Speaking of Sports.

Three simple words I can’t get out of my system.  For well over twenty years I have listened in to 96.3 WJAA in Seymour, Indiana on Mondays and Fridays to hear Jim Plump and Robert Becker bring us the preview of the sporting world weekend to come on Friday and then the recap of what happened over the weekend on Monday.

Jim Plump I have been acquainted with for most of my life.  He was an excellent sportswriter for the Seymour Daily Tribune, it was called then, and then the Columbus Republic.  My Dad was the Brownstown Central High School football coach for all but one year in the 1970s and Jim covered many of Dad’s games.  I remember Jim coming to the house to interview Dad.  Jim told Dad that if Dad didn’t give Jim a hard time about the length of his hair, Jim would not give him a hard time about his Southern accent.  I still remember that, as I was on the floor watching and listening to all that was unfolding.  I will say it again, as I have an archive newspaper account and have read much of his work,  Jim Plump was as good a sports writer as I have read.  He’s right up there with Caulton Tudor, Jerry Byrd, and Rick Cleveland.

Ah, newspapers.  When my Mom and Dad lived in Brownstown they “took” (as my great-grandmother Ivy Nowling used to say) The Brownstown Banner, The Seymour Daily Tribune, The Courier-Journal, The Louisville Times, and The Indianapolis Star.  So don’t ask me where my affinity for newspapers came from.  I have shared this photo here before, as I have a standing order in The Berkshires…I hope we get back there one day.

Robert Becker.

I still remember the day in the early 1990s when I was visiting my friend Jerry Brown of Celery Signs fame, as Jackson County has become his canvas, and out of the speakers in his sign shop The Moody Blues were singing The Story in Your Eyes.  I looked at Brown.  I asked what station he was listening to.  New station in Seymour is what he told me.  That is all it took.  On that day I knew Robert Becker had good sense.

In the late 1990s my path would officially cross with Robert Becker’s.  I was working at Medora Schools as an English teacher and I was charged with helping the students with the school newspaper, The Medorian.  At this same time Robert Becker had a segment called the Jackson County High School Report.  Students from all four of the county high schools, Trinity Lutheran was not there yet, called into the station and gave a report of what was going on around campus that week.  As a young educator, I appreciated what Robert was doing for our students.  It was a big deal when we would gather around the radio to hear one of our students hold forth on what was happening in Medora.  It made us feel good to know we were in the game.  Thank you, Robert.

My friendship with Robert, we have not seen much of each other in person, has certainly materialized thanks to the music of The Moody Blues.  That is our most common ground.  Robert likes The Moodies.  He has never failed to play me a Moodies tune when I called in to ask to hear one.  He is a smart man.

But along the way, in recent years, I have tried to let Robert know how important he has been to Jackson County, Indiana, my old home-place. I grew up in Brownstown as a kid.  Many old friends are still there.

I featured Robert on these pages in January 2018.  And now, here we are again.

Robert Becker hung up his microphone on Friday, August 28th.  He sold 96.3 WJAA to Brent and Becky Schepman earlier in the year.

I got wistful as I listened to Jim Plump and Robert Becker do their last transmission of Speaking of Sports.  At 7:50 every Monday and Friday (Plump did a heavier schedule at one time…just so he knows I remember) these two would give us the lowdown, my apologies to Boz Scaggs, about the world of sports.  It was great for Jim to be able to keep a toe in some water that felt good to him.  I know he enjoys sports. I doubt he remembers, but in 2006 I was a guest on the show.  There was a big match-up that  Friday night between the Brownstown Central Braves and the North Harrison Cougars.  I was calling the Cougars games on WKLO at the time.  A horrendous storm just before kickoff sent the Cougars back to Ramsey.  The game was not made up.

While Jim was into sports, Robert, well, maybe not so much.  Robert Becker could butcher the names of athletes like no one else.  Whether he was talking about Davis Love III and calling him Davis Love Jr. the Third, or referencing David Ortiz as Big Pappy, it was always fun cos you never knew what Robert was going to say.

But you know Robert enjoys his baseball.  Having grown up on the south side of Chicago, he knows a thing or two about baseball.  Robert knows the joy of attending a baseball game with all of its sights and sounds and the relaxation that only comes with settling into a seat you know you can melt into for 54 outs if you wish to hang around that long.

The last episode of 96.3 WJAA Speaking of Sports, August 28, 2020.

Thank you, gentleman.  I will miss you so much.  

And so we turn the page.  Doesn’t mean I have to like it.  When 890 WLS the Rock of Chicago went to a talk radio format in 1989 I was feeling a little like I feel now.  I was a night time devotee to the likes of Chuck Britton, Fred Winston, John Landecker and Larry Lujack and Tommy Edwards in the morning before the sun came up to take the signal away until night again.

I’ll have to find something else to listen to tomorrow morning.  No offense, Becky.  I just can’t do it.  You don’t need me anyway.  I don’t shop in Brownstown or Seymour.

I told Plump and Becker both this week it will probably be Moodies in the morning for me as I drive to Paoli where I work as a high school school counselor.

Speaking of sports…

I was behind that larger open window at the top left of this picture on Friday night working with Bert Pedigo calling the game for 95.3 WUME in Paoli.  Bert did the play by play and I just threw my two cents in every now and again.  The Rams were bested by the Corydon Central Panthers.  The record is 1-1 with the county rival Springs Valley Blackhawks hosting the Rams in the Orange (County) Bowl.  Should be good times.

One parting shot for Robert Becker. 

I listened to a 12-inch single of The Moody Blues 1986 Top Ten hit Your Wildest Dreams today.  Robert, never in my wildest dreams could I enjoy a radio station more than I have enjoyed listening to you on 96.3.  Justin Hayward knows what I am talking about!

Best wishes from both of us!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

August 26, 1997.  I heard a lonely sort of hum.

My world is so much about sound.  As I sit here typing these words I am listening to The Moody Blues with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at their landmark September 1992 25th Anniversary concert and the first time they ever performed with an orchestra.

I have listened to these sounds thousands of times and they still make sense to me.  I feel better hearing this in the room.  If I did not hear this right now, I would hear a lonely sort of hum.

My mother does the word jumble in the Courier Journal (or what is left of it) each day.  On Monday she read the letters of a word she could not decipher.  I heard them.  I put them together to form the word rather quickly.

On August 25, 1997, I heard the voice of my friend Corner King Lincoln for the last time.  We were wrapping up a phone conversation.  He from his home across the street from the church at Hancock Chapel where this photo was taken on my wedding day in 1996, and me with one foot on the living room carpet and one foot on the kitchen linoleum of our house in New Salisbury.  Our sign-off of a phone call was standard.

Corner King: “Later on, brother!”

Me: “Later on now!”

That was it.  The next day I got a phone call from the Harrison County Hospital.  It was a cousin of my dear wife, Carrie.  She was in the ER that day as a nurse.  She called, as she knew my relationship with Malcolm Todd “Corner King” Lincoln, Sr and his family.  She called and told me how it did not look good.  She promised to call me with any update.

No more than fifteen minutes later I had this conversation:

Me:  “Yes?”

Tammy:  “Danny.”

Me:  “How is he?”

Tammy: “He didn’t make it.  I am so sorry.”

Me:  “Okay, thanks for letting me know, Tammy.”

I threw the phone down on the chair next to window in front of the bathroom door and went to pieces.

I remember very audibly every thing I heard.  I can still hear it today clear as all get out in my head.

This season never comes around when I don’t tell the story.

When Todd died I was a mess of a human being.  A month and a half later, to get me moving in a better direction, my dear wife, Carrie, got me a guitar and some informal lessons.

In less than a year I was singing and performing songs I had written.  I wrote a song for Corner King, as it was the impetus that led me to record my first CD.  I was determined to record this song.  It was first recorded in 2001 on my Leap of Faith CD.  In 2016 we recorded it again and included it on my Take Me There CD released in 2019.

Don’t Miss The Last Dance

There were so many things that I wanted to say                                                                There so many time we had to go our separate ways                                                       And one day the phone was ringing, I picked it up and you’d gone away

Did you ever leave a party without dancing the last dance                                              Did you ever stare at the ceiling at night when you knew you had a chance at romance

There’s a force of nature that science can’t explain                                                           And the Lord leaves us to wonder why some go and some remain

But we’ve got our memories and believe it or not they help to pull us through             And we’ve got our hopes and dreams where there’s still a little piece of me and you

Did you ever leave a party without dancing the last dance                                              Take the hand of someone you love tonight while you still have a chance

And Don’t Miss the Last Dance

Music and the audible side of it has been good to me.  But I have never forgotten why I threw a guitar strap over my head the first time.  Thank God for Carrie.  So many sounds inside of me needed to come out and I did not have a clue.  It took grief and a smart wife to forge them out of me.  And now, we I need it, I grab my guitar and something always comes out.

I told someone recently that there are things we never get over, we just try to make it through.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Friday night was a bit of a surreal experience.  I never dreamed I would walk into a high school football stadium where folks were wearing face-coverings in every direction I looked.  Alas, that is where we are.  I thought back to news footage of folks in China wearing masks because of the poor air quality.  I felt so bad for those folks.  These days I don’t feel empathy so much as I feel fear.  But guess what?  For a brief moment in time with what I had to do and say in that football stadium, things seemed right again.

I got a call from Dave Dedrick, the Hall of Famer and voice of WUME 95.3 in Paoli.  He said his broadcasting partner of many years could not make the first game of the season.  The Paoli Rams took to half of highway 56 across the State of Indiana to drive from Paoli to Madison to take on the Madison Cubs.  It about an hour and a half drive. I told Dave I would be honored.  I was.

The booth was equipped with safe-guarding wipes provided by Madison.

It was the first time since October 2009 that I had called a high school football game on radio.  It showed.  Though I was delighted to be there, my performance was lackluster by my standards.  That and I had never called a game without Gus Stephenson by my side and he and I could finish each other’s sentences.  I spoke over the top of Dave a few times and he certainly did not deserve that.  Still, it was a good time.  And best of all…

THE RAMS WON 28-27.  A blocked extra point saved the bacon in a very exciting and entertaining game.  The players put on a determined and well-played performance.

It was a beautiful evening for football on a warm and then comfortable August night.

The Rams, led by Coach Neil Dittmer and his staff did a great job of getting the best of the Cubs.  This was a well-coached ballgame by the Rams staff.  When I showed up and saw the Cubs in pre-game I knew this would be a tussle.  But I never lost faith in the Rams.

It was my intent to not be in the press box as this game started.  I planned to be on the field.  As my responsibilities as the sole guidance counselor in a 7-12 building, Paoli Jr-Sr High, mounted in the world of virtual school offering along with quasi-traditional school in the building, my time suddenly was less my time.  I had to convey to the team that I was not going to be able to join them.

If I walk out for practice with twenty minutes to go, what the heck am I doing?  At that point it is best to leave well enough alone.  Coach Dittmer knows what he is doing. I have witnessed his acumen first hand on the field and gladly and thankfully from the broadcast booth.

I should have brought a bottle of Windex.

I don’t know how many games the Rams are going to play this season.  I know one thing.  My opening comments at the outset of the game were emotionally charged.  I indicated in no uncertain terms that I was so glad for the seniors on the field that they got this moment, first under the sun and then under the lights.

Go Rams!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

This is the big one, Elizabeth!

Annually the longest post of the year takes place on this back porch on this calendar weekend with the speaktherights.com College Football Preview. I’ve sat back here for hours putting it all together.  There is a feeling of optimism in the anticipation of the upcoming season that makes those writing hours melt away swiftly.  Then the wait is on for the games to begin.  It is a nice dance.

I think the photo says it all.  College Football ain’t gonna fly I am afraid.  I will be shocked if it does. Should lightning strike and the games play on, I will be doing my weekly predictions.

I hope I am bad wrong.

No Egg Bowl?  No Oaken Bucket?  No Iron Bowl?  No Paul Bunyan’s Ax?

No USC-UCLA?  No MICH-OHIO STATE?  No Notre Dame-USC?  No third Saturday in October?

No having speaks with Aunt Barbara about Lane Kiffin and Mike Leach?  Folks in Mississippi have been waiting for this much fun.  I have too.  No going back and forth with Brother Tim about how the Tide needs to improve after they just beat someone 70 to 0.  No Hoosier optimism with Adam Disque.  No getting together with Adam and Evertts at Memorial Stadium for one game?  No going over to watch a game with my Dad and listening to him complain that the offense is holding on every down.  No getting down the road with my dear wife, Carrie, to see a game in Huntington.

In the big picture, I suppose I need to just hush my mouth and be thankful I can still sit here and care about football the way I do.  I know many folks out there are struggling a great deal more than I can comprehend.  That hurts.  Prayers to them and their families.

In case we don’t go down this college football prediction road again, know I have enjoyed it a great deal and that it is truly….

Speaking the rights!

Danny Johnson

I trust God.

I trust many folks I know.  They have let me down on few if any occasions.  I love them all and they know, whether if they are at arm’s length or a phone call or a text away that I will be there for them.  No questions asked.  I am blessed that way.  I pray you are too.

Today I came across a rock.  Lord knows we all could use more solid rocks.  The rock I found was the most solid rock I know.

I was hired as a school counselor at Paoli Jr-Sr High School on March 13.  Only the last two weeks have I been in the building in an official capacity. We know why.  Know also that I appreciate all my colleagues and truly believe I am where I need to be to help a school and everyone in it.  Be it students, teachers, administrators, assistants, cooks, custodial staff, coaches, parents, I have tried to indicate I am there to help.  That is why I walked into the building.

Normally I walk into a different entrance than I walked into today.  But I walked into what is called the main entrance, I suppose.  It is marked as entrance 1.  After football practice, which I was able to attend today, I headed to my office to try to make some head way on the daunting task that is rolling out a new school year in the age of Covid-19.  Never been there and never done that before this year.  Hope we never have to do it again.

But I walked into this entrance.

In the left hand corner of the door facing you can see an  aqua colored object.  It is a rock.  It is a solid rock.  It has this on it:

Such words were never so needed walking into a school building.

I know these words well.

This scripture has been in my guitar case for more than twenty years on this very note card.  When I first started playing and singing, I was a nervous wreck ready to walk out the door if I could.  I didn’t.  I leaned and rested and was held up by this solid rock.  Thanks be to God.

I didn’t think I would ever need the same rock so much again.

As an educator, I turn my head sideways at plans I hear to open schools.

I get it.  The show must go on.  Folks need to work.  I know that.  I do.

I also know that restaurants are being held to limitations.  The Indy 500 is being held with little or no attendance.  Baseball games are played OUTDOORS with no fans.  Beaches have been cleared.  But here we go.  Fill the schools.  This is why I recently made a last will and testament out.

I wish I had the answer.  If I did, no one would listen.  Common sense is hard to come by these days, especially in the political realm.

I commented earlier this week that I am afraid the current presidential administration is gambling with an over/under number when it comes to deaths they can give and still find re-election in November.  I hope I am wrong.  Any one who has paid any attention to how this country has handled this pandemic would certainly have a license to argue that.  Turning off the TV and washing your hands can only get you so far, as has been suggested.

For those keeping score, I am a frustrated Republican who remembers when the other side did most of the whining.  Apologies to my liberal friends I never thought I would find so much common ground with.

But in spite of all of that, we press onward.  We do what we think is best for our kids, family, and friends.  I just hope we all live to tell the story.  The story is bound to get better.  It has to, doesn’t it?

Thankfully there is a solid rock that is greater than any pillar of sand trying to stand up on earth.

Thanks be to God.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

I took this from turn 3 at Newkirk Track around Cook Field at Paoli High School yesterday.  The place is a lovely sight to behold. The fact that I can look at it on more days than not now is a sincere reason for thanks.

We are all at the starting line of the most unusual and scary new school year any one of us can ever remember.  In earnest, I hope we all make it.  There are arguments from both sides and a few other corners, I suppose, about how things need to be.  My hat is off to those charged with more leadership than I.  The circumstances of 2020 were never in a syllabus or class outline in programs that dealt with school administration.  This is as close to walking on the moon as we will ever know.  The world is a different place.

Thanks to my colleagues at Paoli for helping me along in the early going of this place in time.  I do appreciate you a great deal.

My memory has few rivals.  I am speaking of my ability to recall and recollect with a great deal of accuracy.  Though I love to put words and sentences together, numbers stick in my head.  Ball game scores and dates hang with me for some reason.

Though I admit I am not as talented as I once was, there was a time whilst enrolling a student, that I could often look at their birth date and tell them what day they were born on.  I had reference points in my head.  Be a concert or a ball game, those were the two biggies.

I was asked what I miss the most about being “kept in” during this national and world tragedy that we are all living through.  I miss the honest and calm interaction with people that we once had.  Be it the virus that is hurting us or the political climate that wants to tear us apart, I miss folks just sitting in a room  chewing the fat and just “being”.

In quiet times in my mind when I look around any room that I knew during better days, that is what I yearn for.  I am prepared to deal with that reality, a longing for a more peaceful day that was not too long ago, at least as prepared as I think I can be.  Somehow there seems to be a new level of lack of thought or threat from some direction that can still raise my brow and turn my head sideways like a beagle hound trying to figure out what in the world is going on here.

Young folks are dealing with more than I ever had to deal with.  I feel guilty about that.

I wish I could take them through a time portal and land in a hay field and we are all pitching hay and chewing Levi Garrett as we try to hold a conversation over the hum of the tractor that is pulling the wagon we keep time with like a symphony.  It is a beautiful movement.  I raise my forearms from the keyboard I am typing on right now and wonder how they ever recovered.  I was one of those stubborn so and so’s who did not want to wear a long sleeve shirt while pitching hay or straw or sticking tobacco.  My forearms got ate up.  I enjoyed every bit of it. Mind you I did wear long britches in the field.  I did not compromise that.  Lord it was hot on some of those days.  And the best thing was we did not care.  Back then 4 bucks an hour could buy a great deal of Levi Garrett I can tell you. And we were not without a cassette or two of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” floating around. Those semoleons could also get us to a cool movie house for the 9:30 show if we hustled.  We usually did.

In my office at school and in our home, there are photos of places my dear wife, Carrie, and I have been.  In many of these photos we are in the shot.  I did not expect to travel to as many places as we have over the years.  It just turned out that way.  One thing I have learned is that if you stop and over-analyze things too much, you may never get anywhere.  I have trusted my gut instinct.  I have listened intently for guidance.  I have prayed a great deal.  And more often than not, I have heard the words “go”.  Or in the vernacular of Pastor Duke Lackey’s sermon titled “Do This”.

Some of those dates still stick in my memory year after year.  I see the date on the morning paper and say to myself “In (inset the year) this (insert the occasion) happened”.

The last travel of any great significance Carrie and I engaged in was in December after Christmas.  By this time in recent calendar years we have seen the North Carolina shore a couple of times and spent a couple weeks in New England taking in the cooler air that is kinder to my bothersome pipes.  I see pictures of some of this travel and it looks a dream.

Dates stick out in my head.  That is for sure.  I was asked to share some of these.  I told them if I did, there would be more here than we have time for.  Do it anyway, we’ll get to it in more than one sitting if we have to.  I will keep the culprit anonymous so you don’t have anyone to blame but me.

I wish I had kept all my ticket stubs.  I got on a mean streak one day many years ago and tossed a bunch of stuff I probably thought I would never want to see again.  That is all I think.  But I am very glad I have held on to memories that I have talked about with friends and family lately.  Good times.  Good times.

I’ll tell you about a few of them in no particular order.

Carrie said she wanted to see Brett.  I told her about Fall Break plans I made.  She said let’s go see Brett Farve play.  One of my friends said, “You’re a lucky man, Cheeze.”  He’s right!  Vikes won 33-31.  Hauschka missed a field goal on the last play of the game.

The Moodies at The Gardens in 1988 for $15.50.

I took a hiatus from listening to others while I was finding my own sound from 1999 to 2002.  By 2003 I was ready for another Moodies concert.  They debuted songs from their new December holiday album which was their last original recordings.

Russell Harrell and I drove over to Champaign to see IU lose this one.  Saw Anthony Thompson score his last touchdown.  Jeff George lit the Hoosiers up 41-28.

In what lives as a special tradition to this day, my Aunt Barbara and I talking football, this is the ticket stub of the first game we went to in Jackson in 1989.  Uncle Durwood passed away in 1988 to a brain tumor.  Aunt Barbara and I have been pals ever since.  I spoke with her Friday about the prospects of the new season and how Mississippi will have fun one day with Mike Leach at State and Lane Kiffin now at Ole Miss.

Eli Manning’s senior year.  Cody and I went to Nashville.  It was 96 degrees for the Jefferson-Pilot kickoff.  24-21 Rebs win on a LONG field goal.  A good kicker can save some bacon for sure.

The last Ole Miss game Aunt Barbara and I attended.  Eli threw for the most yards he ever had in a Rebel victory.  43-40 was the final.  Had they played fifths instead of quarters, might not have worked out so well.  The Rebs squandered a large lead.

I have said it before.Giving my Dad a chance to walk into the Rose Bowl and Notre Dame Stadium are highlights for me.  I think he enjoyed it too.

Another story to relive.  As we were listening to Paul sing “Hey Jude” I thought if only we could get all the folks throwing rocks at each other together to sing along with this, they’d stop throwing rocks.  The next morning as we were leaving our hotel I got a call from Jarrett.  Turns out while we were sing Hey Jude, he was in a Chinook over Iraq that crash landed with a little help.  It was a long drive back home from Nashville.

The last Moody Blues concert we attended.  I was 18 when I saw the first.  49 when I saw the last.

A stop over in Greensboro to see The Key.  Alicia Keys.  One of the best shows I have ever seen.

Me and my dear friend, Corner King Lincoln.  This was our last cruise.  The Moody Blues in Ft. Wayne.  On August 26 that year, he left us.

The most significant game ever played in Bloomington with national implications.  It was Penn State’s first visit to Indiana and it cost them the national championship.  Chris Dittoe came in as the back-up quarterback, as I remember, and his mop up duty turned a 35-13 game into a 35-29 game.  The Hoosiers scored on a fluke of a pass on the last play of the game and went for two and made it.  This result was an eye test that cost a 12-0 Nittany Lions team a National Championship.

An awkward flyover by a military cargo plane changed me.  I came to see a Bengals loss at the hands of Eli Manning.

This funky sideways flyover DID ME IN.

What I would give for a phone like we have now on this day.  I married into a family of Dolphin Fans.  Carrie’s Dad, her brother, and Jarrett and I went to see the Fins play the Colts.  Had a great time.

Heard Brian Wilson sing a song I had never heard before at the Tanglewood Shed.  Have not been so moved by a song since.

Talk about good times.  Thank you, Bob Biddle.  Ticket was given to me.  

I don’t know if I have ever seen such a mass of humanity.

I shocked Carrie with these as we were in Willamsburg, VA.  She was working on school certifications and studying her butt off.  I told her we were going to see Train.  I knew she would like it.  Well, I was blown away.  We have seen them six times since, including two time in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Finally got my sister to see The Moody Blues!

This was the first time Carrie and I saw Justin Hayward play a solo show.  It was on the way back from Fall Break.

I will never forget the night Pat Conroy grabbed my shoulder when I told him I had been an English teacher for a long long time and said, “I wanted to be you.”  I told him he never stopped teaching.

A proud moment.  The concert was at Kings Island.  While trying to impress the young lady I with at the time, I took her over close to the Twin Racer roller coasters were and asked her which stuffed animal she wanted.  She pointed to one.  It was the football throw.  Throw that football through a hoop that it can barely make its way through.  I took the ball and did a perfect impression of a Ken Anderson five step drop.  I threw it and it hit nothing but the back of tent behind that little circle.  The old boy told me he would give me everything on display if her could.  Then I carried a huge stuff bear to the car so we could continue our day.  The Moodies were great, of course.

Good times.  Good friends.  Hotter than…fill in the blank!  Was so delighted Brother Tim got us to T-Town for this weekend.  I am so grateful.

A while after this game my brother, Darrell, was about to embark on a mission trip living in a homeless shelter for a year’s time.  I am thankful we got to see his beloved Twins and watching batting practice around the cage before the game.  Good times.

Y’all know what is going on here, don’t you?

I am reliving good times during so much uncertainty and I could go on.  I just hope we are one day set free from this bad cloud.

We got a football season to look forward to!

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Oh my.

Spoiler alert.  I am about to sound like a crotchety old fogy.  I don’t want to.  It just happens that way.

Music.  I love music.  Always have.  That won’t change.  Regardless of what the music business does to screw up music, my love for the tunes that move me will never cease to move me.

I walked 4 and half miles today and I listened to tunes I love.  Later in the day I spent 30-some minutes on an elliptical watching and listening to The Moody Blues live from the Greek Theatre in 2005.  When I exercise I will listen to and enjoy tunes doing so.

I have gotten acclimated, swallow real hard, to listening to Amazon music when I walk.  We pay for it, I suppose.  There is an Amazon Prime membership that factors in there somewhere.

Today I read a story about Pink Floyd’s 1983 album The Final Cut.  It was the last thing Roger Waters did as a member of Pink Floyd.  We don’t have time to get into the lineage of Pink Floyd or what is good bad or indifferent about that group.

The thing is, I heard a “dink” over my head and decided to go get my Pink Floyd Final Cut CD off the shelf to listen to for the first time in a very long time.  Then, I turned my head sideways.  No way, I thought.  No way Pink Floyd’s Final Cut is on the Amazon Music?  I am not talking about Amazon Music Unlimited.

I looked before I retrieved it from the shelf.  There it was on Amazon Music.  All I have to do is pull it up on my phone and use the blue tooth speaker and listen to this album like I always have.

I struggle with this.  I really do.  Show of hands of how many of you remember certain groups or solo artist whose CDs would not come below the 14.99 mark back in the day?  If you wanted Pink Floyd back in the day, you were gonna pay!  I think I got my copy of The Final Cut for 17.99 on CD a long time ago.  I am listening to it now.  It is my favorite Pink Floyd album.  Politically charged music it was then.  But I suppose that concept is a thing of the past.  Guess whomever makes the purse string decisions regarding music and politics found a calculus that did not add up.  How else can you figure a lack of protest music today?

I will tell you.  We have stretched ourselves music thin in this country.  Too late to bring the masses together with a tune.  That is museum stuff now.  Garth Brooks is playing Drive-In theaters.  “Nuff” said.

Me.  Time and life have seen me be fortunate enough to make music.  I must say it has all been a blessing to me.  In the world of music, I am a NOBODY.  I get that.  With that said, music is a NOBODY in these crazy times we are looking at outside our windows.  Oh yes, you can pay 100 bucks and go listen to Garth Brooks at a drive-in.  That makes me feel better.

In earnest, my songs are listened to.  That, I do like. Above is a page from my digital sales.

Will it make me money?  Not much.  I recently shared with a music artist of prominence my status in the world of digital music.  I told him that my tunes have been downloaded over 7000 times.  I have less than 10 dollars to show for it.

Don’t play music unless you love it enough to let it go.

When I was ten in 1978, a Bay City Rollers album cost about $7.99 for ten songs.  Pay that a month today and you can listen to anything. Convert those 8 bucks in 1978 to 32 bucks today.  God love my parents! I got all the BCR albums made.

I am a music rich man for sure!

Speaking the rights….

Danny Johnson

If you see me in a mask, don’t be offended.  I am trying to help both of us.

I got here on March 18th of 1968.  The morning I pushed my way into the world, something was wrong.  My lungs.  They were not ready for this world. My mother had to wait days to hold me. I don’t think my lungs were ready for this world.

With the exception to two quick trips to Denver, Colorado, I don’t think my lungs have served me like they are supposed to.  During those trips, I distinctly remember the freedom I felt when I could physically feel cool air hit places in my lungs I did not know existed.  One of those trips was in 2011 to see The Moody Blues play at Red Rocks.  The other was an education conference I attended in 2014.  I still hold those few days in high memory regard.

Before this year, the last six Carrie and I have headed to the Northeast for a couple of weeks.  The humidity and air quality there is much better.  Thanks to Covid, we had to cancel that trip this year.  I have felt it too.

I wear the mask.  I need it.

When I was in the 7th grade I could not play football.  Breathing problems.  This is not a good thing when your Dad is the head coach of the high school team.  It was miserable.

Made it through my 8th grade year.  I started allergy shots too.

My 9th grade football season was tough breathing wise.  I had an inhaler in my sock at all times.  There were times when I pushed myself beyond places I should have.  I still remember one day.  I was wrapped up in fresh cut grass trying to catch my breath…sucking on my inhaler mad at the world.  Coach Tim Harbison came over and calmed me down.  He told me he knew I was a football player,  when I wasn’t feeling like one.  I was sucking wind like Secretariat down the stretch and not catching near enough.

When my dear wife, Carrie, and I are not in the Northeast, we are on the North Carolina coast.  The air is kinder there too.  Truth is, I was not made for this Ohio Valley climate.  I deal with it.  I don’t like it.

In 2004 I had trouble breathing.  To the hospital I went.  An ambulance ride saw my blood pressure plummet.  There was doubt.

I had a heart cath.  Heart was good.  Breathing was not.

In the years since I have made the most of it.  I’m still here.

A week or so ago, without the benefit of a trip to The Berkshires and without an allergy shot since March 17th, I called my doc.  I couldn’t breathe without thinking long and hard about it.  Involuntary breathing is a gift folks.  Doc sent me a steroid and an antibiotic to my pharmacy.  We both knew it would clear me up.  It did.

I walked over nine miles today.  Loved it.  Enjoyed breathing in and out.  Am smiling about  it now.

Am about to start a new job at Paoli High School and I am so excited to do so.  Just know, this ole boy will probably wear a mask longer than the rest of you.  I call it self-preservation.  I love my life.  I want it to keep going for a while.

Now…That is speaking the rights!

Danny Johnson

Cue John Fogerty!  Lookin’ Out My Back Porch!

Just got home from Illinois I wish!

About this time of year for the last I don’t know how many, my dear wife, Carrie, and I usually head down the road for a little R and R.  No five papers with my name on them waiting at the bottom of the hill at The Country Store in the Berkshires.

Last year’s last haul of papers the morning we left.  Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Times, New York Daily News, and the Berkshire (Pittsfield) Eagle were waiting on me every morning.  I miss them.

For self-preservation purposes, we have not gone too far down the road in a while.  The last time we went anywhere over night was to Bloomington in February to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

We did spend the night in Illinois after Christmas on our way back from visiting with relatives in Mississippi.  Haven’t crossed the state line too many times since then.  Strange days indeed.

Went back and forth with an old friend yesterday via text message.  I still call him Mulllcat.  I have not seen Tim Mullins in longer than I can remember.  He’s one of those.  If you have a few of those in your life, consider yourself fortunate.  When we go back and forth via text or an all elusive phone call, it is just like we spoke at length the day before.  Wish I could explain.  Even more delighted that I cannot.  Our conversations usually ruminate from our shared joy of music.  He took me to see George Thorogood at Coyotes in Louisville back in December of 1993.  Seems the ceiling in the place was like twelve feet high.  We were leaning on the stage.  My hearing recovered by the next March when I saw The Moody Blues a couple times that month.

I took Mullcat to see The Moodies a few times.  We sure had a good time wherever we went.

I wish I had the motivation to get more writing done.  I have had great intentions.  I  put a nice tune together on the guitar a couple of days ago but just could not find the right words.  Oh I had some to go along.  But we are in a point in history when you want to get it right.  Mistakes are going to be blown up more than ever and there is a critic, for better or worse, around every corner.  I am trying to be realistic here, not cynical.

I think about the Greg Walker’s of the world and I say a prayer for all of them.  Greg is the superintendent of Paoli Community Schools.  He and all school superintendents are in a spot as we move forward with what to do as far as opening schools back up in August.  Surveys go out.  Dialogue flies back and forth.  Prayers are sent up.  You just want to do the right thing at the end of day.  It does not matter who gets the credit.  It is the unwarranted blame that bothers me. Leadership and competence certainly come with a price.  I am thankful for strong leaders.

As I said, I wish I had the motivation to do more writing these days.  I think back at when I turned 50 in 2018 and I wrote a post a day for the fifty days leading up to my birthday.  That is just too much ambition for me right now.

I hope and pray you and yours are doing well right now.  It is tough.  But we still need to find a way to…speak the rights.

Danny Johnson