EDITORIAL NOTE:  I wrote this yesterday and I mistakenly called Billy Falcon’s tune “Best Day”…it is called “Best Song”.  My apology to Billy Falcon and his talent.

You’re a Big Boy Now…that is the name of The Lovin’ Spoonful album released in 1967…I just found that it was actually the soundtrack to a movie by the same name.

I recently found and purchased a The Lovin’ Spoonful compilation album.  For years I have admired their sound having never turned one of their tunes over when they showed themselves on radio.  I suppose this group is most famous for the following:

Do You Believe in Magic

Summer in the City

Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind

You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice

Nashville Cats

The song that took me aback was a song I have heard as long as I can remember.  To me, it is a tune that just kind of makes time stand still.  For the last how ever many decades when I have heard this song, I had no idea who sang it.  It just showed up as I was sitting at this very spot doing some research.  And I thought…oh my…I love this song.  I have always loved this song.  It is called “Darling Be Home Soon”.  Look it up.

My compilation says it came from the album called: You’re a Big Boy Now.  Before I realized it was a part of the movie by the same name, I figured it about the maturation of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s sound.  It has strings and a sensibility about is way beyond “Do You Believe in Magic”.

Once in a great while you might find a treasure like I did with this song.  There are not too many songs like that to add to my shelf and catalog of music.

With that said…and meant most sincerely…this morning as I was driving away from Nashville, Tennessee, I heard a song that moved me like I didn’t think a song could anymore.  The artist was a guy called Billy Falcon.  The song was called “Best Song”.  It played on Hippie Radio 94.5 as part of a local artist  vote for the best thing.

Those of you who read speaktherights.com on a regular basis know that I have spent a day or two in the studio myself recording and having a great time doing it.  This morning, as I listened to this WONDERFUL song, I wondered if Billy Falcon ever met my friend Tim Krekel?  Hearing Billy Falcon’s sound, I just figured they had met somewhere.  It is a romantic notion, I suppose.

“Best Song” was the BEST SONG I have heard in years.  Can I relate to it better than you?  Probably.  I do write songs.  Still, there are images and allusions there we can all treasure and hang on to.

I was blessed to be heading up the road today on I-65 North and having my radio tuned into the station that gave me a song I needed to hear.  That is saying something!  I am a tough critic.  Billy Falcon…God Bless You.  You excited me with song.  That is not an easy thing to do.  I am usually wrapped up in either my own sound or The Moody Blues.

Speaking the Billy Falcon is AWESOME rights…

Danny Johnson

I just mashed over to ESPN-something…and heard the news that Ken Stabler, the former Alabama Crimson Tide and Oakland Raider quarterback,  is dead.  He was 69.  A tear came to my eye.  I am shocked.

As a kid I was a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals.  My favorite player was Ken Anderson, the Bengals quarterback.  I thought he was awesome.

Even though the Bengals played in the same division, the AFC Central back in those days, as Terry Bradshaw,  the most feared quarterback my Bengals would face as far as I was concerned was Ken Stabler.  He was awesome.  The coolest cucumber that ever took the field before or since.  His fluid motion and his left-handed delivery transcended all that was expected and standard in the National Football League.

Ken “The Snake” Stabler was larger than life.  That is why I can’t believe I have made it longer than he did.

The 1975 the 11-3 Bengals went to Oakland at the end of December to play a playoff game.  My Bengals got beat 31-28…in large part to Ken Stabler.  I watched that game at my Granny’s house in Shreveport.  She was for the Raiders.  I was for my Bengals.

Ken Stabler…dead…those three words have no business together.  After a couple of weeks of finding out anything is possible, Ken Stabler’s death reaffirms to me that anything is indeed possible.  My prayers go out to The Snake’s family.

Speaking the football reverence rights…

Danny Johnson

Okay.  I feel like a dunderhead about now.  For whatever reason,  my pea-brain thought…was certain…that today, July 8, 2015 marked the one year point of the first post on speaktherights.com.  After all, I am the only one who has posted anything on the website!

Well..upon further review (that is what NFL refs say after they have looked at a replay of a play)…I actually started this on July 6TH!  Not July 8th.  For some reason I was certain today was the first anniversary of this sight.  Just goes to show I am more interested in speaking the rights than I am keeping track of numbers.

Here is the first installment of speaktherights.com

Thanks to those who have joined for the ride.

WHY SPEAK THE RIGHTS?

Good question…

Hopefully a good answer.

I like the sound of it.  It sounds true.  Truth is a very good thing.  The truth will set you free from the bondage of untruth.  That does sound good.

I tell many folks I don’t believe in fairness.  It is the stuff of mythology.  I gave a eulogy at a friend’s funeral in May of this year.  I looked at his grown son and I said what I had to: life is not fair.

While I do not believe in fairness I do believe in good and bad.  I do believe in wrong and right.  When we speak wrongly we have screwed up.  We all do it.

It just feels good to speak the rights.

Hopefully no one out there will mistaken the connotation of “rights” with political overtures. That would be to err.  Just like we are not talking about “rights” as a notion of…gulp…fairness.  That would be a painful mistake.

Speak the rights really took on a life of its own when I was broadcasting high school football games.  My buddy Gus Stephenson and I had a grand time for a while relaying the plaudits of the athletic endeavors of teenage heroes on the gridiron.  We enjoyed doing so for a number of years until it was time to move on.  When I would agree with Gus at times, I would steal a line from a Shakespearean play where the character says to another: “Thou speak’st aright”.

I would say to Gus in agreement of his explanation to what happened on the following play: “You speak the rights, Gus”.  It became a part of the lexicon of many around me.  I just figured it must be time to share.

A number of years ago I wrote a weekly human interest column for a fledgling and now defunct local newspaper.  I was flattered by the offer to share on a regular basis.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I got a kick outta folks agreeing with what I said.  I enjoyed it much more when I made someone laugh.  I did not enjoy getting chewed out by my mother for using the word “hell” in a column.  I’ll try not to do that again.

I will, however, within the confines of this space…quite oxymoronic in the year 2014.  Does anyone else out there still want to date a document starting with 19…?  I am guilty, on occasion.

Let me thank my dear wife Carrie for putting me behind each letter I type here today.  She reminded me that…and convinced me that…all the column writing I did needed a comeback.  She was right when she told me folks enjoyed what I wrote about.  I just hope that will find a way to continue as I write some more.

I will write about friendship, sports, love, faith, music, time, work, movies, travel, family, history, heartache, politics, movies, schools, and whatever else may present itself that day.

Regardless…and sometimes it may hurt a little…I will speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

Tomorrow will mark a year to the day of the first speaktherights.com post.  There are days when I will tell you this year has gone by oh so quickly.  There are days when I will tell you the year did not fly fast enough.  Still, I am delighted that this is the 169th installment of speaktherights.com.  It has been a pleasure.  What make’s it a pleasure?  I just like to write.  That is where is starts and ends.  A dear friend of mine asked a few questions about this blog when he came to the realization that it had been a year.  he said he doesn’t look every day…or every week for that matter.  I do appreciate him paying any attention at all.  He asked the following questions:

Do you get tired of writing that stuff?

My answer is no….I do not.

When are you going to write some more about music and making music again?

I hope and pray I get back into the studio soon with a handful of songs and the time to do it right.

What is the hardest thing about you blog?

Time.  There are days and evenings when I wish I was writing and just did not have the time to do it.  There have been many occasions…and I am sure there will be more in the future… where I yell to my dear wife, Carrie, “Just a few minutes longer and I will be right there.”  Carrie is very understanding of the time I put into my writing and I love her for it.

Do you plan on writing more about food?  I liked the story you did about the tenderloin in North Vernon.

You, my good man, are a true Hoosier.  Some folks may read this in other parts of the country and the world and think of completely different cuts of meat than what you and I know.  I think I wrote that last July or August for those of you interested in looking back at it.  Anyway, I do plan on writing about food again.  Right now I am trying to think less about food…and keep it away from my fork.  When Carrie and I go out of town the next time, albeit it won’t be a tenderloin, I will try to find some culinary space here just for you.

Are you looking forward to your new job?

Yes, I am. I think it will be fantastic.  It will have its challenges…what great endeavor doesn’t?  I was actually up at my new job this morning getting some technical stuff taken care of.  Email, computer, phone business.  It was standard stuff.  I had a great guy to help get me through it.  Then I went to my old school for a visit and look to help the new person if I could.  I also had a friend I was visiting up that way today.  He is an old school chum I have know all my life.  It was good to get caught up and hang out for a few hours.  I really cherish that time.  I have written about him here.  His name is Jerry Brown.

Speaking of work…my office has a grand view of Western sky.

This office is probably less than half the size of my office at Medora.  I am adjusting very well.  The biggest adjustment is what to do with all the stuff I had on the walls in my old office.

What do you want to write about…is there a subject you have not shared yet?

Well…two days ago I got really ticked off.  I was in a department store in New Albany.  I was looking at football cards.  I am appalled at the price of ball cards.  You old Uncle Dan can remember walking or riding his bike to the five and dime store on the main drag in Brownstown, Indiana and buying a pack of football cards for .20 cents.  This was 1976.  Lets say the price was .25 cents.  If it was, with the rate of inflation, the pack of cards would cost about $1.05.  Mind you there were only ten cards in the pack at the time.  Still..I looked at some cards at the store and found this:

$5.99 for a pack of 16 football cards?  No wonder kids aren’t playing football outside these days.  They can’t afford to emulate their heroes.  This really makes me want to puke.

I think I’ll stop asking you questions before you hit me.

I wouldn’t hit you.  You don’t sell football cards do you?

Speaking the Rights…

Danny Johnson

Be careful with your sparklers!

May God Bless America.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

Disclaimer:  Know that I am a speaktherights.com gamer.  Though I have been given the business here of late for not offering more posts, know that I am typing this on the back porch in weather that is eerily similar to the day I was at this very spot…before speaktherights.com…and gave way to a lightning strike to the right bicep that threw a fork out of my hand with a flash of white light I had never seen before or since.

7 bucks.  No, not the number of deer I have hit in my lifetime…that is actually six.  Seven bucks.  That is what we routinely coughed up at a TG&Y or and Ayr-Way…before Target…or a 3-D for those of you in Indiana remembering that store.  Maybe they were a dollar more in a proper record store that had a huge 45 selection.  No, I am not talking about a gun rack.  I am talking about the RPM speed of a stereo record with a big hole in it.

Near 40 years ago my parents were kind enough to buy me a few records.  I saved some money and bought some other “albums”, as we called them.  At this moment I am listening to one of those “recordings” for the first time in over thirty years.  The recording is by my favorite music group as I was growing up at 204 S. Jackson Street in Brownstown, Indiana.  My family moved into that house when I was 4.  I was eleven when we moved.  That was 1979.  Consequently, The Bay City Rollers best days were behind them by the time we moved from Brownstown to some rural outpost in Northern Harrison County.

Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues has, on occasion, echoed a realization I came to long before I hear him say it or read him quoted as saying it…There is something special about holding on to the music of your youth.

As I sit here listening to some songs I listened to over and over and over again when I was ten, I am enjoying it all over again.  I was 9 years old in 1977.  The Bay City Rollers, keepers of the flame of bubble gum rock at the time, with the 1975 feel-good anthem that is S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night were not destined to last long.  A flame will melt bubble gum sooner or later.  So The Bay City Rollers, in 1977, turned to some more serious songs.  “The Way I Feel Tonight” took over in place of “Shang-a-lang” which was… well… Shang-a-lang.  Music then, like it does today, was moving here and there and the sound was changing with every new recording technique and the stupid desire to appease the taste of the next twelve year-old crowd to come along.

I was 9.  I knew the BCR’s sound had changed.  I liked it.  I know that sounds kind of crazy.  But know this, I grew up in a high school locker room.  I was privy to many horizons that most “kids” did not know existed yet.  Music was one of those things I was made aware of and I latched on to.  I have always enjoyed songs that are guitar heavy and, in contrast, I have always had a soft spot for love songs.  While I have made mention of the song “I Can Help” by Billy Swan as being the song that caught my attention when I was six, Charlie Rich’s “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” was right behind.  The soaring sounds in that song took me off the ground.

In 1978 The Bay City Rollers were lured into making a Saturday Morning television show.  In my ears right now is a song called “Inside a Broken Dream” that was released in 1977.  When you listen to this  meaningful song and think about how in less than a year they were on NBC on Saturday morning cartoon television, you know why their star burned out.  A classic case of you can’t have “both”.

It’s 2015 now.  The songs off of this “grown up” Bay City Rollers album still sound good to me.

Remember how I mentioned the cost of an “album” to be some 7 dollars in 1977?  Well, the compact disc I am listening to came via an internet vendor…a credible one at that….and this this disc came with 4 others.  A five CD reissue of Bay City Rollers albums still sealed for the exorbitant price of $13.90…for all five cds in a nice sleeve.

But as I listen I think of my friends Jerry and Jeff Miller and Craig Lewis.  We would put on our own concerts in the basement of that house at 204 S Jackson Street.  We did our best to emulate Les McKeown, Woody Wood, Eric Faulkner, Alan Longmuir, and Derek Longmuir.  We were lip-sync marvels and The Bay City Rollers were our band.

For some reason I feel like I just wrote the ending of a  “Wonder Years” episode.  So be it.  After all,  I was just…

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Just finished up dinner.  If you can call a salad with grilled chicken on it dinner.  It was by choice.  I should not complain.  Shame on me.

I am sitting on the back porch with my dear wife, Carrie, right now.  It is a cool evening by Southern Indiana summer standards.  We’ll take it.

If anyone ever needed a salad for dinner, I am the subject.  Carrie and I just got back from a nice vacation to the Northeast.  I managed to eat too much.  This too was by choice.  I have a weakness when it comes to lobster rolls, ice cream, hamburgers, onion rings, more ice cream, and just about anything else that does not fall into the category of most of what I eat at home on a regular basis.  I hereby qualify:  I am a fortunate man to have any of what I get to eat.  I realize that.  I also realize that if we went on another vacation this summer I would be in serious danger of walking across the kitchen floor to grab a piece of healthy fruit…I would probably have to sit down and rest halfway across the kitchen floor.

Instead, I walked today.  And I walked and I walked and I walked some more. In fact I walked 8 miles in short order.  I did my walking around the campus of North Harrison Schools.  It was peaceful there today.  There were very few folks around at all.  This is strange because, like so many schools with many activities year-round, North Harrison resembles an ant hill most of the time.  What is going on is a moratorium on athletic activity this week as handed down in an edict from the Indiana High School Athletic Association.  Give them all a week off, for goodness sake, says the IHSAA.  So there I was walking around an empty campus.  It was actually kind of nice.  I did run into a couple of young chaps I will get to know much better as the school year progresses.  I will be their assigned school counselor.  I told the pair I am very much looking forward to working with them.

Much of the morning today was a few telephone calls and a subsequent visit per the phone calls to the local body shop to get an estimate on some damage that was done to our vehicle some nine or ten days ago.  It was about 1 o’clock in the morning on June 20th in the middle of NOWHERE in upstate New York.  That night Carrie and I drove from the place we were staying in western Massachusetts up to Saratoga Springs, New York to see a “Train” (that is the name of the group) concert.  The show was great by the way.  A guy named Matthew Nathanson played first and then The Fray came on after him and before Train.  All told we hear about 40 songs.  The whole thing was quite impressive.

The Saratoga Performing Arts Center…or “SPAC” as they like to say it on the radio.  That annoyingly rhymes with smack, by the way…as in I’d like to smack the guy who keeps saying SPAC in that annoying Yankeefied accent.

To sway from the point for just a moment.  I call out the Yankee accent only because on SEVERAL occasions during our trip Carrie and I were both complimented on our Southern accents.  Mine hails from being born to Mississippi-born parents.  Carrie has a kind, smooth voice that has hung around me too long and therefore accentuates a few vowels with some extra vigor now and again.  Here’s the thing:  in all my travels and I have been to every state East of the Mississippi river, save Rhode Island, and at least eight states West of the big river…I have yet to hear a compliment someone with a Northern accent.

Anyway after the concert, on the way back to the place we were staying, I struck one of New York’s finest specimen of white tail deer.  How we did so little damage to the car I will never know.  This deer did the honorable thing and ducked about the time we made major grill to head contact.  It still felt as if we made some serious contact and I was certain the grill of our Ford Edge was in twelve pieces.  Somehow it maintained its shape in one reasonable piece with the exception of one corner being tweaked and, as I found out today, one of the headlights was cracked. Still, it was a miracle.  The deer did not, however, avoid making solid contact with all four of the vehicles tires.  For a moment there it was like we had gone off road four-wheeling as we bounced up and down as we cleared the animal.  I was stunned by the events.  My dear Carrie was speechless.  Neither of us could believe what just happened.

Now…I did not want to stop the car.  I just wanted to keep on going. Something told me the right thing to do was to inspect the damage to know what I was up against.  But where in the heck do I pullover?  A driveway in front of someone’s house?  No way!  Remember, this is New York and a couple bad guys are still on the loose and I for one did not want to get shot at.  We came upon a driveway that was long.  No house in sight.  I pulled in, got out of the car, stayed low, and inspected the damage.  At that point I knew if I could get the car back on the road without creating an incident that would be talked about for hours on CNN, we would be okay.  We were.  That is why I can sit here today and share this with you as I…

Speak the Rights.

Danny Johnson

Nearly a year ago, in my second or third post in the history of speaktherights.com, I wrote about the thrill I had when my friend Bob took me to see the Boston Red Sox play in the museum that is Fenway Park.

Thanks to Bob and Michelle, I made it back to Fenway again this past Wednesday.  The Red Sox beat the Baltimoe Orioles by a score of 5 to 1.  They were led by the bat of “Big Papi” David Ortiz.  He hit a line drive homer to center field.  The ball traveled well over 400 feet.  When he hit it, we didn’t think the ball had a chance at the fence.  The ball had other thoughts.

Notice, for those of you who remember, the iconic Citgo sign is still in view in left-center field.

Thank you, Bob, for chauffeuring.  I rarely get that pleasure.  And I am glad he was driving.  Boston was built to ride horses in…not drive cars.  Bob is a trooper behind the wheel.

I plan on being on the back porch tomorrow afternoon.  Then I will be able to…

Speak the Rights a little more.

Danny Johnson

A short while ago I finished walking a circuit in the Amherst Village…11 times.  It was a great deal of fun and it was good exercise.  We are talking about Amherst, New Hampshire.

I started here:

That is the back of our vehicle.  This is where I started.

As I walked I, as is the custom, listened to my ipod.  Two ear buds strategically implanted into the ear canals to offer optimal listening of the tunes I have on a miniature juke box I can hold in my hand.  However, this time, I listened to 96.5 The Mill, a great radio station out of Manchester, for the first few laps I made on my course.

Step 2

The air on this New England day is crisp and warm.  Ask the natives around here and they will tell you anything over 80 degrees is hot.  Mind you, these are the same folks that looked at snow on their yards for the better part of five straight months this past winter.  For that, I will give them a break.

Step 3

When I walk I listen to my music.  I also think.  Today I thought about how excited I am to start a new job when I get back home.  I will make a new office space my own at North Harrison High School next Monday when someone hands me the key to a place I will call my own after some decorating at the discretion of my dear wife, Carrie.  Given my new office is about half the size of my old one, and with even less wall space…there are more windows…  it will be interesting to see how our decorative appointing of the space will go.

Step 4

One the other side of this store I take a right hand turn and come back the direction I just came from on the other side of a wooded and lawn space between the two directions.

Step 5

Then back down again.

Step 6

As I walked I thought about how I never thought I would ever get back to North Harrison again.  We have had a few rough spots.  A post I wrote here last September made mention of a few of those times.  In deference,  I took that post off of speaktherights.com.  It no longer applies or needs to be there.  I am thankful for the opportunity to work close to home and help out the community I live in.

Step 7

A school building that was built in 1818.

Step 8

Getting very close to a church that I am sure could tell some stories.

Step 9

This church, still serving its parishioners, was built in 1774.  Note the time.  I heard the clock strike 2.

Step 10

The Church

Step 11

Step 12

Around the corner is the Town Hall.  It was built in 1825.  Folks went in and out of it with every pass I made by it.

The folks in this village are in interesting lot.  Some of them are as kind and easy going as can be.  Most, though, don’t come off that way.  I guess they need to get to know you first.  That is hard for a stranger they don’t seem to want to give the time of day to in a New England minute.  Maybe that is what five months of snow will do to you.

Step 13

The Town Hall

Step 14

The wooded path directly in front of the Town Hall.

Step 15

Around the corner one last time.

Back to our silver car…the last one on the right.

I indulge in a few guilty pleasures on my ipod when it comes to the songs I have on there that I first listened to as a teenager in the 1980s.  Though unplanned, as an ipod shuffle lives up to its task, all the old mental images I have carried for thirty years just seemed to fade away as I listened to the song “Life in Northern Town”.  Before me was the mental-track I will see for the next thirty years when I hear this song.

Speaking the Northern Rights.

Danny Johnson

My dear wife, Carrie, and I are in rainy Amherst, NH as I sit and type these words.  We are at the house of our friends Bob and Michelle.  This is a nice, peaceful place to visit.

My intent today is to share with you some images we have captured as we have been taking in some sight-seeing along the way.  We have been blessed to have been able to look at some cool sights. Some of the sights were not so much cool as they were emotional.  I will share these in chronological order the best I can.

Flags displayed in Pittsfield, Mass.  This was a lovely display in the center of town.

In Bennington, VT, we went to a great, friendly Ice Cream place.

My Friendly ice cream cone.

This was taken at the Norman Rockwell Museum.  I know I mentioned this stop in a previous post.  The man was an American treasure.  He preserved his work and where he worked for the rest of us to visit and reflect upon.

This photo does nothing for this painting.  I had to include it anyway.

We took a train from Poughkeepsie, New York into New York City for the day last week. The train ride was cool.  I sat in a window seat that followed the Hudson River all the way into town.

My dear Carrie looking around at Grand Central Station.

This was the first time I had ever seen a guy painting a traffic light.

Atop the Empire State Building.  This iconic relic is a great place to look at the city.  There is a reason it is made over the way it is.

Our grand tour guide, Mike, telling us the story about the tree that survived the 9/11 attack. The tree is in the middle background.

One of the Reflecting Pools at the World Trade  Center.  This is a place for reflection.  I remember where I was when the television news I was watching showed footage of the first tower’s damage and then seeing the second tower being hit by the second air craft.  Unreal.  Or so I thought.  It became very real on the day we visited this place.

I don’t know this lady’s name or her story.  I am sure someone does.  She stood at this spot a very long time as her finger tips traced and gently swiped across the name of someone lost to the attacks of that dreadful day.  With all the hustle and bustle going on around her, it was almost surreal to see her locked into her own little place with the name she obviously misses more than any word I can type hear can try to represent.  I wanted to give her a hug.  I wish I had.

A few yards from where the woman in green was standing, these gentleman were playing.

On the boat to visit the Statue of Liberty.  This photo is a favorite of mine.

I liked this one too.  In fact, I took so many pictures of this lady that I laughed and remembered how many pictures my Dad took of the Golden Gate Bridge when he and mom visited San Fran many years ago.  This was my Golden Gate Bridge.

A Monument at the site of the Battle of Bennington (VT).

Inside the Monument some 177 feet 7 inches.

Carrie and a friendly soldier at the base of the monument.

We took a little trip up to Saratoga Springs to see a “Train” concert.  They were great as always.

Mt. Greylock is the highest point in Massachusetts.  The shape of this mountain looks a bit like a whale.  This mountain influenced a guy named Herman Melville to write a story about a whale.  A little tale called “Moby Dick”.

Carrie and me at the summit of Mt. Greylock.

A marker at the top of the mountain.

Though I did not use one of them, these outhouses atop Mt. Greylock look to be the finest in the land!

A trip to Boston.  Carrie took this from where we at a late lunch.

The Old North Church.

The Steeple of the Old North Church.  One if by land two if by “C”…as in the Charles River.

Paul Revere and his ride.

Paul Revere’s final resting place.

I am heading into Paul Revere’s old house.

Outside the Old North Church.  Having had a son serve in Iraq and Afghanistan and make it back home up right, this was a most sobering of monuments for Carrie and me.

At the end of the day, we ate at this place…

I had a lobster roll that was fabulous.

Speaking the looking around rights.

Danny Johnson