For all Volunteer Fire Department members:

This past Wednesday morning on Interstate 65 Southbound around mile marker 87 in Kentucky,a tragedy occurred.  A man was killed while he was trying to help.  That does not make a great deal of sense.  It never has and it never will.

There was a van on fire along the Interstate in hours of the morning when the rest of us are sound asleep and not paying as much as an ounce of care to the sound of a scanner that alerts some folks…but not you and me in most cases… to action because someone out there needs help.    That is what volunteer fire fighters do.  They listen for a distress signal.  When they hear it, they fly into action.

Jonathan French, age 25, of Glendale, Kentucky was one of those guys.  He was a volunteer fire fighter.  On Wednesday morning he heard a call on a scanner or got a call from a buddy or found out however he did and he went into action.  He and is 43 year-old mother, a volunteer fire fighter herself, went to the aid of the distressed van on Interstate 65.  While they were on the scene trying to do the right thing, a semi truck added to the accident when it struck Jonathan and his mother.  Lisa French will recover…physically, that is.  Her son Jonathan was killed.

Even though Carrie and I have two sons, Jarrett and Cody, who are trained volunteer fire fighters, I never gave their mortality as fire fighters a second thought before this week.  Jarrett is 26 and Cody is 24. They seem too vital to…well.  Jonathan French was 25.

Volunteer fire fighters.  The rest of us just don’t get it.  We don’t understand the commitment these guys and gals undertake to go into action when there is a call of distress.  These folks take their wants, needs, and concerns and make them that of the person or persons and property that may be in jeopardy.  They don’t get paid to know and understand the ins and outs of various pieces of equipment that would make most of us look very silly if we were the ones in the position of trying to make any of it work.

I just had a conversation recently…it may have been with in another part of the country…with someone and we were talking about  house fires and how a sum of money needed to be paid to the fire department and if you did not pay…your place would just burn.  I know I heard that somewhere recently.  Maybe it was back in days gone by.  Regardless, our men and women whom have made the commitment to come to the aid and rescue of another needing their service deserve our respect and our admiration.

Around here in Southern Indiana and around the Louisville area, what the media refers to as “Kentuckiana”, volunteer fire fighters on both sides of the Ohio River tirelessly collect money at 4-way stops and other intersection on behalf of the WHAS Crusade for Children, a charitable entity that has helped scores of kids in many ways, shapes, and forms.

Cody and his fellow volunteers traveled around and went door to door asking for donations for this most worthy cause.  Carrie and I were quite proud of him.

Cody collecting for The WHAS Crusade for Children

Do me a favor.  If you see a fire truck, get out of the way.  Give them room to work.  Stay out of the way.  If you need to know, it will make the paper or the news.  Otherwise, go about you business and if you feel the need…speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

Wow.  It has been a day or two past a month that I have been setting up show on this screen now and again.  In fact, this will be my 30th entry so far.  That just doesn’t seem possible.

I put a counter on my dashboard…something I can look at every now and then to see how many people are so dang bored they actually tune into read what it is I have to say.

Well…let me say this:  I jest when I say you are bored.  You’re not.  You just want to know what is going on with speaking the rights.  If I could read this, I probably would too.  I hate to sound ostentatious.  I just miss my friend, I suppose.

I never met Lewis Grizzard.  I do know I have read every book he ever published.  He tried to make people think and laugh and get riled up all in one sitting, at times.

Here’s the thing…one of my high school teachers is a wonderful lady I have kept up with and still visit with her and her husband on occasion.  She, like Mrs. Miller (I wrote about her earlier), were very instrumental in helping me believe that some day I could do something like this.  No…blogs did not exist thirty years ago.  Words and how to put them together, however, was in full flower for me.  I just liked to write.

Mrs. Lincoln reinforced the belief that Mrs. Miller held.  They both enjoyed reading what this 16 year-old had to write about and how he wrote it.  I am forever in their debt.

When I graduated from college, Mrs. Lincoln gave me a series of books to take heed in as I was preparing for my career as an educator.  Many of these books were historical and anecdotal.  She placed a post-it note on the first page of each book giving me the rationale behind their intent.  The book she gave me by Lewis Grizzard has a post-it note that says : “Just to Enjoy!”.

Lewis was a columnist for an Atlanta newspaper and was syndicated all over the country.  Given my southern roots, I did take a liking to Lewis’ work.  He died twenty years ago this past March at the age of 47…one year older than I am today.

While I was in high school, Mrs. Lincoln said my writing style reminded her of Lewis Grizzard.  This meant nothing to me.  I did recall the name.  I knew I had seen his column in The (Jackson, MS) Clarion-Ledger and The Shreveport Times when I visited family in those places.  I didn’t read them.  I just knew who he was.

When Mrs. Lincoln gave me that book of Lewis Grizzard columns, I read it and fell in love with his word choice, his tone, and his pace…not to mention a great deal of his subject matter.

Have I ever tried to emulate Lewis Grizzard?  Honestly…no, I have not.  If you are going to “speak the rights” you better do it on your own terms.  That is exactly what I have done.  Have I been influenced by Lewis Grizzard?  You better know I have.  The points of reference we accumulate always have a degree of influence.  The greatest influence in all this was/is Mrs. Lincoln.  She helped me gain confidence in my written voice…and she introduced me to someone who would become much like an old friend I never met.  That is pretty cool.  Thank you, Paula Lincoln.  You are a Great American, just like Weyman C. Wannamaker, Jr.

To whomever is reading these pages, let me say thanks.  I do know you are out there…even though I do not know who you are everyday.

So far I have had folks look in on speaktherights.com from the USA, England, The Netherlands, and Canada.  I thank you.

So…where do we go from here?  Down the same old road, I suppose.  As long as folks are coming along for the ride, what is the need to reinvent the bloggical wheel?

Maybe Jack and Jill in New Hampshire will hang out by the pool and listen to The Mill (the greatest radio station of all time, by the way) before the summer is out.   Maybe they will just go fetch a pail of water. I do know Jack’s mother is faithful to read speaktherights.com.

A month of speaktherights.com?  Are you kidding me?

Wow. What can I say?  Of course…speak the rights!

My Granny will be 89 on Sunday.  She speaks the rights!

This Pizanos Pizza in Chicago and me…we spoke the rights.

The first car to win the Indianapolis 500…I call it the I-5…speaks the rights.

Me and my buddies Samonhead and Pete…we spoke the rights as Peyton and the Broncos beat the Bengals in 2012.

In 2011 Carrie and I saw The Moody Blues speak the rights at Red Rocks outside of Denver.

Luther always barked the rights.

Danny Johnson saying…thanks again.

School is in full swing.  Wow.  Fast and furious and great fun.  The kids love to learn.  They love to be with their friends.  They love lunch and recess…and I love them.

I work in a k-12 building and I was fortunate enough…as a maleperson…to show our male kindergartners the proper etiquette of using the restroom at the end of the hall.  I have never seen so many kids excited about flushing a toilet.  Good for them!  This is a good sign.

I will leave you with one picture.  I love it.  I was on a lonely highway when I took this photo with my camera on my antiquated phone.  It still looks pretty good.

And here is a picture of my sweetheart at Times Square this summer.

Keep an eye on this space.

We have some good things coming this weekend as we… Speak the Rights.

Danny Johnson

As welcome as the end of a school year can be… given all the counting down of the last few days from scores of folks kids run into…nothing is quite as optimistic and exciting as the first days of the new school year.  A new beginning is on the horizon.  Hope is in full force.

For argument’s sake, and seeming how a countdown to the end of school starts earlier and earlier for some reason, I can understand the sensibility in having a “balanced calendar” where schools are open “year-round”.  This would eliminate some of the early shutdown some schools get out of students ready for the year to be over by the time mid-April comes even though there is still a month and a half left of school.  Motivation is a key component in learning;  if the motivation is just to hang in until there are a couple months off then the thread of learning is being broken, cut off, or even lost.

The traditional “school’s out for the summer” was originally in play because the majority of the students back in the day were needed to help with agricultural endeavors.  I was talking to my Mother about this recently.  She told me in her native Mississippi, she graduated from high school in 1960, schools would close for two weeks in September so the kids…black and white…could be available to pick the cotton crop.

I digress.

I sat down here to tell you that this is a great time of the year.  Schools starting anew is a great time of the year.  Why, do you ask?  I’ll tell why.  Students love to learn.  They really do.  Kids are curious.  Kids are naturally inquisitive.  Kids are motivated to learn.  The greatest shame of it all is that kids don’t get to vote…if they did, things would not be so screwed up in the education world.

Mr. Jim Stewart, I called him “Chief”, was my boss once upon a time.  Though our time together was much too brief for my liking, he imparted a great deal of wisdom that I carry in and out of classrooms and conference rooms and staff meetings and wherever the day may take me inside a school building.

Chief told me this:  Education is the most resilient thing going.  No matter how much adults and politicians try to screw up the process, kids still naturally want to learn.

We have not been kind to our children.  High stakes testing at early levels are damaging young psyches by the score.  Kids are being labeled a success or a failure based on what happened for a measly handful of hours that are supposed to represent 180 days of learning.  What a joke.

This in no way shape or form mirrors real life.  The testing culture is not about helping students learn…it is about politics and that is shameful.

What is great, however, is how a first grader will come charging up the sidewalk on the first day of school looking forward to seeing his friends, looking forward to lunch, looking forward to recess, but more importantly…looking forward to quickly raising up his hand as he bounces up and down in his chair because HE WANTS TO SHARE WHAT HE THINKS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER WITH HIS TEACHER.  That is when a kid is the most excited in a school building and it went on before testmania got here and it will keep going on until we find our educational way back home some day.  I just hope I live to see that day.

.

Learning about the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, thanks Mr. Disque.

A cotton patch in honor of my Mother.

Speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

As the school year is upon us, I took sometime to think about a few friends I miss dearly.    This is a tribute to my old buddy Norm Taylor.  This is another one of those things I wrote because I had to get it out of my system…or preserve it, perhaps.  Still, whatever the reason, I share it here with you for the first time in publication.

Far Above the Norm

The room was full of laughter, for the most part.  That is the way it should be, I think.  Me, I just did not handle it too well, not that anyone there did, or should.  We all grieve in our own way.  In the Day and Carter Mortuary on Monday, December 2,  2012, many of us gathered to pay tribute to one Norm Taylor.  His memorial service was held there.

Norm Taylor was a good man.  To me, he was a good friend.  We were colleagues (I’ve always hated that word “colleagues”) to most that may have seen us together.  He and I together saw each other as friends more than that c-word I’ve already used twice.

Norm was the counselor at the NorthLawrenceCareerCenter in Bedford.  He was the voice of reason to scores of kids at the CareerCenter for more than fifteen years.  He advised them.  He hugged them when they needed it.  He listened.  The kids counted on him.

The student population at the North Lawrence Career Center is comprised of youngsters from Bedford North Lawrence High School, as well as what we call “sending schools”…schools that send some of their students to get educational opportunities their high schools do not provide.  “Sending schools’ in 2012 included Brownstown, Medora, Orleans, Mitchell, and so on.  One thing I loved about Norm was that he took an interest in all his students, be they from Bedford, Mitchell, or Medora.  If I heard it once the days following his death, I heard it a thousand times.  It rings like a sweet song each time I hear it and even as I type these very words, “Norm just loved kids”…he wanted to see them succeed and he would do anything he could to facilitate their success.

Norm and I had a great deal in common.  We both were enthusiastic about music.  Two days before his death I spoke to him on the telephone.  We were getting excited about seeing each other three times in the next three weeks.  On November 30^th, we were going to have Counselors Day at the Career Center, an annual get-together for counselors of the schools with students attending the career center.  On December 6^th, we had plans to get together at the Murat Theatre to see a concert by my favorite music group, The Moody Blues.  A Moodies maniac for many years, I was delighted Norm was finally getting around seeing them after years of my cajoling.  Then on December 14th, the big one was coming.  Norm, who hosted the Indiana History Project television show, was going to tape a show with me being his guest.  I write songs and try to play guitar while I sing them.  It usually works out.  Having recorded a couple CDs of original tunes, I am proud to say Norm was a fan mine just as I was a fan of his.

On Monday evening, November 28^th, I was in my home office.  I had a guitar strapped around the back of my neck.  I had song lyrics with scribbled chords peppered all over my desk.  I had a Moody Blues cassette sitting near, a prop I was going to share as Norm and I taped his show.  I was thinking of Norm Taylor and how thankful I was to know him. I was thinking about all the fun we had and how much fun we were going to have.

In the middle of the second verse of a song I was playing, the phone rang.  My friend, Brad McCammon, called to tell me he had heard a report that Norm Taylor had died.  I quickly made a couple other phone calls until I reached the authoritative source I knew would give me the information I was or was not looking for.

When I caught my breath, I went back to my desk and immediately thought of something Norm Taylor told me the first time he heard a song I had written for a friend of mine who had died in 1997.  The song was titled “Don’t Miss the Last Dance”.  The sentiment of the song is just as the title suggests.

Understand this: Norm Taylor could shake his head in an approving manner that meant more than most people can say in ten minutes.  After listening to the song he shook his head, and said, “That’s a great tribute, Dan.” He paused before continuing, “I know your friend would be touched…he would be proud, Dan.”

Knowing he too was gone, looking back on that moment, Norm Taylor continued to teach me.  He made me realize we are all going to miss the last dance.  Norm and I did.  It’s all the other dances leading up to the last one that really count.

I suppose you wouldn’t be surprised if I said Norm Taylor knew how to…speak the rights.

The last dance Norm and I missed.

Danny Johnson

Yesterday I was on a not so busy two-lane highway that I use to transport my personage to get my allergy shots.  Pesky things those allergy shots.  They take time.  They take money.  They hurt.  I tell myself they make me feel better.  My nose and sinuses tend to confirm that.

On the way home I saw a very precious and welcoming sight.  On the east side of a north-south highway I was travelling north on, I saw a young girl…4 or 5 years old…driving in one of those battery-powered four- wheelers that children have a tendency to enjoy tooling around yards and driveways in.

This 4-wheeler was pink and decorated quite nicely.  The child was at least seventeen yards away from the road; there was no threat of danger to either of us.

What struck me was the way the child was intently looking at the other driver…me… and how she had both hands firmly on the steering wheel similarly to what we (those of us that took driver education) were taught.

Good for you young lady, I thought to myself.  Keep it up.

More importantly, keep that firm grip on the steering wheel!  Do not let go of it one day just because your little cell phone goes off and you think it is humanly impossible not to respond immediately to something that is doubtfully a matter of life and death…or much of anything really significant.

Translation:  Do Not Text and Drive!!!!

I have an ulterior motive here…I am greedy.  I want to live!

I drive at least 108 miles or more about 250 days of the year.

I am sick and tired of seeing folks with their heads titled at a 45 degree angle;  they are not looking at their odometers.  They are looking at their darn phones.

Who cares what “twitter” has to say if your safety depends on how you navigate a motorized vehicle through ample amounts of traffic or a country road that insists that you stay on your side of it for the sake of the safety of you and those around you.

It is tough enough on some country roads where I live given the massive deer population…I have hit five of Bambi’s cousins myself.

What is worse is the fact that I am now dodging idiots looking down at their cell phones as they are finding me hurtling toward them at a normal rate of speed…or slower thanks to these morons…and they jerk their cars back into the space they were intended to drive in based on the rules of the road.

Okay.  I do talk on telephone as I travel.  Given I have a long commute, it is the best way to keep up with some folks and find out what I need to get at the Jay C Grocery Store in Salem on my way home.

I do not, however, try to read as I am going down the road.

I am faced with a dilemma here.

Each time I see someone looking at their precious phone as I am driving,  I want to honk my horn.  I abstain from such a reaction because I do not want to startle the poor fool and potentially cause them more pain than they already have in their lives.  But…it is tempting.

If you make a habit of texting and driving, go ahead and look around your closet and pick out something you can wear at your funeral…or something you can wear as you are visiting my funeral.  I have a distinct fear this is not going to work out very well for one of us!  I hope and pray I am mistaken.

Know that when I speak the rights on these pages, I am not at a stop sign or a stop light.

Danny Johnson

In Indiana, Madison, Indiana to be exact (you may recall a movie about a hydroplane racing boat by the same name), there is a sign I always chuckle at when I pass by.

The sign, as the picture indicates, informs interested motorists that these two towns are in the direction after the next right turn.

Kent Austin is the name of the Hamilton Tiger Cats’ head coach.  The TiCats, as they are often called,  play in the Canadian Football League.  I watched part of a game last night.  Calgary was playing British Columbia.  It was an entertaining game…but the 10 pm kickoff made it too late for me to hang in there.  Wish I could have seen it all.  No…I don’t have a device to tape whatever I want on TV.  BC won by one point.  Calgary lost its first game.  They are now 4 and 1.

Kent Austin played quarterback at Ole Miss when I was in high school in Indiana.  I rarely got to see him play.  Thirty years ago we did not get to choose to watch what teams we wanted to.  We watched the couple of games that showed up on the television and one of them was narrated by Keith Jackson.

Still…I did my best to keep up with how the Ole Miss Rebs were doing by reading the newspaper and getting out a pencil and paper and figuring up statistics like the maniac I was about those sorts of things.

I can to this day recite the NFL’s quarterback rating formula that I am not sure they even use anymore.  In 1981, Ken Anderson’s qb rating was 98.5.  He led the league and was 10 points ahead of the NFC’s leader that year.  That quarterback was named Joe Montana.  He was in his third year.

1981 was the NFL’s greatest season.  The Super Bowl was truly the Cinderella Bowl that January 24, 1982. The Cincinnati Bengals played the San Francisco 49ers in Detroit’s Pontiac Silverdome.

Both  Anderson’s Cincinnati Bengals and Montana’s San Francisco 49ers had records of 6 wins and 10 losses the season before in 1980.  In 1981,  the Bengals were 12 wins and 4 losses.  That same year, the 49ers were 13 wins and 3 losses.  The Bengals were Bungles in the first half of the Super Bowl.  Turnovers led to a 20-0 halftime deficit.  I was a Bengals fan.  I was very sad at the half.

The 49ers held on to win Super Bowl XVI by a score of 26-21.  It was the first time in Super Bowl history….and probably still holds…that the losing team, the Bengals, scored more touchdowns and had more offensive yards and still lost.

In fact the MVP, Joe Montana,  threw for 157 yards and Ken Anderson threw for 300 yards and broke the completion percentage record for the game after he completed 25 of the 34 throws he made.  A few years later Phil Simms would do better leading the Giants.  You can look it up.

So there…just to help you get warmed up for football season…you get a NFL history lesson even though all I sat down here to do was to share a picture of an Indiana highway sign I think to be amusing.

Just goes to show you.  Anything is possible…when you speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

Carrie and I put our son, Jarrett, on a plane this afternoon at Louisville, Kentucky’s Standiford Field.  As I type these words he is probably on a tarmac at Hartsfield International in Atlanta.  His Delta  Jet….”FLY DELTA JETS” is on a sign near a hangar you can see as you speed down runway at Hartsfield (I suppose it is still there)…is going to take off at 10:17 PM.  He is flying from Atlanta, Georgia to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  He will from there find a mode of transportation…probably a crappy plane that needs its oil changed…to the US Military Airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Jarrett is no longer in the military.  He is working there as a civilian.

He did spend many years in the Army.  He finished as a Staff Sargent…I think.

Jarrett, I mentioned in another post, did one stint in Iraq and served two deployments in Afghanistan.  You want to talk about a couple proud parents.  You want to talk about a couple relieved parents.  Well, Carrie and I probably don’t want to talk about it.

The times Jarrett was in harm’s way to the extreme during his deployments were difficult on us.

I remember one time we were talking to him on the telephone and it was like listening to one of those hairy episodes of M*A*S*H….we heard a big old KAA-BOOOOM in the background.  That night was one of the rare times in my life that I ever lost sleep.

Those days are gone, Thank God.

Still…it was so so hard this afternoon to let him go.  To watch him go out of sight knowing he will be so far from any help we can offer him in the here and now.  Oh yes, we pray for him.  We pray for him fiercely.  I believe in my heart this is a great and wonderful thing; I still wish I was closer to him in case he needs me.

On the way to airport, our car was kinda heavy with the task at hand.  We had to say good-bye to him.  It is never easy.  I tried to cut through the thick mental fog we were all travelling through by asking Jarrett about the helicopters he helps to maintain in the civil job he now has.

We had good speaks.  I tried to impress him with some verbiage that was uncommonly spot-on.  I got lucky, I guess.  I don’t know anything about transmission housings or stress problems in casings…but I talked like I did and he never felt like he had to explain anything to me in great depth.  Heck, I actually felt pretty smart for a change.

I am evading why I sat down here to write this.

Between deployments and leave and back again and this new job and back again, I have lost count on how many times Jarrett has gotten on a plane to fly to the other side of this big blue marble while we are left to hear word that he is safe and sound and made it to his destination in one piece.

This does not get easier for his mother and me.  It is not routine.  We are still waiting for the phone call from Jarrett that lets us know he made it to his destination and he tell us it is 112 degrees there.  Only then will we breathe deep again and wait for the next phone call and count the days, weeks, and months until he is back with us here in the U.S. of A.

Jarrett has a job to do.  He is good at it.  If he wasn’t…he wouldn’t be there.

Do me a favor and keep him in your prayers.

In times like these, flying to Afghanistan is not routine travel.

Speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

Our sons, Cody and Jarrett, fishing on Blue River a couple weeks ago.

I have been asked if this is a picture (top of the page)  of a private farm lake where I used to go fishing.

It is not.  I have not been to that location in probably two decades…at least.  I miss that place.  It was peaceful, calm, and many friends (some of whom I miss because they are no longer around) and I shared treasured times there.

What this is a picture of is…Walden Pond.

My dear wife, Carrie, and I visited Walden Pond in October of 2011.  In fact, this picture was taken on a Friday.  I went to a University of New Hampshire football game on Saturday.   Then on Sunday morning next there were 18 inches of snow on the ground.  We were visiting dear friends.

I took this picture of Walden Pond with my antiquated cell phone.  The cell phone I still use, by the way.

Perhaps the chronology of that weekend in picture form would help.

Friday, October 28, 2011   Walden Pond, Mass

Saturday, October 29, 2011  Rhode Island @ UNH

Sunday, October 30, 2011 The Great Nor’easter that brought a half a yard of snow.

Amherst, NH

Speak the Rights.

Danny Johnson

What follows is a piece I wrote a few years ago.  I share it for the first time.   I was reminded of it and inspired by a question I was posed today:

“How’s your Dad?”

It matters not what season.  It matters not what town.  Sooner or later, if I am recognized, chances are better than not I will be asked…”How’s your Dad doing?”

That is the legacy that my father, Larry Johnson, has passed down.  I am his personal press secretary.

Here’s the deal.  My  Dad is a retired educator.  He taught a few years in Mississippi, twelve more in Brownstown, and put in twenty years as a teacher at North Harrison High School.  Through it all, as much as he had a tendency to complain  as the end drew near, I believe he had a good time of it and, believe me… he was a positive influence on scores of folks over the years.  Had he not been exactly that, I would not be peppered so often with the same question…”How’s your Dad?”

In addition to being a school teacher, he was also a football coach.  He spent nine years as the head coach at Brownstown, 1970-1978,  and seven years as the head coach at North Harrison, 1979-1985.  To date he is the only man to head up football squads for two different Mid-Southern Conference Schools. (Edit…Jason Hawkins just took over Silver Creek coming from Charlestown…he is the second one to coach two conference schools.)  It is mostly this genre of extra-curricular activity that brings the constant re-visitation about the whereabouts and condition of my father.  It comes in the form of…”How’s your Dad?”

This is a good thing.  I’ll tell you why.

The constant inquiry I receive from those asking about my Dad is tangible proof that he is appreciated, well-thought of, and I suppose most importantly…he is remembered.

After all, if the folks asking about him did not care about him, they’d never bring his existence up to me.  Truly, I never get tired of hearing that question.

Most of the inquiry I get comes from Jackson County.  I spend about two hundred days a year working in Jackson County.  My workplace is less than ten miles from the street I grew up on as a child.  I can’t spend fifteen minutes in Brownstown before someone is asking me how my Dad is.

Many years ago I stopped being astounded by the stories and “legends” that surround my Dad when it came to football coaching and the remarkable and sometimes not so remarkable relationships he had with his players.

One year he was so mad at his players because many of them stayed out late at the Jackson County Fair.  Those guilty were quite sluggish in practice that morning.  He told them that if they liked the county fair so much, he give them their own county fair and proceeded to make five different conditioning stations on the field.  One in each corner and the fifth at mid-field.  To this day many coaches have a drill they call “County Fair” and they don’t have a clue where it came from.

I also hear stories about how my Dad drove kids home after practice and made sure they were safe before he took care of his own needs.  How he was a good example and a father figure to many of the players who could not depend upon their own fathers.

Now that football season is upon us,  I know that I will run into so many different folks that will inquire about how my Dad is.

He is doing fine.  I played golf with him a few days ago.  He still reads his Bible in the morning and drinks too much coffee.  He plays golf regularly.  He works out at the local YMCA.  He sings in the choir at church.  He still watches football and as he watches, he still “gets into it a little bit.”

With that said, know that I too appreciate the man.  He took me to more ball games than I can count.  We used to pitch the baseball until the sun gave out on the day.  He still beats me at H-O-R-S-E.  And I am truly blessed.

In earnest  I can tell you I was actually saving words like these for another day.  Then I called an audible.  Why wait?

I ask you the same thing.  Why wait?

Your homework is to find a someone that is close to you and let them know you care.  Let them know that you know they have made a difference.

This past Spring I called a North Harrison baseball game against Brownstown Central on the radio..  John Lawson, Brownstown Central’s  coach, and a few years my senior, and I exchanged emails before the game.  I was looking for information on his team.  His last words via email were…”Tell your Dad I said hello.”

And so it goes.

At a Football Reunion in Brownstown a few years ago, the coach that hated to talk to the media was giving a reporter a full report.