| Sources |
- [S23] Atchley Funeral Home, (http://www.atchleyfuneralhome.com/), 5 Apr 2005.
James Ralph Sims obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 29 Aug 2006.
Eighteen very, very short years
By: GREG JOHNSON August 29, 2006
Micah moved Saturday before last. Haley left last Wednesday. Dexter went north on Thursday. Reed's been gone a long time.
Those blips on an ultrasound grew into cute, cuddly packages of pride before morphing into little people learning to read and write on their way to text-messaging, eye-rolling teenagers. Now they're gone - to college.
Sevier County has three less Johnsons living here than it did last week. My daughter Micah resides at Clement Hall on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville. Her one-minute-older twin sister Haley lives in Copeland Hall at Maryville College. My nephew Dexter is livin' large in Davis Apartments at East Tennessee State University. Son Reed came home to wish his sisters well before returning to his duplex in Murfreesboro to pursue his rockin' and rollin' and a journalism degree at Middle Tennessee State University.
And here I sit. I knew it would come to this. Just not this soon.
It doesn't help one bit that I've been through this before. When Reed flew the coop after graduating from Pigeon Forge High in 2003, the excitement of sending my man-child out to expand his mind and horizons on the next leg of his journey in life overshadowed my melancholy. My enthusiasm for his initiation into adulthood lasted from August until about November. Then I crashed. He was gone.
It's different with my daughters. Oh, Micah went willingly to UT and she's so together and intense that it's hard to be morose. But with every box we unpacked, every television cable I connected, every computer cord I plugged in, I knew I was one moment closer to leaving my baby girl behind.
Being the big girl she is - and not wanting a sobbing, slobbering dad lingering too long - Micah's body language and her tone told me it was time for me to go. So I left with no tears. Well, not that she could see.
As I drove Haley to Maryville on Wednesday, for some crazy reason known only to her, Haley popped a country music CD in the player. All the way to Maryville, Rascal Flats and Lonestar belted out one sentimental song after another.
I asked Haley how she was doing. She said she felt like she was about to cry. I told her I think she got that crying gene from me as I wiped my eyes and said my allergies must be acting up.
After hauling her stuff up four flights of stairs, we repeated the unpacking and cord-connecting routine we'd done with Micah. We replayed the trip-to-Target ritual we'd started with Micah to find the finishing touches for Haley's room. And it was time to go.
Sharing the please-don't-embarrass-me sentiment Micah made so clear, Haley was already laughing and talking with a friend from high school days in her room. So I did what comes naturally to any dad who lives to embarrass his daughters. I sobbed theatrically - loud enough for her whole floor to hear - as I stumbled toward the stairs. Haley was smiling when I looked back.
Taking my daughters to college brought memories flooding back of other touchstones. I remembered the ultrasound when the technician told us we were going to have twins and my first thought; "How am I going to pay for college?"
I remembered those two little girls lying on my shoulders in my blue recliner taking a nap. I remember them squirming into bed at night, begging me to scratch their back - "Inside," they'd say, meaning under their nightshirts. I remembered cookies cooked for school, homework, learning to swim, Sunday School, summer vacations, ballgames and boyfriends.
As we drove onto Maryville College's campus to deposit my daughter, though, something deeper stirred. I recognized a continuity, an intergenerational tradition. I was the first in my family to go to college. My parents made it possible. Now my girls are going.
There was a sense of success, a satisfaction, that, in spite of all the ups and downs of life, here we were. We'd made it. My daughters were moving on with their lives, taking a giant step into the big, bold new world that awaits them.
And so was I.
- Greg Johnson is a Sevier County native and writes this column for The Mountain Press. E-mail to jgregjohnson@hotmail.com.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 10 Oct 2006.
An old flame is rekindled
By: GREG JOHNSON
October 10, 2006
"Start spreading the news," Old Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, famously sang, "I'm leaving today. I want to be a part of it, New York, New York." The song composed by Fred Ebb and John Kander captures the sentiments of immigrants, artists and - for some strange reason - me.
My on again, off again love affair with the Big Apple was rekindled one two trips last month - one for my wife's work, one for mine. The romance started in 1975 on a senior trip with classmates from Sevier County High. We were wide-eyed Appalachians, staring open-mouthed at skyscrapers and saying, "Excuse me," as we jostled through the hordes in Times Square.
The energy of NYC overwhelmed us, exhausted us, and some swore never to return. But, as our bus drove out of town, captured by the magic, I looked wistfully out the window and thought, "I could live here."
I didn't make it back for 10 years. In 1985, Merrill Lynch was trying to turn a football coach into a stockbroker and sent me to the city that never sleeps for three weeks of training. We stayed in a ratty hotel in midtown and took the subway from Grand Central Station to work.
Returning to my hotel after the first day, I politely waited on the subway platform with a wad of people for the disembarking passengers to exit the train. I took one step toward the door at my southern pace and, in a blink, found myself in the train, across the train and pinned against the far door. The big city rushed me in.
Working there for three weeks changed me. I walked faster, talked faster and took on the edginess of The City. I saw protests at the U.N., saw a guy get mugged as I walked from Wall Street up to Central Park on a Saturday, found cheap restaurants and bars that had free food at happy hour.
It would be 14 years before I returned. Work took me back in 1999 and the company I visited put us up at the Plaza Hotel. The four-day trip let me jog around the reservoir in Central Park, make it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, take in "Les Miserables" on Broadway and watch people in Times Square and - because I'd been there before - sniff at them and think, "Tourists!"
My vagabond shoes - as Sinatra sang - strayed again to NYC the next year. My son's high school band made the trip for fun and music instruction. They played a concert in Battery Park. We ferried out to the Statue of Liberty and, while others went shopping, I broke chaperone rules and secreted my group of guys by subway to Chinatown one day, Central Park the next.
Another work trip took my son and me back in late November 2001, less than three months after 9/11. The city was somber, with ashes covering merchandise in still-closed shops in lower Manhattan. Fliers for the missing still hung from the fence around Trinity Church. The edge had been knocked off the city - even the cabbies were friendly and wanted to talk about the tragedy.
There was a ministry trip in 2002 with time to see Phantom of the Opera and Man of LaMancha. Last December came the famous trip - famous in our house at least - when I proposed to Diane atop the Empire State Building. Last month, a fevered fling for two weekends.
The city's changed. Oh, Broadway still plays and crowds still jostle. But, while Ground Zero still looks like a hole in the ground from the street, the cabbie that picked me up beside it didn't even mention it.
I've changed, too. "These little town blues" Sinatra sang about used to hit me when I returned from The City. Those blues have lightened, replaced by a smile and a contented sigh when I return home.
Sinatra sang, "If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere." That's the allure of the Big Apple - a bigger stage, a bigger world. New York quickens my pulse, invigorates my mind, broadens my horizons. I enjoy being a part of it - for a while.
But, now, my heart knows its way home.
- Greg Johnson is a Sevier County native and writes this column for The Mountain Press. E-mail to jgregjohnson@hotmail.com.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 18 Sep 2007.
Turning 50 special day in many ways
By: GREG JOHNSON
September 18, 2007
For 44 years, Sept. 11 was an important day for me. Six years ago, though, the terrorist attacks on America embedded images in my mind that will never go away. Although another anniversary of that dismal day has passed, our nation will never be the same.
But, I can still remember Sept. 11, 1963. My mother was at Broady Hospital on Bruce Street in Sevierville. Dad and I were roaming downtown. We may have grabbed a burger at Alf Newman's restaurant. Maybe we stopped in Western Auto and asked Mr. McNabb about one of the sleek bikes he always had on display.
I remember crossing the Parkway and strolling up Bruce, my eyes transfixed on my left wrist. For there, in all its shiny newness, rested a Mickey Mouse watch. I couldn't wait to show it to Mother. And my brand-new baby brother, Gary.
But, Gary was just a squiggly little ball. And Dad didn't just buy me watches. The watch with the smiling Mickey and the gloved hands wasn't so I could teach my new brother to tell time. Perhaps it was a bit of bribe to keep me from pinching him as I'm told I did middle brother Jeff. Seems I was a jealous five-year-old.
As the sun crinkled off Mickey's face and Dad and I strode proudly up the street to greet the newest addition to our family, I was giddy with reason. The next day - Sept. 12 - was my birthday. I was turning six and I already had my gift. Ha! A day early!
Now, if you paid attention up above, you may have already figured this out. For 44 years, September 11 was Gary's birthday and the day before mine. Then six years ago, that changed. Yep, you added it right:
I turned 50 last week.
Some of you are probably shocked, but I can explain. If you thought I was older, the Sims side of my family grays early and the Johnsons are born feisty. So if you thought I was older because I'm a gray-haired crank, it's understandable. If you thought I was younger, bless your heart. I love you.
Because this was the big 5-0, we had a big party. My kids and friends were in on the surprise scheme. The Johnsons were feisty. Aunt Evelyn wrote a poem that reminded me of the aging process in a hilarious way. On meeting my wife Diane for the first time, Uncle Gene pointed at me and said, "You could have done better." He didn't smile.
Diane started a new tradition. She found a birthday box and filled it with seven small gifts. I got to reach into the box and grab a gift a day for a week! I even got an "I'm with Fred" t-shirt with a big picture of presidential candidate Fred Thompson on it. (Not to be taken as an endorsement. Fred's going to have to flesh out his positions before I wear the shirt.)
Since this is an opinion column on the opinion page, though, I won't go on about a birthday. So, let me reach into the opinion bag and give you some food for thought while I feast on leftover birthday cake.
Can you believe the MoveOn.org ad that ran in the New York Times? The ultra-liberal group blasted Gen. David Petraeus before he testified before Congress last week and same as called him a liar. The lefties have made a lot of noise but not accomplished anything and hopefully will become irrelevant after exposing their traitorous ways in the ad.
In Nashville politics, Democrat Rob Briley, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, was arrested and charged with drunken driving, evading arrest and vandalism of a police car after leading law enforcement officers on a 100-mph chase through two counties. Briley's committee writes DUI laws and last year failed to strengthen them. Briley is in rehab - again - and could be in charge of rewriting DUI laws next year.
Given the devastating accident involving a multiple-DUI offender that hurt Pigeon Forge officer Steve Helton so badly, every Sevier Countian should call House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh and Gov. Phil Bredesen and demand Briley be removed from the committee. Tennessee doesn't need a drunk writing DUI laws.
What? You thought I wouldn't be feisty now that I'm 50? Sorry.
-Greg Johnson is a Sevier County native and writes this column for the Mountain Press. E-mail to jgregjohnson@hotmail.com.
- [S84] E-Mail, James Greg Johnson [jgregjohnson@hotmail.com], 2 Feb 2009.
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
31451 DAVID JOHNSON DOROTHY SIMS
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
55211 JAMES GREGORY JOHNSON CONCHITA REED KING
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
370433 GREG JOHN JOHNSON DIEDRA DIANE BREEDEN
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