Roger Johnson

[Joe J]

Val:

It's amazing that it took me so long to figure out how street smart he was. What really sucks is that I did not figure it out till it was too late.

Joe


I never told you, but one time in Havasu, your dad sat me down on the sidewalk outside the hotel and warned me of something he saw coming regarding my non-boat related future. But I didn't listen. And I sure paid a price for that! I will always regret that I didn't heed his advice. I'll have to fill you in sometime. When it came to advice he gave me, your dad was always right.[/QUOTE]

[Miss BK]

Hey Joe,

I was just cleaning out some boxes from years ago and ran across this ink painting I did way back when I was going to community college in Kingman. I had intended to finish this and give it to your dad, but ended up moving to Texas and left it back at moms. It then disappeared and I never saw it again.

She gave me a few boxes of stuff years ago, but I never knew this painting was inside one of those boxes, folded up!

It's a pretty big painting - about 2' x 3'. I'm not sure if you'd want it or not, but if you do, I probably can figure out a way to get it to you.

My big regret is that I didn't get to finish it and give it to your dad.

A shame that it now has a fold in the middle of it too...


The second image shows you how large it is...with the standard sized CD in the corner..

[geodavid]

Val,
This is a great drawing. The nicest work I have seen. It deserves a nice frame. What a tribute to a great racer and even more remarkable person. Joe, that is a great photo of Roger in a runabout. He would be very proud of how you are doing with yours. Nice seeing you and Teri in DePue. Can you get Teri to post some history about her family? I know that my Dad knew Bob when they were racing. A great guy who was always very nice to me.

[Miss BK]

Thanks a bunch, Alan. You know, I went to art school in Colorado with the dream of one day getting a job with Powerboat Magazine. So, whenever the instructors would give me assignment, I always tried to incorporate "race boats" into the theme so that my portfolio would look enticing to PB's then-art director John Whorral.

Eventually, this got me into a little trouble as the educators said my porfolio needed to be "more balanced" since I wouldn't want to be limited to a 'boating mag'. But the problem was that I wasn't inspired unless my subject matter was boat racing!

One final assignment was to design a "TIME LIFE BOOKS" brochure. The instructor gave us a list of TIME LIFE categories - Gardening, Cooking, Hiking, etc. But there wasn't a single nautical-themed title listed anywhere! So I went to the library and lo and behold...I discovered there indeed *WAS* a "Library of Boating" category under TIME LIFE BOOKS.

So when I turned in my 15-page "Boating" brochure with Jimbo McConnell on the cover, I thought the teacher was going to kick me right out of school. LOL