Written while listening to some great vinyl from 1971 and 1972. Justin Hayward’s “You Can Never Go Home” on Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is beyond his 24 years when he wrote it. Unreal track. I heard him perform this live in 2014 during a solo show. One of the greatest tunes ever crafted for me. It was not a hit. The great ones usually are not.
The Indiana Hoosiers finished the 2024 campaign with an 11-2 record and a #10 ranking in both the AP and Coaches polls. This is the highest finish for any IU team in my lifetime. I have been here a long time. I just missed the 1967 team that was ranked higher. You do the math.
A dear friend of mine gave me this poster this week. My comment was that this is the first time IU ever got ink ready for a football schedule calendar before June. I believe that. I know a guy who works in the printing department up there who could verify.
Sticking with football for a moment. This was my favorite Super Bowl. Terry vs. Roger. Doomsday vs. The Steel Curtain. They didn’t need hype. They created it on the field. This was everything you hope a Super Bowl will be, unless you are Cowboys fan, and you are still haunted by Jackie Smith. I was ten. I remember it like it was the day before yesterday.
Did we have snow around here or what? It was beautiful.
This is the start of my walking trail that leads to a hill that looks like this in fall:
This is the opposite direction. In the snow it looked a little different.
I will be glad when things warm up. I am ready to walk this trail again.
The Blue River from just below the house. Earlier in the year, I took a few pictures along the river in the fall.
This was taken in October.
This was a day when I wished I had a REAL camera. I did the best I could.
The haze about this photo is emblematic. Things are cloudy. Losing the likes of Jimmy Carter only makes things cloudier.
See what I mean. At Jimmy Carter’s funeral, only one guy didn’t get it. He never will. Trump and truth know nothing of each other.
Trump won’t be elected President. Folks are crazier than I can remember…but not that crazy. And that I sure miss the days of making fun of tree huggers when we could still count on the GOP.
I wrote this while reading real newspapers in the Northeast while vacationing in the Berkshires in June of 2016. I have said this here before. I rooted for the GOP for years when we had a GOP. Trump showed up and ruined that. I don’t blame him. I blame the GOP leaders who could have shut him down. Yes, they did exist. They were cowards. I guess I kind of foreshadowed this in the last sentence up there.
My reference about the “tree huggers” is novel. Ironically, the political horizon looks like a photo negative of what it once was. The liberals used to be the whiners. Now the Republicans are the whiners, and they have nothing to offer except whining and lies.
Look, for myself, I have to draw the line somewhere. I understand that this is a free country. If you wish to buy into a load of lies, you have that right. Merry Christmas to you. I can’t do it. I can’t support someone who is A-OK with people storming my nation’s capitol. If you are, my first inclination is to ask you just how much battery acid have you been drinking? You have been fooled.
I can’t imagine supporting a guy who has prostituted Christianity with bibles printed in his own image. On Christmas Day Trump was telling folks via his Truth Social Account (laughable irony) to “Go to Hell.” That’s rich.
What’s next? Will Franklin Graham will come down from the Blue Ridge Parkway with two stone tablets with NINE COMMANDMENTS. Though Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against They Neighbor need not apply in 2025. That one is out! Trump has seen to it.
There is always hope. That came in the form of Bishop Budde this week. Someone needed to say it.
This ole gal spoke the rights!
Danny Johnson