Oh my, how times have changed.

Thirty years ago The Moody Blues released the album “Keys of the Kingdom.”

I am finally listening to this album today on vinyl.  I aquired it via Ebay for a great price.  Perhaps my last Moodies puzzle piece, I saw this album at the old Ear-X-Tacy store in 1991 for 14.99.  I didn’t have fifteen bucks that day.  Thankfully, today I do.  This copy came from Germany at a comparable price.

I so enjoyed this album.  At the time I was working at Sears in Clarksville, Indiana and attending class at Indiana University Southeast trying to find my way in the world.  In a couple months, when I met Dr. Millard Dunn for G208, my life would never be the same.  This was a good thing.

The Moodies always toured.  When I knew they would be playing at the Timberwolf Ampitheater at Kings Island on August 13, 1991, I knew I would be there.

I did not know that a moment for me would be greater than the concert ever was.  I took a young lady with me that day (this was my pre-Carrie love of my life days).  We rode all the rides and had a great time.  I admit it for the first time in nearly thirty years, that this young lady wanted to ride on the front car of the ride called the “VORTEX”.  I swallowed hard and told her it was great.  And it was.  Would not trade it for the world.

Neither would I trade the moment when we were at a booth where you could win  prize by throwing a football through a VERY small hoop.

Look.  Confidence with a football in my hands was never a problem.  My Dad coached football.  I never had a football far from arm’s reach my whole life!

I stepped up to that booth and its confines.  I laughed.  I look at the guy running the booth.  “This is too easy,” I said.

He told me to GO FOR IT.

I did.

I took a bonafide Ken Anderson five step drop and drilled that ball and all that ball hit was the back of the tent that held the game.  Folks around the game actually cheered.

The guy in charge of the game shook my hand.  He told me I could have any prize I wanted.   I looked to my lady friend and told her to pick one out.

All I remember is that it was HUGE and we had to take that pink bear back to the car before the Moodies’ concert.

Does she still have that bear?  I hope not.  Those things don’t have a great shelf life!

Had I not threaded the needle we would not be talking about this today.

The Moodies concert?  My lady friend looked at me and said, “These guys should be playing RIVERFRONT STADIUM instead of this this 10,000 seat venue.”

I knew then and I know now, she was a smart young lady.

Speaking the rights….

Danny Johnson

Written whilst listening to the Soundtrack of the 1980 movie Somewhere In Time.  No words.  Beautiful music.

Am I blue?

I am.  It has been a summer like no other.  I remember last summer.  Carrie and I were feeling bad because we were relagated to sitting in the front yard in lawn chairs reading good books wishing we could hit the road.  We couldn’t hit the road.  Covid saw to that.  What I would give to have that summer back.

In the space of 19 days, our boys, Jarrett and Cody lost their Dad, Barry Beckett, as he was diving in Key West on June 15 and then Jarrett’s long time girfriend, Sarah Danielle Hutchinson, was killed in a boating accident in West Virginia on the 4th of July soon after Jarrett told her and her old IU college buddies to have a good time.

Sarah was a shining light in our lives.  I miss that light.

This is a picture of Sarah playing soccer back in the day.  She was a determined young lady.  About to finish a second master’s degree and attain her status as a Physician’s Assistant, she was a driven young lady.  I have no doubt she kicked a few shins.

I have not posted anything original here since June 22.  I have not felt like it.  Not at all.

Life happens.

And as we keep moving forward, as we keep pressing onward, some good things happen too.

I am back at North Harrison High School.  No, I am not in this counseling office; I am across the hall in Room 104.  And I am so glad to be there.  I will once again be back where it all started for me.  Teaching English is a passion.  Helping students to manipulate the English language to their benefit for the rest of their lives is my ultimate goal as an English teacher.  We’re going to have a good time.

I wore this T shirt on the field at The Rose Bowl when I got to swing my leg there in 2018.  Each time I see that shirt on that field, it makes me smile.  Given I landed here in Northland during the Carter Administration, I know what it means.

My classroom is ready.  And I am so excited to meet my new students.

It is going to be a good time.  Lord knows we could all use it!

Speaking the rights,

Danny Johnson  Room 104

SO I WAS TRYING TO BRING SOMETHING OUT TO WRITE ABOUT.  IT HAS BEEN OVER A MONTH SINCE I POSTED ANYTHING.  WE HAVE HAD A ROUGH PATCH AND WE WILL PRESS ONWARD.  SO I DECIDED TO REACH BACK TO THE EARLIEST ARCHIVES.  This first ran on speaktherights.com on this date in 2014 the year we started this. 

One of the toughest things I have ever had to witness is watching my dear wife, Carrie,  have a tough time of it as she cared for her grandparents.  Both of them had Alzheimer or dementia or whatever you want to call it.

Her grandparents had outlived their own children, one son died of a heart ailment in 1982 and the other, Carrie’s father, died of a heart attack in 1999.

To this day I can remember the moment in time as I pulled into her grandparent’s driveway as I was about to head to Indianapolis to watch a minor league baseball game with a friend from Jackson County.  Carrie told me her grandmother had been acting strange.  Carrie’s demeanor told me something was bad wrong.  It was.  She never got her old grandma back again.  This was August 2003.

Slowly but surely things got worse… and worse.

Her grandma’s behavior became erratic and even hateful at times.

Looking back on what we call “the Missing Years”, I have no idea how we made it thorough that time had it not been for the grace of God to help us along the way.

For a period of years, Carrie and I…mostly she, stayed with her grandparents after we got home from work until it was time for them to go to bed.  We stayed with them on weekends also.  Her grandmother’s behavior and health got worse and worse as the years went on.

Eventually we had to employ a friend of the family to stay with them during the day until we got home to take over.  Again, looking back, I don’t know how we did it and kept our own sanity. Thanks be to God.

On December 18, 2006, we had no choice but to take Carrie’s grandmother to the hospital for treatment.  I remember it was a Monday and the Colts were playing the Bengals on Monday Night Football as I waited in a hospital waiting room.  Carrie’s good friend Michelle, who lived near Carrie’s grandparents, was at the hospital with us that night.

The worst of it was going back to tell her grandpa that his wife was not coming home.  That was my job.

Her grandfather did not handle it well.  He fell apart and soon he too was admitted to the hospital and like his wife, he was soon in a nursing home with her.

He died Easter Sunday, 2007.

His wife of many years died on Sunday, June 8, 2008.

When it was over, Carrie and I had to reintroduce ourselves to each other.  Sure, we got away now and again for a few days here and there…but our minds were never far from her grandparent’s kitchen table during this time.  Our hanging in there together only further galvanized an already solid steel union.

To this day I miss walking into her grandparents house to have her grandfather ask, “You want a cup of coffee?”  I didn’t drink the stuff at the time unless it was 5 degrees outside.

I also miss her grandmother asking me if I wanted a sandwich or a bowl of chili.  At her best, she always had something of a culinary nature at the ready.  I miss that.  I know Carrie does too.

We do what we do.  We press onward.

What prompted these words?

Well… I was looking at a picture I took of Carrie at a Bob Seger concert in 2011 at The Yum! Center in Louisville.  Though this was years after our sad ordeal with her grandparents was over, it still reminds me of the first time we saw Bob Seger… it was December 12, 2006 at Freedom Hall…just six days before we took her Grandma away from her home…the house she was born in.   Carrie and I so loved that concert.  Before that, seeing Bob Seger was just a dream of ours. We loved the respite it provided from one of the most turbulent times we have ever known.  The days that followed were even worse.

But…we pressed onward.  We lived to tell the story.  For Carrie and me, the story always includes music.

I was totally in awe of the the picture I took of Carrie at the Bob Seger concert in 2011.  It reminded me of Seger’s Live Bullet album cover from 1975.  I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.  It’s still pretty close.  To me it a perfect symbol of the hectic time we spent with her grandparents…yet there is still a smile to be had in there somewhere…down on Mainstreet…speaking the rights.

 Carrie at Seger in 2011.

Seger at Seger in 1975