I get twice as many of those at my school than I needed?  If I was in politics I might have time to find that trail of money.  I don’t.  I am an educator.  I am too busy to look for bureaucracy…even though I know it is screwing things up for students.

We press onward.  We always do.  But I sure wish we had more time to talk to students about standards of living more instead of being pressured to cover standards of English, math, science, and the other disciplines.  Thanks to politics, the civility piece has, for the most part, been taken out of schools.  There just is not enough time.  We try.  I wish we had more time to knock around what is good vs. what is bad.  What is right vs. what is wrong.  And could do it in more than just a convocation that, while meaningful, looses its meaning in a place and time that is repetitive like we have never seen.

The ISTEP drum beats on.  As a result industry complains that students coming out of high school and college don’t possess good “soft skills”.   The test culture is the reason for that.

And to think….I sat here to tell a story about seeing Neil Diamond sing last night.

As great as Neil’s singing was, there was another tale to be told about last night.

Before the concert, my dear wife, Carrie, and I took our seats.  We had a nice view of the stage.  In front of us was a couple and I looked at the gentleman and something just came over me.  I knew I had known this guy somewhere in the past.  I didn’t think it.  I knew it.

His wife got up to visit the concourse.  Shortly after that he popped up and said she did not have her ticket to get back.  He was sporting a black t-shirt that said Indiana University.  The plot thickens. When he came back he turned around and asked if we had seen Neil Diamond before.  Well, first he asked about the YUM Center.  He asked if we had seen any ball games in it.  We told him we had not.  I then told him we had seen a few concerts there.  That is when he asked if we had seen Neil Diamond before.  He said they had seen him a few years ago in Columbus, Ohio.  He asked where we were from.  I told him we lived in Harrison County, Indiana.  He said he was somewhat familiar with the area.  He told me he lived in Georgetown, Kentucky.  This is not far from Lexington which is UK country.  I asked about his Indiana shirt.  He told me he was originally from Southern Indiana too.

I then told him that I had wanted to tell Carrie that he had Jackson County written all over him.  I told him I knew him from somewhere.  He paused….and said, well, I’m from Brownstown.  I told him I was too!  I told him he might of know my Dad.  Turned out Dad was one of his teachers and the both of them attended this man’s 40th Brownstown Central High School reunion.  The guy I met last night, Gene Tabor, as a member of the class, and my Dad as a guest of the class.  We laughed, told stories.  Gene managed the Brownstown Pool when I was kid taking swimming lessons.  I told him Dexter Jones was my swim teacher.  He told me Dexter is in Snellville, Georgia now.   It was great to relive some of our times in Brownstown.  Oh, and there was pretty great concert to go with it.  I was so glad to hear Neil Diamond sing in person.

Neil singing “America”.

Prior to the concert, Carrie and partook of this Nacho monstrosity at Guy’s Smokehouse on 4th Street.

It was nice to get the mind off of the insanity of Indiana Public School Testmania.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

When do I start?  Blessed is the word that comes to mind.  Sad too.  That is what happens when you have a house full for Easter dinner and for one reason or another a couple of the people you want in the room can’t be there.  That is what we had for this Easter dinner.

I am back on the porch by my lonesome right now.  I have been driven in and out twice attempting to write this post.  I don’t want to get struck by lightning again out here.  That would not be good.  I was fortunate the first time.

Earlier this afternoon this porch was filled with family and laughter and some great food.  Holiday dinners here are special times.  There is so much care and love that goes into preparing the food.  My Mom brought her sweet potato casserole.  My sister made baked beans.  My dear wife, Carrie, made pies and veggies and hashbrown casserole.  My mother-in-law, Shirley, made an awesome ham.

Easter is a bittersweet time, really.  We, as a family, went through a few tough episodes during Easter time over the years.  Some things just don’t leave you.  Maybe they are not supposed to.  The hope and faith we carry as Christian people can see us through the worst of times.

In my previous post I made mention of the church Carrie and I attend when we visit North Carolina.  Pastor Duke Lackey, I found out this week, is being assigned to a new church in the North Raleigh area.  Little did we know three weeks ago.  I suppose my sending him the note of thanks to him and his congregation was better timing than I could have planned.  It happens that way…when we don’t get in the way.  The folks at Faith Harbor will be getting a new pastor and we will be glad to see him or her the next time we are in town.

I opened a legit facebook account, oxymoronic as that may sound to some, recently.  In the meantime I have reconnected with folks I have not talked to or thought much about in the past few decades.  Not that I don’t appreciate them.  I do.  I still do.  Kind of like the way I am sitting here on this cloudy porch listening to The Bay City Rollers as I type these words.  I still enjoy their tunes.  They don’t sound ambitious.  They sound rather simple.  I have employed greater recording angles than what I hear from them.  But I still relate to it.  I was nine when I feel into the Bay City Roller hole.  I just enjoyed their sound.  The lyrics were straight-forward.  It was fun.  It still is.  I am not going to ask anyone if they get it.  I don’t care.

Opps.  Looks like it is going to start storming again and I don’t want to get struck by lightning.

Happy Easter, everyone.  Love one another.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Hello Pastor Duke,

My dear wife, Carrie, and I visited two Sundays ago as we always do when we are in town. The dramatic reading of the Blind Man being made to see was a joy to behold. We appreciate your church…the people are always so gracious and kind. One lady asked why we always come back to the area, in part I should have said “Y’all are the reason”. There is some truth in that. We have been a great many places. We call Topsail our home away from home. If the place was filled with knuckleheads we would not be coming back. The folks there are among the nicest and kindest we have met. There are many beaches. There is only one Faith Harbor. Thanks be to God.

Take care, Dan Johnson Depauw, IN

I have to give Pastor Duke credit.  What is above was in is church’s newsletter published on April 6th.

Pastor Duke Lackey.  We have gone back and forth via email over the years.  Carrie and I vacation close to his church, Faith Harbor United Methodist.  Pastor Duke is a great guy.  On a couple of occasions we worked in concert to set up an event or two for someone in his congregation. It was fun.

Don’t ask me what year.  I had tickets to see a football game….Duke playing North Carolina in Chapel Hill at Kenan Stadium.  I was so looking forward to it.  For whatever reason, we could not make it.  I sent the tickets and a little spending money to Pastor Duke.  He found someone in his congregation.  They enjoyed it.  Pastor Duke told me he felt it was like Christmas in October.  I was honored.

In 2014 I has tickets to see Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues at the Carolina Theatre in Raleigh.  It was the first night of the tour.  Carrie and I didn’t make it.  I passed the tickets on to Pastor Duke.  He was delighted again.   Carrie and I saw Justin a few days later in Newberry, South Carolina.  It worked out well.

A few Sundays ago Carrie and I were at Faith Harbor for the service.  It was great.  We had communion at the end of the service.

Pastor Duke looked out at the congregation as the serving was near a close.  He turned and asked boldly…”Does anyone need to be served from their seat?”  He wanted to make sure everyone was served.

Pastor Duke is a servant of God.  And I am glad I know the man.

I dare say this was the first time in the history of mankind that the word “knuckleheads” was ever printed in a church newsletter.  Amen to that!

Speaking the rights

Danny Johnson

It is official.  Spring is here.  I am delighted.  On Saturday I cleaned the back porch.  Scrubbed it down…every inch of it.  Table and chairs got it too.  The place looks great.  We will be hosting Easter vittles this Sunday and if someone wants to sit on the back porch they can do it.  Someone will.  Believe me.

Billy Joel is on the stereo.  I took a notion to bring an old stereo out here for the season.  It was a good idea.  Music on the porch.  Not bad.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I saw Billy Joel sing once.  It was the Face to Face Tour with him and Elton John.  Talk about sitting back and listening to the background music of your life.  That was this concert.  I have always enjoyed their music.  None of it ever really stirred me, save a few obscure Elton John tunes that completely take me in.  Elton’s Empty Garden, Ticking, and Breaking Hearts are a few of my favorites.  Don’t ask me why I love three songs that are as sad a Elton can get.

The bass line on Billy Joel’s Say Goodbye to Hollywood is amazing.  Many of his songs have strong bass tones.  If I had not just finished time making in music in a studio myself, I would never notice.  That is what paying attention to overall sound will do to you.  It is not a bad thing.  I remember on time I was recording and when I do, well, I hear everything.  That night I put on The Moody Blues’ Your Wildest Dreams, a song I have listened to since I was a senior in high school.  For whatever reason I heard more depth and sounds I had never heard before.  I wasn’t even using headphones.  It was amazing.

Did I say it was good to be back on the porch?  It is.

I even came up with the idea for a project that will feature the porch as a backdrop out here.  Might come to be.  Might not.  We shall see.

I was glad to see Sergio Garcia win The Masters.  This will energize Surge and he will make some more noise for no other reason than the weight of a major is off…a Masters at that…and if things were extra gravy a week ago, the gravy just got sweeter.  1 for 75 in majors is nothing to be ashamed of.  0 for 75 in majors is nothing to be ashamed of.  I would like to play in ONE major other than the Corner King Classic.

It is a little cool out here tonight.  It is getting dark and cooler by the minute.  Time to go in.  We’ll be back though.  And it will indeed be a good time.

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

Is there a more beautiful golf course than Augusta National?

I wish I could see it one time.  I never will.  I know that.

One of my favorite stories is that of a famous son of Georgia whom thought he got an invitation to join Augusta National.  He called his buddies one after the other.  Got no response.  Finally one of them answered.  Turned out they were all together…ready to laugh at him on speaker phone.  They concocted his invitation and sent it.  They laughed.  It was a cruel joke…but a good one.

What about Charley Hoffman today?  Can he keep it up?

Might.

Might not.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson