A couple days ago I dismantled my office.  I gutted the thing.  Any trace of my existence is gone from the walls.  Believe me…  I had MANY traces of existence on the walls of my office at Medora Community Schools.  I had a poster of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr framed.  I had Paul McCartney on the wall.  The Moody Blues were there too, of course.  There was a small picture of the church Carrie, my dear wife, and I were married in.  There was a small picture of my grandfather and myself fishing together at the town pond when I was a small child.  There was a likeness of the painting “NIghthawks” that I have drooled over on these very pages.  There was a poster of the Wright Brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk.  The guy that took the picture was using a camera for the first time…at least that is the story I heard.  Henry David Thoreau was represented.  As was a bunch from Scott County, Mississippi. This is a photo of my maternal grandparents and their seventeen children.  The last time they were all together…I think.  The year was 1959.

The best pictures I had on the wall, however, were these:

The Medora High School graduating class of 2013 was an exceptional bunch.  They were getting college acceptance letters left and right even in the early fall of their senior years.  They would bring them to me and wave them around.  It was like “dink” light bulb over the head.  I told them to bring their acceptance letters in and we would get their pictures made with them and hang them up.  For the last three years, that is what we have done.  I am proud of these students.

Some more lasting images from my time at Medora.

Christmas 2012.  My English class and I delivered homemade chocolate chip cookies to every elementary school student and we wished them a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

That same class. They were an exceptional group. I say it again.  One day they were complaining about the plight of their senior trip and how they did not want to go to Chicago…but South instead. Picking up on their dismay, I told them this was a prime time to put their aggression to good use.  We started talking about song writing and rhymes schemes and I had my guitar with me that day.  We wrote a song and took it to Al Fresco’s Place Recording in Louisville and, with the help of Rod Wurtele and Jeff Carpenter, we cut a record.

My golfing buddy and good friend Darrell Persinger holding up his Dad’s letter sweater soon after his Dad passed away.  Sorry your eyes are closed, Darrell.

One of the last bus rides I took with my dear friend Mike Hunsucker at the wheel.  Mike died last May.  He had cancer.  I miss him so.  Notice his wife Bonnie in the rear-view mirror.

Here is Bonnie holding up Turkey Lurkey.  He hatched at the school.  Bonnie, I will miss you.  You are a dear friend.

Jim Stewart.  He was the best school man I ever knew.  He hired me in this very office in 1998.  He died a few years ago too.  He worked at thirteen different schools.  He refused to compromise his beliefs and it did not always work out.  He’d say “I’d come home and tell Shirley to call the moving van again.”  He worked at Medora for twelve years and said it was the best job he ever had.

I will miss this Irishman saying “Top of the Morning to You!”  and occasionally singing to me a few bars of “Danny Boy”.

How could you not miss Mr. Disque!  He introduced me to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway via a field trip and was gracious enough to let me chaperon that field trip two more times.  Three visits in four years to the place they run the I-5!  Mr. Disque…you are my hero!

My friend Brad McCammon.  We are no longer co-workers.  Come to think about it, we never were.  We were friends that worked together.  We shared good times and bad times.   We celebrated victories and stayed strong when tragedy struck our school.  Like Dorthy said to the Scarecrow….”I think I’m going to miss you most of all.”

Speaking the “saying goodbye” Rights.

Danny Johnson