On a portable speaker close to where I type these words, The Cars are singing the song “Drive”.  Never a great Cars fan, I enjoy listening to Benjamin Orr handling lead vocals much more that anything Ric Ocasek put forth.  Drive is far and away my favorite Cars song.  The Cars were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the same night The Moody Blues were.  I wish Benjamin Orr had lived long enough to see it.

I was reminded today that I have not written a post in a while.  Nice to know someone cares.

Where do we start?  Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way.

Indiana is a great place.  It really is, in spite of ourselves.  My dear wife, Carrie, and I were about to cross the street in Wilmington, North Carolina, when a guy spoke up when he saw Carrie’s sweatshirt that was advertising Indiana University.  Turned out the guy, a half a generation older than us, was an IU grad.  He told us he believed the nicest people he had come across in his travels were from Indiana and North Carolina.  Maybe.

Having travelled many Interstates, highways, and backroads in the Tar Heel State, I have yet to find a road that resembles a public landfill like that of my walking trail on St. Louis Road NW of the house.  It is unreal.  You would think there was sign along this road that says “DUMP YOUR TRASH HERE!”

I know every zip code has its share of hilljacks and idiots.  I just wish the ones in my zip code were not so close.

Case in point…I am convinced that Hansel and Bubba were on my walking trail recently and Hansel was not throwing popcorn out for Bubba to follow the trail.  Hansel was throwing Busch Light beer bottles.

Here’s one.

Here’s two.

There’s three.

And just in case Bubba needed an extra clue, Hansel threw out the six pack holder as well so Bubba was not to be confused again.

This was not an isolated incident.  Business is going well for Jimmy John’s Subs, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Lite Beer from Miller, and Subway.  At the very least, I encountered trash from these establishments on my semi-serene .85 mile walking trail.

Indiana.  We’re soooooooo proud of you!

I apologize.  I should throw the book at Harrison County, Indiana.  If you go to Dubois County, Indiana (not far from here) there is a whole different level of pride along the roadside.  God Bless them!

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way.  I was taken aback when I saw this infomercial on TV when I obviously hit a button and found a Twilight Zone selling channel.  Make your  hair great again?  Dear Lord help us.  What is this?  Trump Hair Loss?  Is this the Trump Defense Fund at work?  How embarrassing.   This is just affirmation on why I sadly gave up on the Republican Party.  Lord how I hope liberals look like the foolish ones again some day.  We need you now, John Kasich.

On a GREAT note, I saw two Bald Eagles on Rothrock Mill Road a few days ago.  They were in a tree right along the road.  I thought I was going to faint.  You go half a century hoping to see Bald Eagles in your environ and now I can tell you I have seen more than I can sit and name for you.  It is a wonderful thing to behold.

Looking at my photo catalog, I found this picture we made light of at the time.

Me handing off a roll of toilet paper to my Mother last March.  Little did we know what was ahead and what it all meant.  How could we?  We still don’t know.  But I am a little more optimistic than I was six months ago.  I have received my compliment of Moderna vaccines.  We shall see, won’t we?

This old Outfield promo flat finally found its way to a wall in my home office.  My sister game me the frame.  It looks great.  If there are two songs that remind me of my senior year in high school it is The Outfield’s smash Your Love and The Moody Blues’ last Top Ten hit Your Wildest Dreams.  Yes, I know.  It was 35 years ago.  The Moodies have been on the wall for years.

I tip my cap to Brenda Eubank.  This is in the library at Paoli High School.  I have to think Brenda had a hand in putting it there.  I think it is awesome.  Thanks to Brenda and e.e. cummings.

The field behind the house.  I like the camera on my new phone.  I just wish it was not subject to trash on the side of my waking trail.

Speaking the rights.  And, know I pick Alabama to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.

Danny Johnson

I did not expect this post to be as difficult to write as I intended.

This afternoon I spoke to my Aunt Barbara Hines.  Lord, I cherish that woman!

She is my Ole Miss football watching buddy.  Aunt Barbara and I have seen the Ole Miss Rebels play, in person,  Arkansas in 1989, Arkansas in 1991, LSU in 1996, Georgia in 1999, Kentucky in 2001, and South Carolina in 2003.  The Arkansas games were in Jackson.  The Kentucky game was in Lexington.  The other three were glorious days in Oxford.  She has returned the favor with visits to Indiana to watch the Hoosiers play Minnesota in 1994 and Penn State in 1996.  Good times, I tell you.

March 4th, 1988.  Oh to be 19 again!  Two weeks before my 20th birthday, I worked a 3:30 to 9 shift at the now defunct Sears department store in Clarksville.  After my Sears gig that night I drove to my parents’ home where, bags packed, I threw them in my parents’ mini van and drove all night to Shreveport, Louisiana.

My great-grandmother, Ila Ashley, had taken a turn for the worse in Shreveport.  Grandma Ila was always a tough customer.  All four foot nine inches of her.  That she was ailing was something I could not process.

While in Shreveport, early in that week, we got word from Jackson, Mississippi, that my Uncle Durwood Hines was in peril also.  There was only one thing to do.  Point that minivan East on I-20 and get to Jackson.  We did just that.

My Uncle Durwood was one of the kindest, well-mannered, Southern Gentleman you would ever meet.  Always wanting to make sure all in the room were taken care of, he made a great impression on me.  He loved country music.  He enjoyed telling a joke and laughed as hard as the rest of us at the punch line, and on more than one occasion, I asked Uncle Durwood a question to find him asleep in his chair…sitting straight as an arrow.  How I miss those days.

In the 1970s we annually had a family reunion in Forest, Mississippi at Uncle Bob and Aunt Nell’s house on Thanksgiving day.  What a celebration.

Okay.  To put some needed perspective on this, my mom had nine older sisters and seven brothers.  W.E. and Levi Jane Hines had 17 youngun’s.  We had a LARGE family reunion.

On the Friday after the family reunion, my parents and my sister and I would visit a wide array of folk in Jackson, Mississippi.  There was Mr. Anderson, a great man my Mom befriended while she was in Nursing School in Jackson.  There was Mrs. Prewitt, a neighbor to my Great-Great Grandparents.  She complained a great deal, though she made a great raisin pie. There was Edna Bell, the house keeper for my Great-Great Grandparents. She was a precious lady there is not room for here today. Miss Doby was a step-grandparent to my Dad.  Stricken by a stroke that left her speech quite limited to a few phrases…I will never forget the look on her face the day we introduced her to my little brother, Darrell, on what may have been the last time we saw her.  Struggling to get the words out, she said, “I know.”  She meant she knew what she was trying to say.

I’m dancing here.  I need to get to the heart of the matter.

When my Mom and I got to Jackson to check on Uncle Durwood he was about to have a biopsy on his brain.  He had a brain tumor.

My memory is better than most, I can tell you.  I am thankful for that.

But I am still shaking writing about the last time I saw my Uncle Durwood.  He said something I will never forget.

At his bedside after his biopsy, Uncle Durwood’s head was completely bandaged up.  I looked at him and said, “Look at you.  You look like you have a football helmet on and you’re first string.”  He looked at me and smiled the best he could, “I think I’ll have to be the water boy” he faintly said.  I had his hand in mine as he spoke those words.  After this moment, my memory gets as cloudy as my eyes are right now.   It was the sweetest good-bye I have ever been a part of.

Uncle Durwood died on April 18, 1988.  I was on the phone in the Sears paint stockroom when my Mom told me over the phone.  Choking up, I walked out to the loading dock, sat on some steps, and sat there for a long time.

I don’t have many regrets.  I don’t.  That I did not make it to Uncle Durwood’s funeral is one of them.  But, I know there were plenty of folk there for Aunt Barbara.  I just wish I had been one of them.

March Forth!

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

This post written while listening to Justin Hayward’s 1985 solo album Moving Mountains.

The song Lost and Found is on here.  It is the song my dear wife, Carrie, and I danced to at our wedding reception.  As usual, I picked out the tune.  Carrie expects this, of course.  Rediscovering vinyl has been fun for me.  I first acquired Moving Mountains on cassette.  Then I ordered it from Camelot Music at the Jefferson Mall in 1990 or so on CD.  Oh my. Music was such a treasure then.  I miss that.  I miss that for me.  But even more, I miss it for the kids today.

For the Glory that is hard to come by is my thought about Indiana University men’s basketball.  Coach Teri Moran, from Seymour, has the women’s program sailing along.

Archie Miller and the men’s program don’t have that going on right now.  It’s tough to look at it.  When a football guy is feeling bad for you at Indiana, something is bad wrong.

I know plenty about my love/hate affair with Indiana.  When they fired Bill Mallory on Halloween of 1996 I was done with them.  It took a great deal to get me back.  Ironically enough, I had a candid conversation with Coach Mal’s replacement, Cam Cameron on a hot summer day during football camp.

I told Coach Cam I was mad when they fired Coach Mallory.  I also told him it was not his fault.  But it all still stung.  He asked me to hang in there.  Cam had a step-dad who was fired as a high school coach.  I told him about my Dad’s similar treatment at Brownstown many years ago and we found some common ground there that not many folks can share. Cam was let go and the Indiana athletic department in their rumbling fumbling bumbling stumbling way that is their way fumbled another hire in Gerry Dinardo.  Then came Coach Terry Hoeppner.  Had he lived to tell the story, I think it would have been a good one for Indiana.  God rest his soul.

Bill Lynch was next.  He didn’t have the support he needed.  It was just a matter of time.

More rumbling fumbling bumbling and stumbling when Indiana named Kevin Wilson to be head football coach.  Who gets a team not used to getting to a bowl game to be played in Yankee Stadium tell all within earshot in a press conference that he is not much of a baseball fan?  I rooted for David Cutcliffe and the Duke Blue Devils in that game.  I did.  I got to watch a closed scrimmage in March of 2003 when Coach Cut was at Ole Miss and Eli Manning was the QB.  Wide receiver Bill Flowers was rehabbing that day running steps in the stadium that still had a grass field before turf was there for the regular season.

When Indiana had the good sense to hire Tom Allen as the new head football coach I was elated.  Sometimes you just know.  There is a perpetual chip on Tom Allen’s shoulder that goes back to folks wondering if he was up to being an assistant at Ole Miss on Hugh Freeze’s staff.  Coaching football at Indiana has plenty of chips to go around.  I just knew he was the one Indiana finally hit a home run with.

I will not purport to know a great deal about basketball.  Have seen a great deal of high school basketball and a few basketball coaches I count among the best friends I have ever had.

I have never attended a college basketball game in person.  College football is a different story.  I have seen more than 70 of the current FBS teams play in person.

When I look at Indiana University and the treatment of the basketball program since the demise of Bobby Knight, I see the same rumbling fumbling bumbling stumbling that the football program has been subject to half of forever.  Bad hires.

Replacing a legend is never easy.

Indiana University is a good place.  I believe that.  Academically, it holds up.  Athletically it has been suspect for some time when it comes to the biggest money making sports on campus.

Archie Miller, I don’t wish an ounce of bad will on him at all.  I also believe he may privately hope that someone out there will pony up on that buyout his owed if IU terminates him without cause.  I’d say he has earned a great deal of it.  And he can probably go elsewhere and find a place where the old specters are not the most important aspects of a basketball floor like they are at Assembly Hall.

What coaches are paid in college athletics, it is not a good look.  But, that is where we are when deep pocketed donors rule the landscape and pave the roads along with fat TV contracts by the networks.  I don’t blame the coaches.

Look, I too look back to my favorite Indiana Basketball eras.  Playing in the basement with a friend and he was Scott May and I was Kent Benson.  Absolutely GLUED to the local broadcasts I miss so much with Chuck Marlowe and John Laskowski when Ted Kitchel was firing up long range shots from the corner.  Watching Steve Alford and Keith Smart win it in New Orleans in 1987.  Waiting for Clarksville’s Chuck Franz to be put in the game.  Randy Wittman.  Ray Tolbert.  Don’t get me started.  We’d be here for hours!

Sure.  I love Indiana Football.  But I also know my little southern third of the Hoosier state  is a mighty cool place to be when Indiana Basketball is the one holding the handle of the mop when the cleaning of the floor is going on.  I miss that.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Took to the South St. Louis Rd walking trail today.

Have mercy it is amazing what 58 degrees and snow nearly all gone will do for a person.

It was so nice out.  I did not want the walk to end.

There’s the Blue River reflecting the sun down there.

As I took this picture I was feeling guilty.  I was wishing I was in the Paoli High School Gym to see the RAMS take on the North Harrison Cougars.  I came home instead.  I wish I was ready to walk into a gym at 50 percent capacity.  I am not.  Not even close.

As I continued my walk a song came on my Amazon mix by chance.  It was Eddie Money’s tune “I Wanna Go Back”.  Every time I hear that tune I think of an old friend and his memorial service.  That song blared over all in attendance.  I smiled every time I hear it.  And I think about Ken.

I wanted to be in the gym tonight.  I would of loved to have seen Ken there.

But, I am not there yet.

I wanna go back.

When I got in from my walk this afternoon, I asked my dear wife, Carrie, “Have you heard anything?”

Our dear old friend Judy Johnson was taken off a ventilator today.  Carrie told me Judy’s husband, Donald, called her as I was walking.  Judy died this afternoon due to Covid.  Don and Judy’s son, Phillip, was in Carrie’s class for many years as she taught kids with difficulties I can’t begin to understand even though I know very well of them.

Philly Willy has Muscular Dystrophy.  He is in a wheelchair full time.  Has been for years and years.  But a quicker wit you will never find.

This hurts.  Good people.  The best.  They adopted Phillip. And now this. Makes me want to shake my fist just a little bit.  But that never helps.

If I heard it once I heard it too many times.  “When the election is over, the virus will be gone.”  I wish that were true.

I wanna go back.

Speaking the sad rights.

Danny Johnson

I have been trying to sit down and write this post for a few days now.

My success rate is not there.  I have failed at doing so.

I don’t know why kids have to get killed in car wrecks.

I don’t know why I feel helpless in being able to those in need at a time like this.  We do the best we can do…but I just have a hollow feeling all over that leaves me feeling quite useless.  Most of it can be traced to a little thing called a “mask”.

Can you believe it?  We are near on a year of wearing masks to cover our faces to stay safe.

I work in a school I was hired into after mask season began.  These kids don’t me.  They know that guy behind the mask.

Yes, of course.  There have been some very good moments within this realm at times when goodness needed to show itself and be counted on.  For those moments I am thankful.  But I am a social fellow by nature. Not always easy to get to know but certainly easy to get along with.  That I feel that students still don’t know me renders a frustration that I can’t comprehend.

I chuckle when I hear about schools planning on opening, given schools in my area of Indiana have been open for some time.

I don’t chuckle when I hear of states wanting to make Covid vaccines a priority for their teachers when I know the leadership of my home state is obviously not wanting to be bothered by such a thing, as they are looking at school funding issues that don’t resemble the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic.  All of that is quite mind-boggling too.  That is another layer of hollow that makes me sad.

I have said it for years.  Kids don’t vote.  Education is a political football that is not usually kind to kids.  Don’t get me started on The Class of 2000 and the great twenty year Graduation Qualifying Exam experiment and what that has done.

Test Scores 1  Civility 0

Now some colleges are test optional (SAT and ACT).

We are just ahead of the study that will eventually come out and most will say “no kidding.”  It has been a hard lesson.

Sadness.

I conveyed to a brother of Veronica Battista that when she entered the room it was a better place.  I enjoyed sitting next to her on the stage at NHHS during Senior Award Night.  She was a comfort there.  I respected her a great deal.  The school board will miss her leadership.  The whole school will. Her family will miss a treasure. I will miss a friend.  58 years old, Veronica was.  That looks younger all the time.

Sadness.

Family and friends in the south dealing with power outages, water supply-less issues, cold temps they are not used to.  Thank God the temps are going up.

Happiness?

Well, we press onward.  I got to deliver vittles to my folks and see them for a little few minutes at a time.  Yes, I wear a mask there also and I do not stay around long.  Glad the phone works.

Took a few snowy pictures.

St. Louis Rd toward Frenchtown.

St. Louis Rd toward Milltown.

The Blue River down there.

This interesting visitor came to listen to The Moody Blues.

Really.  He could not have gotten any closer.  He stumbled around the yard for a while.  Eventually he stood with his swings spread out.  He walked into the woods.  That was that.

And a snowy Griswoldmobile.

Take care of each other.

And speak the rights if you need to.

Danny Johnson

On February 10th, my dear wife, Carrie, and I will mark the day of our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

A one room church at Hancock Chapel.  That room was full of a great deal of love, family, friendship, and good will all around.  It was 60 degrees that day!

In 25 years Carrie and I have made great friendships, said goodbye to many family members and friends, watched the boys go into harm’s way be it a war zone or a burning building, and have been from sea to shining sea.  We found another home and friends in North Carolina that are there when we can get to them.  We have lived through job changes.  We had the best dog we could ask 14 years of.  We saw more Moody Blues concerts than we deserved.  Found a way to pay for studio time and musicians that allowed my music to become a part of our lives.  Been to football games all over the country.  I still tell the story of Carrie and me tossing a football on a new yet to be finished painted turf on a Thursday in The Rose Bowl.  I told Carrie she just caught that pass where John Stallworth hauled one in over his head from Terry Bradshaw in Super Bowl XIV.  She dropped the ball.  She threw her hands up and said, “I’m done!”  I’m convinced had I kept my shut we could have thrown there another half an hour.  We have looked at The Statue of Liberty and were humbled by Ellis Island.  We enjoy our back porch too.

We didn’t expect to see a Pandemic.  We have.  I hope we see the other side of it.

We didn’t expect to be in the crowd to hear Brian Wilson sing a new song that brought us to tears.  We did and I am glad.  Tanglewood Shed.

We did not expect to see planes fly into buildings in New York.  We did.  We have paid our respects there since.

We didn’t expect to drive through the Florida Keys.  We did.  Enjoyed Sloppy Joe’s and the music of Brian Hartman in Key West.  Brian played some Moodies tunes for us

We didn’t expect to see Americans storm their own capitol.  Did you?  Lord, I hope not.

We didn’t expect to find the Harbor Town lighthouse. We did.

We didn’t expect to paint anything smaller than a room.  We did.

We never thought we’d make it to Times Square.  We did.

We never imagined this picture with Granny would mean so much.  It does.

I never imagined we would be standing in front of Hill Street Blues station.  We were.  I’m still nervous looking at this. Yes. It was VERY cold in Chicago that day.

I never thought we would see The Herd every year for eleven years.  We did.  Just not this year and that was sad.

What can I say?  I certainly expected us to get this picture with The Moody Blues one day.

The Best Day.

Another great day.  There have been many.  We press onward.  Has it always been easy?  No.  But we have always had each other to pull us through.  I must say that ECU Pirate shirt looks very natural on me.  Just sayin.

I thank God for bringing us together.

Happy Anniversary to my sweet indeed!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

I will preface this with a guilty admission.  Earlier this afternoon I was walking through the kitchen thinking about Tom Brady playing in the Super Bowl yet again, and I blurted out to my dear wife, Carrie, “Patriots 37 Chiefs 27!”

She did not have to say a word.  I caught it after I said it.  Living in Indiana and rooting for Peyton Manning and knowing how many times Tom Brady screwed that up, it only seems natural.  At least we had an off year to marinate before Peyton joined the Broncos.  When he did it was okay.  He just graduated to a more formidable horse.  Colt to Bronco.

So there.  How can I pick against Tom Brady?

First and foremost, I hope it is a competitive game.  Flashbacks of the 49ers plastering the Chargers and the 49ers whipping the Broncos in games gone by are so so disappointing.  Super Bowl XI in Pasadena with the Raiders putting a beat down on Fran Tarkenton’s Vikings in his last Super Bowl was brutal too.  I think Dave Humm, Ken Stabler’s back-up, may have found some time at QB that game.  I am certain he was holding for PATs and field goals.  Amazing what an eight year-old can retain all these years on.

I think I enjoy the Super Bowl now as much as I ever did.  Regardless of what happens, again, I just want us to have a good game.

Of course I will always be thankful that Peyton Manning put on a Colts helmet in 1998.  He led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl win.  But more than that, Peyton Manning single-handedly made football a much more popular sport in the Hoosier State.

The two Super Bowl Championships the Eli Manning-led New York Giants put together against the evil empire of the New England Patriots will always be a great memory.  I kid you not.  In the second half of one of those games when the Giants needed a game winning drive, I thought Asante Samuel was going to pick off a sideline route that Eli threw.  I was sitting on the ottoman in front of the TV.  I held my breath and when it went through his hands I dropped my head between my knees and when I rose up suddenly I got light headed and wondered if I was going to faint.  I didn’t.  The Giants won and Tom Brady and the Patriots went home unhappy and that was great.

If I live to be 110, the Super Bowl will forever be imprinted on my mind with disappointment.  When you are thirteen and you have watched a guy play quarterback all your life and you got his autograph a few times and you loved his team, as bad as they usually were, and they finally get to the Super Bowl it is like time stood still.  And it has.

Super Bowl XVI between the San Francisco 49ers and the Cincinnati Bengals was a Super Cinderella Bowl like we had seen before and I doubt I ever see again.  Both teams were 6-10 in 1980.  Then in 1981, the Niners were 13-3 and the Bengals were 12-4.  They met in the regular season.  The Niners beat the Bengals in Riverfront in what was their worst game of the season.  They met in a Super Bowl played in a cold weather climate for the first time, as the game was played in the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.  It is gone now.  The last time I saw it driving through there to a Moody Blues concert, they were using the parking lots as drive-in theatres.

But what a season 1981 was.

The Bengals lost.  Going down 20-0 at halftime will do that.  26-21 was the final.  The losing team outgained the offense of the winning team the first time ever in a Super Bowl. Ken Anderson set a new SB completion percentage record. He was 25 of 34 for 300 yards.  The Bengals turned the ball over too many times and ran Pete Johnson one too many times to the right on the goal line when Ken Anderson should have run a bootleg that was working during the season.  Someone on that line was giving something away.  Fred Dean made that last stop look way too easy.

I always thought Kenny was thinking they should have run the bootleg too when I looked at this picture.

It is 2021 not 1982.

What Tom Brady has accomplished for so long is amazing.  Patrick Mahomes is a player too.  And we need a Super Bowl now more than ever.

No team has ever hosted a Super Bowl until Tom Brady decided the part ways with New England and play with the team in host city this year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  The Rams played the Steelers in Super Bowl XIV in the Rose Bowl and I believe that is the closest we ever came before now.

Tampa Bay 37  Kansas City 27  that is the pick here.

Have a great time tomorrow.

And don’t be afraid to speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

We had one last week.

We had one yesterday.

Snow fell on Southern Indiana and it did not disappoint many.

We needed a reminder of something we have seen before.  So many things we are dealing with now these days are seemingly things we are trying desperately to deal with.  Fill in the blank…and you will come up with something.

I remember snow days.  In January of 1978 I remember a snow month!  If you were there, you know of what I speak the rights of.  Doubt I will see another month like that ever again.

These were some of the sights around our environ last week.

The Griswoldmobile snow covered.

The birds around the feeder were quite pleased that we kept them well stocked.

The Sycamore behind the house.

Believe it or not, this was most significant snowfall we have seen in a while.  I enjoyed it.  I have yet to find someone I have spoken to about who did not enjoy it.

In earnest, I think it is just nice for us to see something different.  We have been so bogged down in our senses of self-imposed normalcy.  This was a nice repose from that.

Have a good week.  Yes, we will have Super Bowl speaks later in the week!

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Covid.

Two syllables never meant more in my lifetime.

Over 400, 000 thousand American are dead due in full or in part to Covid.

I have heard the argument that Covid ain’t what killed them!  They had other stuff wrong with them!

Yes, that’s right.  Then they caught Covid and that did the rest.

Ain’t that America for you and me.

I am sick and tired of this.  I am tired of feeling like the only one in the room scared out of his wits.  I have a history of respiratory issues.  How much history?  Well, I got here in March of 1968 and when I made my way into the world the doc took me and did not hand me to my mother.  Breathing aids were needed.  I didn’t cry when I got here.  Imagine that.  Me being obstinate from the start!  I am not laughing now.

While I am not laughing now I will also refrain from ever telling another Dumb Kentuckian joke.  When I moved from Jackson County, Indiana, a state that does not border Kentucky, to Harrison County, a state that does border Kentucky albeit over a river, I noticed a lack of Dumb Kentuckian jokes.  Geography.

Kentucky has about one third of the Covid related deaths that Indiana has suffered.  Bring on the Dumb Hoosier jokes.  We deserve it.

I am sitting here listening to the Bruce Springsteen song “We Take Care of Our Own” and I wonder what planet he was on when he wrote this song!  It sounds great.  So does a good pizza.  Unfortunately the pizza is winning right now.

Never in my life have I felt as pessimistic as I do now.  My tune will no doubt change after I get a vaccination for this Covid nightmare.  I am ready.  Eventually folks in education will be deemed as important, though not essential?  Says who?  It’s the old education political football again.  The kids can’t vote and the educators don’t matter.  They can be replaced in a heartbeat.  But we sure are quick to talk about opening schools!  Some of us have been open for a while now.  But if you think it is business as usual because the doors are open you too would be wrong.  Are we doing the best we can?  Yes.  That is what we do.

I recently told a friend of mine I don’t like my odds.  I had a baby sitter kill over on me when I was five and I have been struck by lightning.  Get the picture?   If I catch the Covid I doubt I would live to tell the story.

But I press onward.  It is what we do.

Jim Stewart, one of my education heroes, said it best so many years ago.  He said education is the most resilient thing ever.  No matter how politicians screw it up, kids inherently want to learn.  Indiana thinks it is going to standardize test students as usual this year.  All I can say is there is a large testing contract that someone just can’t be turning their fiscal backs on.  Colleges are saying they don’t need to see the SAT these days but by golly we are gonna make sure the 7th graders let us know how this pandemic has treated them!!!!  I call that stupid tax.  I am more interested in seeing kids survive and prosper than give them something else to worry about.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Written January 19 and first posted on facebook.

Hello friends. You know those times in your life that make a difference and you know in your heart you will forever keep it to yourself?

Given the day and what will transpire for our country tomorrow, I need to share these words if I plan to sleep tonight.

Many years ago I was coaching football and I had the answers! I had a chance back and forth with a college football coach who had won a National Championship and was a chief Promise Keeper. He was at a coaches clinic and so was I.

I was all high and mighty with my idealism. The Coach told me to cut guys some slack. He told me challenging works better than judging. “Mercy triumphs over judgement.” We need to use the same barometer to measure others as Jesus would measure us. He told me that too. I paraphrase.

Let’s move on. Make tomorrow better. Republican, Democrat, Independent, Neutral, whomever you are you will surely find someone tomorrow in some circumstance or the next day or the next day and you will have a choice to make. Better or worse?

In the end “Mercy triumphs over judgement.”

For the record, my name in a drawer in the Harrison County Court House has a big R next to it. Republican. I don’t apologize for that or what has made me hang my head at my own party. Better days are ahead.

“Mercy triumphs over judgement.”

Don’t talk yourself out of a simple truth. THERE IS A BETTER DAY AHEAD. Be a part of the solution! We need you. Our kids need you.

Nearly thirty years later, a Coach’s speech still motivates when it needs to.

I’m just speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson