2024 was not kind. We need kindness to prosper in a civil and stately manner.

As the College Football Playoffs have played out, there has been just as much complaining and whining from teams that thought they should be in the mix as when we had only four teams vying for the spots. Maybe more whining and complaining. What do you expect? Whining and complaining and throwing around meaningless accusations has never been more popular in this country. Truth, while at a premium, means less than it used to. Why should college football be expected to give us higher comportment?

To the Alabama folks who thought your team should have gotten into the CFP, I can tell you there was a time when Lewis Grizzard and you would have said, “If we had beaten Vandy, we would have made it in. We didn’t beat Vandy for God’s sake! We don’t deserve squat.”

To the Ole Miss folks, I feel your pain. I was hoping the Rebs would get in. But when I knew Indiana would be there, I knew that committee would not let SMU go quietly. The Mustangs, thanks to the Hoosiers, were IN. Had the Rebs beaten Kentucky at home, the Cats only conference win, then, well, see the Lewis Grizzard reference above. You know it. I know it. Jimmy Swaggart knows it.

The Indiana Hoosiers were the darlings of College Football this year. Strange but true. Did they belong in the College Football Playoff? Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. Doesn’t matter a bit. You and I were not on the CFP Committee. End of lesson.

I gave up predicting the games this season after Week # 13. Family time and just a lack of juice left me without much desire to continue picking the games. I won’t pick the finals. I expect Oregon will play Notre Dame for all the bananas on January 20th. So there, I guess I picked the finals.

All the college football season long, I have been thinking about this address on Waterwood Drive in Brandon, Mississippi. It has been more than a year since I spoke to my Aunt Barbara about college football. Our last conversation was about exactly that. That and I think we both knew our talks were finished. It was tough I tell you. You have no idea how much it hurt not being able to call her when Indiana was ranked higher than Ole Miss in the polls. Her response would have been this, “Go ahead. Go ahead and crow about Indianer!” It wasn’t Indiana with her. It was Indianer. It wasn’t Oklahoma with her, it was Oklahomer. Iowa was Io-way. I reveled in each syllable from her mouth. College Football will never mean so much to me again. She was my Ole Miss Football buddy.

I will share this photo one last time. Very little means more.

On a brighter note! My brother Darrell and his wife, Emily, will be having a BOY in the Spring. We can’t wait to say hello to this little young’un. Talk about good times.

You know our football is serious when my granddaughter, Penny, and I are both serious about a game so out of control.

We were in Florida watching in Old Oaken Bucket game. Indiana was in firm control. Penny and I were still serious about it.

I think this is her game face.

Her game face is intact even when coloring on Grandma’s lap.

When I walked onto the field at The Rose Bowl in 2018, I was looking at the spot where Vince Young had scored the winning touchdown in the 2006 Rose Bowl to lead Texas to an upset win over USC. That set the stage. I was about to kick some field goals, and I was not going to miss in The Rose Bowl.

Last week I watched the documentary “05” about this team’s journey to winning the Rose Bowl that year. It is worth watching.

I’m not sure where to start here. Mr. Keith Oppel was Mr. North Harrison High School. Keith passed away in late November this year. I always liked Mr. Oppel. We didn’t have one cross word. He was my PE teacher. He and my dad coached track together for more than a decade.

He tried to help everyone around him. Keith coached basketball, track, cross-country and was the Athletic Director at North for a long time.

I was always glad when he and my dad would sit together in the east endzone at North Harrison High School football games these last few years and banter back and forth as if the rest of us were in Shreveport. Those were special times. I know I have complained about North Harrison not having a great sense of history to be found anywhere. I hope someone gets around to naming the Field House on the west end of campus after Keith. It will be a case of better late than never. But it needs to be done.

1986 ad from my first Moody Blues concert.

2024 ad from the latest concert. The Moody Blues died with drummer Graeme Edge in 2021. Justin carries on with a simple solo acoustic act with the help of Mike Dawes, Julie Ragins, and Karmen Gould. I only wish the tickets for this show were $15.50.

Seeing Justin play and smile doing it is a pretty cool thing. He is the best.

Times change and we keep moving. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald said at the end of The Great Gatsby:

-tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther… And one fine morning-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Press onward and hopefully truth will make a comeback in this tired land of ours.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

My apologies to Charles Dickens. Obviously, Dickens inspires this title to a degree. Truth takes over somewhere after that.

Let’s get it out of the way.

This bunch saved the college football season for me. I had given up on college football for the most part. All that business. The blue bloods getting bluer and the rest trying to survive. I was less than enamored with Coach Cig when I first saw and heard him. Turns out, he meant it all. Hope turned into meaning. I don’t think I have heard him use the word “hope”.

I’m still down on college football. For the first time in memory, I haven’t kept up with the players in college football like I used to. No point in investing any hope in any of them. They could be gone tomorrow. I liked it better when we were hoping some kid from Columbus would work out. It is all an amalgamation for me now. When the whistle blows, I watch the game play out a little closer. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still a great game.

I haven’t posted anything on here in almost a month. These have been difficult days. I did not report last month that I took a spill between the bleachers at Notre Dame Stadium right after the game ended on November 16th. My old crony Kelly Samons and I were living the dream until I hit the deck. I was fortunate. I did not hit my head. Kelly was heading to the aisle to go down the stairs. I was beside him. I couldn’t tell you which leg gave up on me. I don’t know. All I know is I went down on a combination of left side and backside. That my head stayed off the ground was a miracle. I believe that. I was stunned in every literal sense of the word. Two guys in front of me came to my aid before Kelly looked back and saw me on the ground. I did everything I could to play it off. I tried to joke with the guys helping me up with an old line from my Granny. She was prone to falling. I looked at these guys and said, “I hit the deck, and I haven’t even pulled a cork!” The walk to Kelly’s truck was the most painful thing I have ever endured until I had to sit down in the truck. We drove nonstop from South Bend to Seymour. I drove on home wondering at times if I was needing to stop. I felt myself drifting off a few times is a state of shock I suppose. I had to talk myself into remembering how to keep a car on the road between Palmyra and New Salisbury.

I have been asked if I went to the doctor. I figured if I was walking there was no need. My mother, the nurse, asked if I had seen the doctor. I answered, “What for? There is no cast for my ass.” She said I had a good point.

Tonight, I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical. This is the most daunting workout I have had in over a month.

I wish the bad news could end there. Two weekends ago, my dear wife, Carrie, and I had plans for a nice, busy, and relaxing time of it. We went to The Big Ten Championship Game on a Saturday.

Of course, we were there rooting on Penn State. They lost. I pity the next team that goes up against the Oregon Ducks. The old throwback was sitting there trying to imagine he was watching an old-fashioned Rose Bowl between a PAC-12 team and a Big 10 team. Hard to do. Penn State got to the Big 10 in 1993. Not exactly old school for either of them.

I figured the next day had to be better. I figured wrong.

We made it out of Indy and got on I-70 heading to St. Louis. A Justin Hayward concert was on the books, as my friend Tim Mullins would say. The streak is still alive. Save the 2020 Covid year, I have not missed seeing The Moody Blues who are now no more, or Justin Hayward solo since 2003. That’s a great deal of Nights in White Satin, but never enough.

Turns out, the old boy is mortal. Me, not Justin. Driving across I-70 almost to Terre Haute, I was not feeling well. Like my great-grandmother, Ivy Nowling, I take a blood pressure pill. I just don’t talk about it as much as she did. I started counting and figured I was on my 4th day in a row without my blood pressure medicine. It happens. On to an Urgent Care center in Terre Haute we go. Two and half hours later and a trip to the Meijer store pharmacy was next. That was another wait. Alas, the little pill I took helped in a hurry.

By the time we arrived in St. Louis to a hotel that was a five-minute walk to the theatre and not all it was advertised to be, the Marriott man will never make this mistake again, there was not enough time to eat dinner. The breakfast we had in Cloverdale was going to have to hang on just a little while longer. On the show!

The old boy did not disappoint. Wow. Justin Hayward is 78 years old. This was the 11th solo show we have seen. On this occasion, his voice did not crack a single time. Not that it does often. This was another level of emotive sound from all of them. 14 songs and a 6-song medley that turned into 2 full songs and a 4-song medley.

For me, seeing the red Gibson 335 for the first time in six years was a treat. He played it on two encore songs. He ended the show with acoustic guitar on I Know You’re Out There Somewhere. That 18-year-old who went to The Louisville Gardens to see The Moody Blues with unhinged anticipation in 1986 didn’t know what was ahead of him. Some dreams we really can live out and we don’t even know it.

After the concert it was back to the hotel. Called out for pizza. Was told it would be there between 10:17 and 10:21. We were hungry. The pizza never showed up.

The next morning was more like a nightmare. Our car was parked in a lot behind the hotel, off the street. Off the street and away from most everything. Everything that is except for someone with one of those devices that tells you the car out there is unlocked when you see the lights of the vehicle come on. Our Explorer fits the profile, I guess.

The Explorer was not damaged. No forced entry. But all the bags of Christmas gifts we had acquired the day before at the Outlet Mall in Edinburg, as we were heading to Indy, were gone. The glove box had been rifled through. All of its contents were on the passenger seat. Gone was our very comprehensive first aid kit and our jumper cables. My blood pressure med was in the door ready to be taken again later that day. Well, it wasn’t anymore.

Carrie and I slinked out of St. Louis feeling as though we had been gut-punched. To go from the listening to the greatest music on my earth to being robbed was not a 360-degree turn I would wish on anyone.

So there. The good news is that I feel better. I’m still pissed about losing our Christmas presents. I told my brother Darrell the thief was not a Philadelphia Eagles fan. The Eagles calendar I got him was still there. I know. We were not hurt physically. Had I walked out there while that was going on…well, who knows.

The Indiana Hoosiers play Notre Dame Friday in the College Football Playoffs. I have seen both of these teams play this year and each one can get the other. It all depends on where they spot the ball (channeling my inner Dan Dierdorf). No, really. Indiana can win this game. I don’t think ND has seen a D-line that will give them fits like IU will. As long as the Hoosier defense doesn’t break down and is left watching Jeremiyah Love’s back running away from them, Indiana can do it. The O-line also need to protect Kurtis Rourke. He’ll find the receivers. The IU punt team will not lose it like it did against Ohio State.

Any other year, I could’ve told you what number Jeremyiah Love of Notre Dame wears. I don’t have the first clue. I’m just watching these guys play one game at a time.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson