I’m still here.  In fact, this is the 90th post since July 6th on speakthrights.com.

My dear wife, Carrie, just said that did not seem possible to her.

Time doth fly.

I appreciate all the well wishes and prayers sent out to my family and especially my Granny.  She is hanging in there. I spent some time with her this evening.  My greatest hope is that we can spend some time watching college football together this weekend.  My apologizes to brother Tim Petty, but I know Granny hopes LSU will beat Alabama in prime time on Saturday night.  I too hope the Tigers win…for Granny.

I have not posted in a few days.  Thanks goes out to the folks asking me where I have been.  That is quite a compliment, whether they meant it to be or not.  All I can say is…we are still here.

As I type these word I am watching MAC Football.  Northern Illinois is playing at Ball State.  One of the announcers is the former Heisman Trophy winner, Desmond Howard.  Des is a high profile guy that appears in ESPN’s College Football Game Day.  I wonder who he made mad enough to send him to Muncie in the middle of the week to call a game instead of just blowing off about the Saturday games?

I called the games on Saturday pretty well.  8 winners and 2 losers.  That leaves the Week 10  speaktherights.com College Football Predictions total at 77 winners and 23 losers.   Yes, I know that some of those were some easy pickins’…but I hang my hat on the UCLA and Arizona State picks that helped my cred out immensely.  Though many of you on this side of the Mississippi could care less about PAC-12 anything… I respect that.

1975

1975 was my first football year.  I mean the one I remember on all phases….high school…college…pro.

I was seven years old in 1975.  Don’t know why my memory kicked in so vividly with regard to football.  My Dad was coaching a high school team at the time.  He had been doing so before I was born.  Again, why 1975 kicks me so hard I am just not sure.

I can still audibly hear in my memory an edict that was delivered to the Brownstown Central Braves kick-off man as he was approaching the ball on fall night in 1975 by a caring fan I dearly loved.  I won’t give any more details; I am plan on bringing forth more details about this particular player in a forthcoming post.

In 1975 my Dad and I were in Memorial Stadium in Bloomington to watch the Indiana Hoosiers play football against the Utah Utes.  I can’t tell you how significant this was for me.  I was seven years old.  I had heard of Utah.  I had seen the shape of the state of Utah on a map.  But please remember…this was 1975.  We did not have college football games on television on Saturdays from morning until night.  There were two or three games on television at the most.  Translation:  I had never seen a Utah team play in person or on TV.  I had never seen ANYTHING from Utah before that day.  Like the audible memory I have with regard to the high school game I mentioned in the paragraph above this one, I still to this day remember the visual I had looking at the white helmets of the team from Utah.  Also…as an added bonus…the IU kicker, Frank Stavroff, I think he was from another country, kicked a then record tying 52 yard field goal.  It was kicked toward the North end zone.  I remember it.  Indiana won 31-7.

It was December 1975…twice.  Those are my first vivid memories of watching the Cincinnati Bengals and my favorite player, Ken Anderson.  Both games were in December.  The last game of the season against the San Diego Chargers, a 47-17 victory, gave the Bengals an 11-3 record and a playoff berth.  Unfortunately, the eventual Super Bowl Champs from that year, the Pittsburgh Steelers, had a 12-2 record in the same division as the Bengals.  This meant the Bengals had to go to Oakland to play in the first round of the playoffs.  Let me say my Granny has never done me wrong…except once.  I was sitting next to her at her home in Shreveport, Louisiana.  The day was December 28, 1975.  Granny was rooting for the Oakland Raiders to beat the Cincinnati Bengals.  I was offended.  I still am.  Granny liked George Blanda.  He was the field goal kicker of the Raiders…a former quarterback…he was 48 in 1975 as this game was being played.

The Raiders beat the Bengals 31 to 28.

This was also the first time I noticed the time difference across geographic regions that can be noticed while watching a sporting event.  Translation: It was getting dark outside in Shreveport, Louisiana while it was bright and sunny on the football field in Oakland, California.

The irony?  I met my Granny in Hawaii in late April-early May of 1991.  We spent 8 nights over there taking in the sights and enjoying the weather.  We had a great time.  On television one morning at 7 AM, we were watching a World League of American Football game being played in London, England.  The sun had not been up very long in Hawaii.  It was dark in London.  Also…one afternoon in Hawaii, I was watching a baseball game being played in St. Louis.  The sun was bright and shining outside my balcony looking toward Diamond Head crater.  It was dark in St. Louis and I thought that was pretty surreal.

I have my Granny to thank for oh so much.

That, my friends, is Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson