I don’t have what would be called a big “temper”.  Just ask my dear wife, Carrie.  Ask most of my friends.  I don’t raise my voice.  I don’t throw things.  I don’t say things I will regret later.  I am blessed with an even keeled personality that has been criticized at times.  Said one person close to me when asked why nothing seems to bother me: “He doesn’t care about anything!”  Not so.  Those of you reading these posts know better than that.

I screwed up.

Yesterday I was watching the end of a University of Kentucky basketball game.  Not a good choice of television viewing.  After the game John Calipari, the UK coach said something to the sideline reporter that I took EXTREME exception to.  It was terrible.  I am not going to revisit word for word what he said.  It was inexcusable.  It was arrogant.  It was mean.  It was pathetic.  It was made by John Calipari.  Need I say more?

Know this.  I am looking forward to the NCAA Tournament we call March Madness.  It will be then that I watch college basketball closely.  I have yet to watch any basketball game from tip-off to final buzzer this season.  I do, however, enjoy the NCAA Tourney.  It is known I can watch college football from noon to midnight.  I give my eyes a rest from February to the end of August.

Back to yesterday.  Upon hearing the guy they call “Coach Cal” make an ass of himself after the game to sideline reporter, I took to social media to deliver my utter disgust of his deplorable behavior that should not be accepted by a university trying to make educational progress.  This is where I screwed up.  Mind you… I did not say anything I would not say in Sunday School Class as I took to social media.  The responses heaped upon my comments…most in my favor…were not nice.  Bad words were used.  Aspersions were cast that insulted religions from other lands.  Gads..I thought.  I was just commenting on stupid remarks made by a coach and I have sparked a Holy War.  I went on record to say I was wrong to enter such a forum with my thoughts.   They were twisted by some folks out there that I doubt have entertained many original thoughts of their own in a long time.

I regret it.  That is what I get for entering a comment of a basketball game.

My motivation comes from past experience.  My Dad was a football coach.  He would have never talked to a media person the way John Calipari did and my Dad loathed speaking to the media.  I used to broadcast high school football and basketball games on the radio and I would have been upset with a coach that talked to me that way and I would not have used as much professional restraint as the reporter talking to “Calipari” did.  

Still I am guilty of caring less about the basketball broadcasting I did.  I remember and have spoken privately of the night I called a basketball game with my friend Gus Stephenson on high school radio.  Gus did the play by play and he was GREAT at it.  I just did the color commentary and I was not so good at it.  One night the high school team we were covering was playing a big game at a bigger school in a neighboring county.  It was a Saturday in January.  During our broadcast, I had a hand held TV and I was watching the Rams play the Eagles in a playoff game as we were calling the high school basketball game.  We went to commercial and the guy back at the control board did not “take us out”…we were still on the radio and I yelled to Gus “Touchdown Rams.”  I heard about it the next day at church.

One even better… We had a new coach at the high school we were covering and being that Gus did most of the talking as the play by play guy, I did the post game interviews with the coach.  This coach we had was an egotistical cuss.  We were in commercial…a three minute spot…and I had plenty of time to think of what I was going to ask this guy.  The problem for me was he was a basketball coach.  I heard a voice in my hear at the controls some thirty miles away that we would be out of commercial in twenty seconds.  The coach next to me had his headset on and was ready to talk to me.  I looked at him and a silent scream hit my mind.  What is this guy’s name?  I don’t have a clue!  I nonchalantly slid a game program toward me…and I read his name just as we were coming back from commercial and I was introducing him.  It was painful. What can I say?  I didn’t like the guy.

I will never take to social media to complain about a college basketball coach.  Not worth my time…and not worth the mindless replies I got both in support and against me.

Looking forward to the tournament.  I may actually watch a game from tip to final buzzer as I look forward to football season.

Now that is speaking the rights!

Danny Johnson

Cleaning snow off the driveway…again.  Had a first go at it last night.

The skies opened and dumped a great deal of snow on the Ohio River Valley.  That is what we refer to this region that is a harbinger of the great unknown we know as interesting weather and allergy problems most areas read about and are thankful they do not have to contend with.  Weather is a picky thing everywhere I suppose.

We got at least ten inches of snow yesterday afternoon into this morning when the snow finally gave out.  We will be talking about this “big March snow” for a very long time.

Give the bird a seed, I say.

We had very little of what resembled a harsh winter around here through the month of January.  I figure if we are going to have bad weather it, some of it is bound to get to us before the end of the NFL playoffs at least.  I remember joking to my dear wife, Carrie, at the end of January that it looked like the bad winter so many prescribed was not going to show itself.  Wrong.  February was one of the coldest on record around here.  We have seen snow ion the ground now most of two weeks running if not longer.  I am through with the weather business.

I’m not the only one through with the weather business.  Seems the weather people on TV are through with it too.  Seems they don’t want to make a forecast.  They want to show me “models”.  Where does the “European Model” come from?  This is America, isn’t it?  What in the name of Chuck Taylor is going on here.  No…not the tennis shoe Chuck Taylor.  I refer to a former television meteorologist in the Louisville market whom never tried to scare anyone into buying bread and milk.  Chuck Taylor is gone now.  His memory isn’t.  He didn’t wave his arms and make speeches while he gave the weather.  He told you how cold it was going to be.  He told you how much snow he thought would fall.  He never mentioned a “model” forecast.  We trusted HIS forecast.  Had he waved his arms or raised his voice, that would have caused more people to fall down than any patch of ice he ever “spoke” of.  If Chuck said it was going to be cold, you grabbed your coat…you didn’t wonder what the “.com Model” said.

There is a song I have been listening to over and over again as I am writing this post.  The first time I heard it, I couldn’t help but to cry.  I couldn’t fathom.  A day and a half later, I am listening to it over and over and over again and I am oh so appreciating it.  Many of you have already heard it.  Look, I told you I don’t watch that much television when it is not football season.  This particular song made some noise at the Grammy Awards and the Academy Awards of late.  The song is some of the last original work Glen Campbell put together.  The song is called “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”.

Glen Campbell is in the late stages of a nasty disease called Alzheimer’s Disease.  He won’t play anymore concerts.

I never saw Glen Campbell in person.  Not that I didn’t or don’t appreciate him.  Glen Campbell is one of those iconic entertainment figures that seem almost ubiquitous to us.  He appeared on television.  He appeared in movies.  He appeared on stage.  He appeared on record.  He became like a kitchen table.  Always there.  Not nearly appreciated enough.  When’s the last time you looked at a dining table and thought about how glad you were to have something to prop up your eats?

I posted here…probably months ago…about the struggles Carrie and I had while taking care of her grandparents.  They both had dementia.  When one had to leave home for good, the other was not long behind.  When they were no longer in the house they shared for decades, it was over.  Memories were gone.  In a matter of a few months, Carrie’s grandpa died.  His wife was in a nursing home…and she “did not miss him”.  She couldn’t.  She did not go to his funeral.  She couldn’t.  She died a year and a couple months later.

So Glen Campbell knew his memory was going to go.  He did what true artists do when they have a chance.  He tried to make sense of it in a song that will live longer than he will.  My hat is off to him.  Is it a sad song?  Maybe the saddest.  Is it a good song?  No, it is a great song.  This is the answer to the question that gets knocked around by music historians amazed at the longevity of careers like that of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson and yes, The Moody Blues.  We went from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to “The Long and Winding Road” to “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”.  And to think, we thought we knew the day the music died.

Trying to speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

So we turned another page on the calendar this morning.  My mind was revving more than it usually does when I put the last 28 days upside down and out of sight.  March is a concise month.  When you say the word January…and then say the word February…you notice how long those multi-syllable words are.  Then you get to the no-nonsense of MARCH.  It is the first of three months of the calendar year that present itself off the spoken tongue with one syllable.  May and June are the others.  March.  The connotation of the word lends itself to March…as in March Forth!  Go!  Do something!  Warmer weather is coming and the blankets that cover us up in the four syllable months of January and February are gone…as in G-A-W-N…gone.  Time to move forward.  Time to March.

On the 18th day of March I will claim 47 years on this orb.  The older I get the more confusing years become.  Some are easier to recall than others.  Some years are less painful than others.  Some years can be recalled with no hint of regret.  Either memory fails of “it was a very good year…”.  Regardless, we are not here to have a bad time.  That my friends, is a mantra to live by.

Got an email this morning.  Our church service was called off.  This I found out not long before I was going to warm the car up.  Email was a good thing this morning.  My dear wife, Carrie, just reported a few minutes ago that there is a small sheet of ice on our concrete walk next to the house.  To call it a sidewalk would be very misleading, as there is not a device with a red, yellow, and green light within 10 miles of our driveway.

On a speaktherights.com post of recent, I spoke of the one room church that is Hancock Chapel and I wrote about the outhouses that are still in fine form not far from the church’s door.  This is the church where Carrie and I were married.

I got chewed a bit this week.  Why haven’t you posted more stuff on your website?  This is the question I heard along with a few other informal comments about my lack of recent material.  I wish it was that easy.

There is a thing called Common Core in the education world.  In sum, it is a national school of thought about what to teach when and how to test what and when…most states in this country adopted it.  You can look it up.  Indiana did not adopt the Common Core and had to jump through some federal red tape hoops to opt out of it.  Well…Indiana has decided to change its testing strategy after tests have been printed.  Some parts of the test will not be used.  How much money has been wasted I don’t want to know.  It would make me sick to know how much we could be helping kids instead of wasting taxpayer dollars.  There is political jockeying going on in Indianapolis as adults act like silly children and do things that would get most of them sent to the principal’s office for not being able to cooperate.   It is so embarrassing…our state is assuredly being laughed at by the feds…there are no eggs left to crack in Marion County, as they are all over the face of the Department of Education and the Statehouse.  Common Stupidity replaced Common Core in Indiana.  The lady the people elected to lead the education charge in this state is not allowed to do her job to the best of her ability.  The culprit?  Politics.  What else.  Down at the courthouse  there is paper with my name on it that says I am a Republican.  These days the only time I bring that fact up is when I feel the need to apologize for an institution I no longer have faith in…but hold out hope that one day I will again.  History will tell us things have to get bad before they get better.  My only question is:  Isn’t this bad enough?

Justin Hayward was on PBS last night in the Louisville market.  His live solo show is being shown all over the country as he is lending a hand to PBS as the pledge season for public television is in full swing.  

PBS did The Moody Blues a great service when they showed the Red Rocks orchestra show in 1993 during pledge time.  It gave the Moodies a shot in the arm of their career.

Tim and Michelle Petty were guests of ours this past Friday night.  As always, it was delightful to see them.  Great friends and good vittles…don’t get much better than that.  We also got around to exchanging our Christmas presents.

Each 4th of July  Tim and Michelle host a celebration on  Petty RIdge, equipped with a fireworks event that knows no rival.  There is also a 4th of July Queen Contest.  I am proud to say that my mother wins every year.

Here is my triumphant mother waving to her adoring crowd.  Queen Elizabeth don’t hold nothing to this celebration.  God Bless America!

Speaking of birthdays, my mother had one last week.  She is the youngest of ten girls.  Mom turned 73.  Seven of her older sisters are still alive and well.  They are an amazing bunch.

Waiting on younger…not youngest… brother to get to the picture.

He made it.  This was taken during a recent family reunion.  2012…I think.

The safest place in America on a Fall Football Saturday.

Memorial Stadium…Indiana University.  When you call the ticket office to ask what time kickoff is, they might ask you what time you can be there.

SEA TURTLES are wonderful creatures.

A few years ago Carrie and I were walking down the beach in North Carolina when we came along a set of tracks coming in to shore from the ocean and a set of tracks heading back to the ocean.  A sea turtle had laid its eggs on the beach and headed back to the water.

As for your and yours…I hope you too March Forth!

And while you’re at it…speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

I spent an extensive amount of time in three large shopping areas outside of Indianapolis yesterday.

These days one takes one’s chances on what type of behavior will surface when in a public place with all ages abound.

We have taken a few steps back in America, when it comes to the general comportment of the populous.  I don’t enjoy hearing someone use profanity in public, especially around children.  Those who partake in such behavior are general losers in my book.  Football games are subject to such base behavior.  This has been going on for some time though.  I remember watching IU play Ohio State in Bloomington one rainy cold Saturday in the mid-1970s.  Of course the Hoosiers were getting pummeled by the Buckeyes, as it is the natural order of things.  The last time the Hoosiers beat Ohio State, Nancy Reagan was calling psychic hotlines from the White House.  I digress.  During the game some forty years ago, there was a guy sitting close to me.  He was smoking Kools in the rain.  He probably graduated from IU’s school of business.  He also had a potty mouth.  The first time I watched Forrest Gump in 1994, I thought about the guy at the IU-Ohio State game when Forrest started describing the guy at the war rally on the Mall in Washington…the one who used the F-word a great deal.

These days folks cuss too much at ball games where kids are listening.  Stop it already.

Look, I am no puritan.  If I am playing cards or playing golf with my buddies…with no youngsters around, mind you, we are probably going to say a few words we won’t be sharing with the Sunday School Class.  That is as far as that will go.  Some things are special and sacred…like cussing with your oldest buddies.

Before I stop here, know that I was totally impressed by the diverse…young and old…folks I was in the company of this past weekend.  Never once did I hear something in the background that offended me or was not suitable for children.  Does this mean it went on all day in the mall like this?  I doubt it.  But, maybe it did.

Thanks to the nice folks I ran into this weekend.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Sitting in a library…like I am doing now…does something to me.

I feel smaller in a library than I did when my dear wife, Carrie, and I were standing at  a place called the Devil’s Golf Course in the Mojave Desert inside Death Valley National Park, California.  The vastness of the physical wide open space one finds in the Grand Canyon or looking into a star-filled sky on a lonely country road or listening to the sound of absolutely nothing but your heartbeat in a solitude farm like Devil’s Golf Course is no comparison to me as the vastness that I experience as I am in the company of shelves and shelves and shelves of books.  Home to ideas that came to fruition and somehow managed a way to find the light of day through publication…the library.

What started with a light bulb of a moment over the head, or a heartache that manifested itself into a tome that will be followed and studied, or a two line poem by Ezra Pound that still gets a shine of a spotlight in college classrooms, or a humorous story that entertains children as it teaches a lesson, or a compendium that will lead a student in the direction he or she is looking for, or a compilation of comic strips to share for laughs, or a biography to learn about or from…stories…good and bad…are on these shelves.  Lives are on these shelves.

Perhaps I should not be so appreciative.  Maybe I should be more desperate.  Well…I am not.  I speak of my appreciation for those who have made it to the book shelves as one who has not.  Did I write a book?  Yes, a novel.  It is near 75,000 words.  Do I wish it would find an audience?  Yes, I do.  Am I satisfied that it has not?   Maybe.  Otherwise I would be raging hard against the editorial machine that holds so many back.

I know this: I am proud of my work.  I am proud of the fact I completed a large volume of work I had a joy penning.  It has helped me immensely as an English teacher.  I have not knocked myself out trying to get it published.  I am VERY careful with this.  This book will either get the treatment I believe it deserves or it will not find its way to bookshelves plural. I am fine with that.

I have never looked at a bookshelf in a library or a bookstore thinking I deserved to be there. I have never been jealous of a title on the shelf.  How can I be?  I am just very fortunate I was given a piece of material with which to work and produce something I am very proud of.  It is already important to me.  I have gotten more out of the story I wrote than I ever put into it.  Call me Minnie Pearl.  I’m just proud to be here.

Over the years I have had a few folks ask me about the novel I wrote.  I finished it a few years ago.  Friends are surprised to find I am not frustrated with its solitude.  This is not to say that I don’t think it could entertain a good audience.  I suppose there is a time for everything.

In the top left drawer of my desk in my home office, a business card sits and is jostled around now and again, I suppose, given a couple of its corners are wearing a bit.  The card is from the…

BERKSHIRE ANTHENAEUM                                                                                                    Pittsfield’s Public Library

This is the public library of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  “ANTHENAEUM” is a fancy sort of word for library.

Carrie and I visited this place last summer.  Inside the Berkshire Anthenaeum is the Herman Melville Room.  This room has the best collection of Herman Melville’s personal affects you will find, I think.  Melville was a prolific writer. His Moby Dick clocks in at well over 200,000 words.  He wrote other classics including Billy Budd.  The whale story, however, is probably why he has a room named after him inside a New England library with a fancy name.  Nearby Mount Greylock, and its whale shape, proved inspirational for Melville in writing his most famous work.

This is me trying to look intelligent outside the Berkshire Anthenaeum.  It  doesn’t work out very well for me.

I always admired another New Englander, George Plimpton, for looking so blamed intelligent.  Even before he opened his mouth to pour out his intelligence, he just looked like the smartest guy in the room.  The night I was in the room with Plimpton, I wrote about it on this sight some time ago, he was the smartest guy in the room.  Maybe it was a tie between him and Millard Dunn.  That or Millard had him beat.. slightly.

Speaking the Literary Rights.

Danny Johnson

There is a winter storm warning for my environ.  We are supposed to see near a foot of snow where I live.  Where do I live?  I live in near the northwest corner of Harrison County, Indiana.  Harrison County borders the Ohio River to the South.  Across the Ohio River is Kentucky.  Translation:  I live in extreme Southern Indiana.

Know this…I don’t have to go to work tomorrow…thanks to our Presidents, especially the biggies like George Washington and Abe Lincoln.  Tomorrow is President’s Day.  Most schools…like mine…are off.  The snow won’t be a factor for us tomorrow.

We are due a winter storm.  The biggest snow we have had around here this season was on November 17th.  It is February.  Compared to our friends in the Northeast, we have have had no winter.

Bring it on, I say.

Whenever I think about snow and storms, I think about the past.  I think about storms from the past.  I remember the Blizzard of 1978.  We missed near a month of school and I know we did not make much of it up.  I remember a February when we didn’t see the grass.  I remember 22 below zero.

I also remember my mother, who was raised in Mississippi, did not let us go out to play when I was kid if it was below 20 degrees.  They are laughing about that in New Hampshire.

Hope you have plenty of bread and milk.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

A great American I work with and hold court with now and again surprised me with a nice gift.  The gift, an ordinary object seen day in and day out, is a reminder of my youth.

We were having speaks one day about this and that.  The subject of said object came up and we had a good chuckle about it as we were speaking of things from an era that won’t return…only in memories and the occasional surprise gift.

I am not going to divulge the contents of said gift here today.  That will be for another day.  The day after I get around to showing it to some of my cronies, whom I don’t want to ruin the surprise for here, I will post about it again in complete earnest….instead of being obscure and less than forthcoming.  That doesn’t suit one used to speaking the rights. That is why I need to halt this action.

Regardless, I am thankful.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

speaktherights.com has been back and forth of late with a guy named Gordy Marshall.  His is a gentleman worth knowing about.

I reached out to him and asked that he be the subject of the first interview on speaktherights.com.

I hope he acquiesces.

Gordy is a musician.  I have seen him play drums and percussion…and the flute.  He is a machine of a performer.  He tells great stories of his own that can be found if you look for them.  His “Postcards” are interesting reading in that medium and interesting listening via podcasts that are entertaining and insightful.

In his “Postcards” book, he took us around America and told us of places and sights he sees as he is running, as he is in transit, and as he is behind a drum kit doing most of the heavy beat lifting for The Moody Blues…my favorite band.

Here is Gordy Marshall playing drums behind John Lodge at The Lawn at White River State Park in Indy in 2010.

Gordy has been playing with The Moodies since 1991.  I first saw him north of Cincinnati at Kings Island’s Timberwolf Amphitheater in ’91.  I suppose it is still there.  His drumming ability and his robotesque performance during John Lodge’s 1972 standard “Isn’t Life Strange” is worth pushing through the turstile to see any Moody Blues show.

So…we are waiting Gordy…to hear from you.  I have an enticing line of questions for you.  I hope you enjoy them too.

Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson

My dear wife, Carrie, and I attended church this morning at Hancock Chapel.  I sang what we used to call in the old church services…and I know some still do call it… a “special”.  I know some more contemporary services have left “specials” to be extinct.  It matters not.  The message is what counts…whether it comes from a three piece suit or a guy walking around in sandals sporting a beard and a robe.  I don’t think I have ever seen any pictures of Jesus in a cardigan.

I sang a song today that I wrote a few years ago.  This was the first time I had a chance to sing it at Hancock Chapel.

Know this…Hancock Chapel is old school.  There is one building…there is one room.  There are privies for men and women no farther than ten yards from the front porch of the church.  A privy is an outhouse for you not familiar with the word privy.  Those of you with no knowledge of an outhouse…well…that is an outdoor toilet.  The church has been there for a long time.

The song I sang was a bit of charged tune…charged as in “take charge” and do the right thing.  The song is called “Lord Lead Us On.”

My dear Carrie and I were led to get married.  It was the right thing to do.  We loved each other.  We still do.  We wanted to make a life for ourselves and our sons Jarrett and Cody.  I think we have done that.  They are both fine, charming young men.  Carrie and I are still here.  I love her now more than ever.  The thing is…I had no idea what I was doing nineteen years ago when I looked at Carrie and said “I do.”  The truth?  My life with her has been better than I ever imagined.  She is my best friend.  We were married 19 years ago this Tuesday.  Our wedding was at Hancock Chapel.

Am I fortunate?  Yes.  I know I am.

Did we get turned around in New York City?  Yes…about seven times.

We found Times Square.

We found that North Carolina Shore.

We found the front stretch at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

We have found more football games than we deserve.

Most importantly…I found her…Thank God!

Now that is Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson

It was supposed to be a wonderful day…then tragedy struck.  How many times have we heard that sentiment leading up to a story?

The good news?  No one got killed.

The bad news?  I am not over the proverbial hump yet.  I still have the disease.  The disease of fear.

I pay as much attention to the news as I can to keep somewhat informed.  No, I do not watch Fox News or CNBC…and neither should you.  Just a bunch of windbags separating the country while they make money doing it.  Not a healthy thing for anyone.  I pine for the days of Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor and David Brinkley.  They gave it to us straight.  Well, maybe they didn’t…but it sure seemed liked it.  This was a time when the World Series got better ratings than college football.

I digress…I digress because I am stalling.  I don’t want to go on…but I need to.  I have studied counseling theory.  I need to continue for my own good.  I need to discuss it.  I need to let it out.

I do watch some news.  Perhaps I am paranoid.  Anyway, yesterday I saw news footage of a plane crash landing in Taipei.  You might have seen it.   It made me cringe.  It made me remember.  It made me uneasy.

Follow along.

I made plans for the greatest two weekends of pro football I could ever imagine.  In 2012 the NFL schedule makers actually got it right.  In the first two weekends of November the Cincinnati Bengals were playing host to the Denver Broncos and the New York Giants.  Translation: the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli, were bringing their teams to the Queen City for games against the Bengals in consecutive weeks.  Being the Manning fan I am, it was a time to behold.

The first week the Denver Broncos came to town.  I was for the Broncos.  This was also a time for me to get to a game with a couple of my childhood cronies I have managed to maintain good times with thirty-some years later.  I went to this game with my pals Kelly Samons and Mick Rutherford.  They were both in my wedding to my dear wife, Carrie.

We had a great time, the three of us.  Peyton threw his touchdown passes.  Having attended Colts games and rooted for him in the Horseshoe, it was odd to see him running out on the field in that choppy gate of his in a blue helmet.  He went from being a Colt to being a Bronco.  What does that mean?  The Broncos won the game handily.

Me, Kelly Samons, and Mick Rutherford

The next week my favorite team, the New York Giants, came to town.

This week I took my Dad and my dear Carrie to the game.

We parked across the Ohio River in Kentucky.  We walked over the bridge at Newport and made our way to Paul Brown Stadium.  As you can tell by our attire, the weather was kinder than is was the week before.  It was a very pleasant November day in Cincinnati, Ohio.

It was Veterans Day, November 11th.  The stadium was decorated and a card section was in the stadium to pay tribute to our country’s veterans.  This was of great significance to us. Our oldest son, Jarrett,  was in Afghanistan at the time, stationed there by the US Army.  He was a crew chief on a Blackhawk helicopter.

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The field was adorned with a flag and the East stands spelled out Thank You Veterans.

Then…as fate would have it…a plane came in from the Southeast to make a flyover of Paul Brown Stadium.

This plane changed me.

If you can see the bank of the plane from left to right…you can tell it is heading opposite of the stands I was sitting in.  I have witnessed many flyovers of sporting events in my time.  Each and every time it has always been the same.  The flyovers are maneuvered over the length of the field…from one end zone to the other across the length of the field.  Not so this day in Cincinnati.

Carrie and Dad and I were sitting in just a few rows in the upper deck that is on the West side of the Paul Brown Stadium.  It was the side of the field the New York Giants were on.   When the cargo plane came in for a flyover it was heading in from the Southeast over the Ohio River toward Paul Brown Stadium with its nose down in the direction of the West stands we were sitting in.

In short, I looked to my right when the public address announcer said this plane was approaching and all I could see…and I can still see them…were cockpit windows close enough that I could easily make out the windshield wipers that sat at rest below the windows.  I had never seen such a sight at a football game flyover.  Being that my whole point of reference for flyovers went out the “window”, and that what I saw was the nose of a plane heading in my direction…well…it wasn’t pretty.

The body can do some physiologically strange things.

Translation:  When I saw this plane seemingly heading my way, my brain told the rest of my body to brace for impact.  My body did just that.  When the flyover was over, my wife and my Dad saw me humped over in my stadium seat.  Neither one wanted to address me. They thought I had become a bit emotional given the Veteran’s Day acknowledgement and they thought I was just caught up in the moment thinking about Jarrett.  They gave me my space.  When I never seemed to be doing better after a minute or so, one of them asked me if I was okay.  I told them I was not.

In the course of my brain telling the rest of my body to brace for the impact of the plane I had no doubt was going to crash into the stadium, my rear personage from my neck down to my Achilles tendons became a two inch thick muscle cramp prompted by my brain.

It was the perfect storm, I thought.  This plane was going to crash into the side of the stadium behind the New York Giants.  The team from the same town that was terrorized by planes in 2001.  That is what my brain told the rest of me.  My day was done.

We stayed for the game.  The Giants got beat.  I got beat worse.  I was a nervous, mentally unstable guy.  I had a babysitter die on me when I was five.  I have known loss of family and friends that would make a man sick for three days.  This was different.  This was involuntary.  I didn’t think about any of it.  I went from getting ready to watch a game I had been waiting on to hyperventilating as my Dad thought I was having a heart attack.

Things didn’t get better very soon.  I went to the Doctor  three days later and told him I needed something for my nerves.  I was walking on eggshells and when I drove to work I was convinced I was going to be hit by most oncoming vehicles.  Two weeks later I finally got to feeling better.

Last summer I suffered a huge setback…a panic attack if one ever existed.

For the first time in my life I was driving up the New York/New Jersey Turnpike.  Little did I know that on one of the busiest, nastiest roads I have road I have ever driven, there would be the view of Manhattan and the new Freedom Tower where the Twin Towers sat on my right…and planes coming in low and hard into Newark International Airport on my left.  It was too much.  I went into panic.

Want to stop on the New York/New Jersey Turnpike?  Good luck with that.  I was at the point of no return.  Breathing heavy if I was breathing at all.  I was so scared that I was putting my dear Carrie’s safety in jeopardy.  I couldn’t enjoy driving past the Metlife Stadium where the New York Giants play their home games.  I was concentrating on the lines I was trying to keep our Ford Edge in between and nothing else.  We drove over the George Washington Bridge.  I remember it.  I can’t see it.  I was scared.  Finally, we got into the country North of New York City.  I found a place to pull off to breathe and convince myself I was going to keep living.

The plane that crashed in Taipei looked a great deal like the one that flew crazily into Cincinnati that day in November 2102.

If I had the pilot of that plane in front of me, I would kick him in the shins…both of them.  Then I would ask him what he was thinking.  I don’t for a minute believe the maneuver he pulled over that stadium was up to regulation.

Will I get over all this?  I sure hope so.

If you are wondering, yes…I have flown since this debacle.  I have no beef with getting on a plane and taking a ride.  It helps if I don’t have to watch.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson