Last Saturday, my brother Darrell and I drove to St. Louis to watch a United Football League game. The St. Louis Battlehawks played the Memphis Showboats. St. Louis won 32-17. Everything about this experience was exquisite. We left my house at 7 AM and returned right at 7 PM.
I haven’t spent much time in St. Louis. A couple concerts and this trip. We rarely head west.
There were over 31,000 Battlehawks fans in attendance. Everything about was wonderful. Tickets were affordable. Families, entire families were there and that was a great sight. We were all there to have fun. It wasn’t like if we get beat by Jets today, we’re all going to be mad the rest of the week. None of that stuff. Look, the football Cardinals left town. The Rams left town. These people enjoy and support a team that is in town. This team has the best attendance in the league.
Even better, AJ McCarron completed 35 passes for the home team. What enamors me about his play is that this career NFL backup wanted to play for team he could start for so his boys could watch their dad play. That is easy to root for.
Speaking of rooting. I was root, root, rooting for the home team this week.
I had the pleasure of doing the PA announcing for North Harrison High School Baseball this past week. We played four games, with only Wednesday off. The Cougars took 3 of the 4. It was pure fun. Coach Kevin Fessel has a nice team. My hat is off to him.
Today we were at NH for the spring play. The History of Dating was the name of the play. It was fantastic. The players were spot on, and it went off without a hitch. I know how difficult this is. I have been there.
Want a giggle? The above was on an assignment one of my students turned in. We talked at length about the TOTAL ECLIPSE that was around these parts. We didn’t go to school that day. I had my senior English classes write a poem with the eclipse as its theme. On one doc, I got a poem and this picture. I just shook my head. I appreciate it.
This picture was taken on November 15, 2019. My dear wife, Carrie, and I were at Marshall to see the Thundering Herd take on the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.
Before the game, at the hotel we were staying, I slipped down to the indoor pool facility that was empty. It was warm. I took a seat. I took out my phone and dialed the 601 area code. I called my Aunt Barbara for the first time in a long time. Ashamedly, I can report that when I took my job at North Harrison my calls to her slowly dried up. It was my fault. For the previous thirteen years before I took my job at North in 2015, I worked at Medora Schools and drove 54 miles one way to get there. Many of those days I stayed and announced ball games. That meant late nights getting home. To pass the time, I often called my Aunt Barbara Hines. We talked about everything. When things got really juicy, she’d say, “You’re a mess, Danny!”
Aunt Barbara’s husband, my Uncle Durwood Hines, died in 1988. He had a brain tumor. In 1989, Aunt Barbara and I went to see Ole Miss play Arkansas in Jackson. We had so much fun we did it again in 1991. Then Ole Miss quit playing games in Jackson and kept everything on campus. In 1996, Carrie and I went Oxford with Aunt Barbara to see LSU. Two weeks later, she was up here, and we were taking her to see Penn State at Indiana. In 1998, she came up here to see IU play Minnesota. In 1999, my son, Jarrett, and I were with Aunt Barbara heading to Oxford to see Ole Miss play Georgia. In 2001, she came up and we took her to Lexington to see Ole Miss against Kentucky. The last game Aunt Barbara and I saw together was Ole Miss vs. South Carolina in 2003. It was Eli Manning’s senior year. The Rebels won 43-40. Had they played fifths instead of quarters, the Rebs probably would have gotten beat. We all walked away feeling the Rebs had escaped. Eli threw for 396 yards.
After that call I made to Aunt Barbara in Huntington, West Virginia in 2019, she and I were connected to the end. Rarely did a week pass when we did not talk. Sometimes two or three times a week. Let me tell you this, last year when my lung ailments were fixed to the point where I could breathe freely for the first time in my memory, I walked and I walked. When I walked and I walked, I called Aunt Barbara. The last year of her life, we covered more ground than either one of us ever bargained for. I am so thankful.
Taken at The Cock of the Walk catfish restaurant along the Ross Barrnett Reservoir in Brandon, Mississippi in 2017. A great meal with the best of times.
This was taken the last time we saw Aunt Barbara in 2019. Two of my favorite ladies.
Aunt Barbara died this past Saturday. Leave it to her to go on a Saturday. That was our favorite day of the week. How can I watch the Ole Miss Rebels without her? We’d be on the phone on game nights, and I would receive the signal seven seconds before she would. I’d just wait for her to say “Get him! Get him.” Or I’d hear, “Oh, Lord.” That was a bad play. We’d relive every game, and we had all the answers.
College Football won’t be the same for me. I guess I need to call Paul Finebaum again in honor of Aunt Barbara. That won’t help. I sure hope time will. Cos I’m sure gonna miss her.
Speaking the Rights…
Danny Johnson