Roger Johnson and Emma Johnson

00:00 My name is Rodger Johnson. I'm 76 years old.

00:08 Today is Thursday, June 3rd 2021.

00:14 I live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

00:17 Today, I'm talking with Emma Johnson, my daughter.

00:23 And I'm Emma Johnson. I'm 20. Today is Thursday, June 3rd 2021. I'm from Charlottesville, Virginia, but I'm currently on Martha's Vineyard and I'm speaking with Rodger Johnson. Who is my dad.

00:42 I love you. Do you want me to come? Start? Okay?

00:50 Yes, I'm excited to talk to you. I've been thinking about how sometimes I imagine you, or describe you to my friend, as almost like a Forrest Gump, like character as someone who has lived through. A lot of the past Century and a lot of history that I haven't looked through. I'm the youngest of four and I was a bit of a surprise. There's a big age gap between me and my siblings. And you my whole life has told me a lot of stories about what it was like for you growing up and various significant moments in your life, but I'm guess I'm curious to hear.

01:44 Some stories may be that I've heard before having.

01:48 About what like if you would want to give me or people my age a glimpse of what life was like for you or parts of the world that don't really exist anymore today. Yeah, that's sort of what I want to hear.

02:09 Well, thanks forest. And he was a great character. I don't know if I like we compared to him. You was kind of middle you off a little bit, but he did have a big adventure and I was quite a runner.

02:27 And I am a runner even today, which is something on.

02:32 Trying to run from my entire life. I have run so far my entire life.

02:40 So yeah, I'm one of the

02:44 Things about my life is that it's almost like I was born.

02:49 A generation earlier when life was very different, just because of, where I was born in the circumstances, for example,

03:01 We had an outhouse we lived in a four-room house with no indoor plumbing. We had we had electricity, but it was just for light bulbs hanging from the middle, in the ceiling of each room and a refrigerator be called in an icebox.

03:22 My father plowed with a horse and life was very much simpler.

03:35 When when is the things about, I think my early upbringing, it's very different from?

03:46 Most people in the country to Daddy is how important place was growing up on a farm and geographical orientation versus time.

03:59 For example, I don't remember when I got my first clock watch. Probably graduating from high school.

04:07 Time was important, but not not to the minute or second. We didn't Orion our lives. That way we oriented towards space and where we were a block more than people today, due to especially Urban people on and on.

04:28 There was an example.

04:31 We didn't have a telephone and people would visit us, we had visitors family. We I grew up on the home place where all of my uncles and aunts were born and lived. My grandfather. Augustus Johnson move to Nocatee + 1900 with his brother. Scott Johnson. They moved from North Florida. When they got frozen out, your Aunt Rose. And so they moved to this, the end. They had two neighboring. 40 Acre Farms in this little community in South Florida and Allen, my brother who's 13 years younger than me lives on that one of those Farms today. So Johnson have been living on these farms in Nocatee 421 years continuously.

05:26 It's kind of unusual and so our lives were much different for example, and amps would visit us at Christmas and Thanksgiving in it at all times the urine and they may have written a letter saying they were coming. But I I think Austin they did not. They just showed up. It just dropped. It literally dropped in one of my uncles. Landed on the nine foot road in front of our house in a paper cup.

06:01 It was very little traffic on that road and it was a pretty safe thing to do. I perk up. This was about nineteen early 1950s and we had relatives from an Alice from Nashville, Tennessee. And her family would fly down in our larger plane and they would just buzz us. They would fly over and be with that must be an Alex and we would drive to the Grass Airport about 4 miles away and pick them up and bring them home.

06:41 End.

06:43 So we have lots of family who also considered it their home. They have been born there and they came back to visit. My father was the oldest son, everybody loves the anime.

06:58 That would come see us, then stay and visit, and stay for the night. Maybe some of them, lots of kids, you know, and we loved it. It was, it was wonderful. It was a wonderful life, but it's so different.

07:20 That's interesting. Very particular questions about that that comes up. I'm wondering.

07:29 You talked about about a very Lake specific relationship to place and being less concerned with time, which I think is really interesting because having technology all around us, I feel like I'm constantly aware of time. But I also feel like I grew up with a very strong connection to play and so I'm wondering what it was like for you to leave, Florida. Do you still feel connected to that place? Do you wish you had stayed need or how has your understanding of time and place shifted since leaving?

08:14 That's interesting. Right? If I still feel like that's home in many respects, even though I have now lived in this house in Charlottesville, 21 years longer than I've ever lived any place in my life.

08:33 And with this, this feels like home, but not as much like home as the place. I was raised, if there's something fundamentally different about that. Maybe it's my family of origin and and all the memories sharp memories. I have of growing up, but my brother still lives there and I, but I am so glad that I left on life has been an adventure.

09:08 I traveled to 27 different countries in the world.

09:14 I really

09:18 If I had stayed there, my life would have been very different and very limited. I think. So. I've I've been given great opportunity and I'll be the key to that was going to the University of Florida in 1963. And that was the opening to that adventure of the world. Getting a college education. I followed my older brother Malcolm who's 6 years older than me and and he went there and I saw him it made it so much easier for me that he had Trail. Blazed. The trail was Uncle Malcolm the first one in the family to go to college just kind of left you my early life followed him. He said that you set the pattern. I started selling vegetables to my Country School when I was in the third grade.

10:17 Cuz Malcolm with the high school and he had done it before me, so so many of my and I started saving money for college. When I was in the third grade. I didn't even know what college. I didn't know any idea what it was that I was saving money for college because Malcolm was

10:38 So that's why I am. So glad I left my life has been so wonderful. And I think one aspect of that has been the idea traveling to so many different places and seeing the world it is, it opened up vistas of my life in so many ways. I think you have a story about an early traveling experience trip out of the area Beyond Tampa, which is like a hundred miles away in the summer of 1952. After I finished my first grade, our family went to visit my aunt Alice in Nashville, Tennessee. First time. I've been out of the state. We win in a pickup truck. Ford pickup. Probably about a 1950.

11:38 At 48 or something. Ford pickup truck. There were three. There was my mother and father, Malcolm 6 years older than me and Danny, who was three years younger than me. You would have been 4 and I was seven and we drove to Nashville and pickup truck and Malcolm. And I rode the entire trip which took three days that's was before the interstate highway system. We probably drove 45 miles an hour in my father was a long trip and Malcolm and I wrote the whole way in the back of the pickup and sitting on orange credits. And I've never seen a heel bigger than the the overpass and over the railroad tracks in Arcadia. And when we got to the Smoky Mountains, it was

12:34 I was holding on to the side of the truck. It was it was scary and exciting, but that was a great adventure. I we went to, I saw a model of the Acropolis and I so wanted to get out and touch it and see it and get clothes and they drawn us with tired because we just taking a trip and they didn't want to stop it. Really.

13:02 It really, I don't know why. It's so amazed me that I remember years later when I actually saw the Acropolis in Athens Greece and it was like, I fulfill that wonderful.

13:21 Childhood desire to touch and see up close the Acropolis and it would be wonderful. Respiring experience.

13:36 Discreet.

13:42 I have some other ideas, but I'm not. I'm not totally sure where I want to go next. I guess continuing on the Travel topic. When I was little, we started doing road trips and an RV. We started out when I was in kindergarten. So I was sick, and we would fly somewhere out west, and then we rent an RV in. This was me, you mom, and my older brother Zach, just like 9 years older than me. And then we would go around for a week or two and visit national parks, and eventually we bought an RV and did it for quite a while. But being little and climbing around the Grand Canyon and wanting to get close to the edge and mom freaking out and make you called me back. Those are some

14:42 Very clear memories. I have a bean.

14:46 Little and getting to, you see some of the most beautiful things in in the country. So I feel really grateful to you for for those experiences.

15:00 Yes, it, that was the Grand Canyon and that, that was it. That was my first time there too. It was, it was wonderful experience it with you and Zack and then see your mom. I remember that the costume you bought about you. I had to complete these of courses where I studied, like, animal tracks and stuff, but I really just did it all cuz I wanted to cost you mom that I had to do the course before I can get the home.

15:38 Park ranger outfit.

15:47 Experience that with you with make it more fun for me. Do you have a favorite Park that we went to her place that we went to notes on the strips?

16:02 No, it whenever I ask questions about favorites. I have a really hard time. I just told all of them not to quit but impactful and Glacier was great. The parks in Utah. Yellowstone was wonderful. It was a little touristy Yellowstone, too many people at their butt against Ian. Maybe they were, they were all wonderful in Maine Acadia, National Park Everglades. We would never place a splinter and it was wonderful. I just took, I am a just finished my sophomore year at Kenyon College and this spring

17:02 I took a class called the history of North American Indians and it was a really I opening experience. And we had a whole section where we talked about national parks that, really, because I had always remember these places, as really beautiful, and positive experiences for me growing up, but it kind of shifted my whole understanding of those spaces and America as a whole.

17:34 Yeah.

17:36 Right.

17:38 Idiots.

17:41 The national parks that are wonderful fit in a way. It's kind of sad that we reserved that sacredness about a place to see a few grand places and I've lost that since start asking overdeveloped, aren't you know, racing at scene?

18:11 Hey, you're the natural environment that did not occur on a national or Global stuck until the last seventy years. With saying, it's really I feel good out of my generation has been largely responsible for the decisions that created this crisis. We have been, we're leaving you guys with that prices to solve. Hopefully, you will. But the national the whole country was was a wonderful place. When I was throwing up every you didn't have to go to a national park. There. It was, it was parked everywhere.

19:01 Yeah, I mean we've talked to you about some of the darker aspects of growing up in the South when you did. But I was curious if you want to talk any more about that some of the

19:19 I mean, because that's part of the the place to and what it means to to be from there, dealing with the racism that has just been continuous.

19:35 Certainly, when you think about the, the issues that the three lines and from my life to your life, so many things have changed and I have discussed some of those internal Communications and and how we travel but the through-line, the continual things are double warming in the crisis of the environment and racism. And I certainly experienced close up and personal.

20:14 Growing up black people were treated so differently people, you know, I knew a minister said that black people were not did not have souls. There were people that just did not leave. They were people and and that has been hidden but still

20:40 Racism is a reflection of that.

20:44 Regard that. Some people do not hold other people as human beings. They

20:52 Date on damage their humanity and certainly that still exists. Some things have been proved wearing, I grew up in segregation schools, didn't mingle much with black people, have the right Mueller, a few and experience them as workers on our farm primary way. I saw them.

21:21 But yes, it needs any still exist in and things have improved, but we still have a lot of work to do. I firmly believe that.

21:32 We never have absolved or

21:38 Done proper.

21:42 Reform for slavery, the whole idea of

21:49 A fat being the inborn evil in our culture, and we have not resolved, our responsibilities as a country, people can try as individuals, but it's as a country, that we need to get to the solve that problem Redemption for that, evil at Birth. And so, I'm, I know. Yeah, you've been exploring the idea of atonement and the Civil War. You've been trying to write a novel for a little while about one of your relatives, one of our relatives.

22:34 Yeah, it's your great-great-great-grandfather in Florida, fought for the Union in the Civil War, which is very unusual in a wonderful story. I think, and I want to tell that story because

22:53 Why do you want to tell that story?

22:55 I think it's an important story for our time. I think it was a man. I'm not sure he was an abolitionist or anyting but he's certainly

23:06 Thought for the right cause and suffered because I said, even though he was on The Winning Side that they won the war but not the culture. South went right back to

23:21 Same people that were ruling before the war ruled after the war, you know, Heather Cox Richardson talked about how it spread and it's certainly true. All of my growing up.

23:40 It was an oligarchy by the powerful and why?

23:48 Is John Green, right? That's his name. James. Green Screen. Why have you did your family? Tell stories about him growing up? How did you find out about him? And and why do you feel connected to him?

24:06 It's, it's interesting cuz we did not, we had his picture on the wall and like my mother. I think, I think she kept it secret from us. So we wouldn't get in trouble by talking about. I was very Confederate State. Florida. When I grew up, I was in the high school, marching band. Marching General. And we were Confederate uniform. That was kind of difficult, kind of attitude, the whole Lost Cause myth. That was spread throughout the South was very easy to incorporate and believe. So I think traveling help me learn the truth.

24:57 Forget where we go. How did you, how did you find out about one of my brothers, discovered some books by historian contemporary and story in wrote about James Green and we discovered it in and that's where I became very interested and he was a provocative person and it felt to me like he was the first person in my family. I was really, that's where I came from, connected to him. Some mysterious reason.

25:39 Because of how he was described as being provocative, that was part of it. You didn't, you were kind of in that personality trait and your family.

25:51 WYD.

25:55 Yeah, he he did things. That means it was a leader eight. He organized. A lot of pioneers to fight for the Union in on slave owning people who you live with joined him, and they fought for the Union.

26:17 And identify with that.

26:25 Appreciate it about him. And that he was, there was something very Courageous about what he did. And and also a lot of integrity.

26:38 I think that's it. Interesting idea of looking up to someone in your family who you've never known, like, often the person in your family that you identify with or aspire to be your aspire to not be, as is like a parent figure, but it's it's cool that later in life you found him as a a model SM when you were connected to but never knew.

27:09 Yeah, I love them. Both of my parents son, my mother, and father in, and my brothers and sister. And we had a close family and a good family on something, a Mite, my personality, always stood out in our family and and I had a lot more passion than the others. So, I'm not being critical. I just did not feel like my personality was

27:47 Sourced by either of my parents didn't feel that way to me. Would you tell me some about your relationship with your dad?

27:58 Yeah, my father done very fun, provocative person that you use it. People loved him and he was a gentle man, farmer and gun.

28:16 He disapproved of my

28:20 Spira nature and sometime discipline, to me. Sometimes rather harshly. I don't remember him, disciplining my other brothers and sisters, but he came down pretty hard on me a few times. It always felt unfair to me, but he, there was some some part of my nature that Disturbed him. I think he didn't or he was trying to weed it out of me or something.

28:50 My mother was much more.

28:54 She did not express herself, but she was turning and loving. But firm woman, who was mostly housewife started working late in life in a local mental institution. Hired a lot of people in our County.

29:17 Deaths.

29:23 It was different growing up on a farm.

29:27 What do you mean?

29:30 Well, it was it was very isolating night. I was kind of, I think I like to be around people. I liked school and and it was just very lonely on the farm. Closest neighbors, were like 3/4 of a mile away again.

29:48 And I didn't interact with neighbors very much.

29:54 Because they were far away. Did you feel an especially close tied to your your siblings because of that isolation. Do you think or

30:09 Well, my younger brother Dan was three years younger than me. And so we were never very close. See you later in life, self-diagnosed himself, as having Asperger's syndrome in, I think he was correct. So he was, it was difficult. My older brother Malcolm was six years older than I and I followed him to go to end but he was six years is a big difference. So really peers and then Karen. My only sister was 10 years younger than me. And the last child was 13 years younger than me. So, what are the three lines and in my generation to yours is that our family has always been kind of multi-generational, you have older sisters and an older brother and, and you're very young in your in our family, but you have

31:06 Nephews and nieces who are closer to you in a few. So it creates a rich family environment to have all these different age people around. I think that it was that way in our family to, with uncles and aunts, and nephews, and nieces and cousins and all this Rich family. I mean, our family lived in this area. My, my grandfather came there, 1900, but my great-great-grandfather James Green, was there in the 1840s.

31:47 So we we are families had a lot of connection to that place in the people in that place. And that was that created a nice, a rich environment seems like how would you feel comfortable talking about David at all?

32:12 My Brother David was 3 years older than me and he had Down syndrome and he died when I was two and a half years old, so I don't remember anything about David.

32:29 But I have always been connected to him. He

32:36 Everytime, I think about him or talked about him. I I have tears, I

32:45 It's he still it I say and it's metaphorical but there's something deeper than a simple metaphor about it. Is that she seems to be inside of me in my heart.

33:02 And,

33:05 I always feel his presence or I don't know if it's presents but connection engagement with him. Come to all. I know about David is what I've been told by my mother in that we were very close. She said that we, we talked to each other, but she also said he was going to have to shoot this race is going to separate us because I was not talking David did not talk much yet a few words.

33:39 He said he had Down syndrome and he so I believe that we probably had cryptophasia, which is a

33:56 A form of language that twins develop. I think David and I because of his Down syndrome in my being, an infant two and a half years old. We were sort of like to know.

34:09 And I'm I've often thought of him as sort of a spiritual twin and so

34:18 When he died when I was two and a half years old.

34:22 It really impacted me and I can still feel.

34:27 The impact of that, the decisions I made about life and what the universe was all about. And why me throughout my life, you've told me, you maybe unconsciously felt responsible in some way.

34:51 Yeah, you're about 20 years ago. I read a book and and I talked to the author and with the author said to one of the things children are about that Age 2 to 3 years. Old think they are responsible for everything is person walks in the room. They think they brought them into the room if they leave, they think they drove them away. And it made sense to me that my brother dying and just disappearing. I did my parents didn't take me to the funeral. They took me to an my aunt's home and let me with her.

35:36 So, I didn't know what happened to David. He just disappeared from my life and

35:45 It makes sense to me that I made. I felt responsible and when I learned, he died that I had killed him. If it's when when the person told me that children, do that to me, that, that fit my truth that I had, I had unconsciously self all that time that I had killed my brother and that my parents blame me for that. That was what my father's reaction to me was all about.

36:19 The other night at dinner, we were talking about Destiny and you mentioned David in relation to how you shift. Did your understanding of God. And I, I'd like at dinner got up and wrote this down not even thinking about this conversation, but because I wanted to, I wanted to write down what you had said and you said, God hasn't punished me since I changed God.

36:49 Would you talk about that a little bit? What you defeat at what you were saying?

36:57 When I discovered,

37:01 About 30 years ago.

37:03 How the impact of David and his death on my life. One of the major discoveries was that all of this time? I had unconsciously believe. I had created a God. That was a very punishing God.

37:25 And an astonishing me for having killed David.

37:33 I realized that when I discovered this, that the nature of that, I made a decision. When I was two and a half years old, about the nature of the universe. Nature of God, a power that control the universe that

37:52 That I had created this this image in my mind and it allowed me to release myself from that Imogen transform guide into a

38:09 Forgiving.

38:11 Beneficent.

38:14 The Mind spirit and higher power, so,

38:21 Gave me the wrong ever since then. My life has been different because

38:29 I haven't suffered the same way that I did before. I haven't been punished at all. Has not punished to me since I discovered that.

38:47 What about you? You mentioned that you wrote it down while I was taking Paxil for you.

38:54 Well, I think it's very powerful and the, the idea that you can change, God sounds.

39:05 Almost like egotistical or a little full of yourself, but also also very moving that it's up to you.

39:16 How you see the universe, and maybe you have this way that you can strike did it? But it doesn't have to be that way is very empowering. So I appreciate it and wanted to remember it.

39:34 I think that every person.

39:38 Create their image of Firepower. If they have one, we reconstructed from the data and

39:49 Information were given.

39:53 We are responsible for building and making our God's I think.

40:01 We may take it from what we read or what somebody tells us, you know, but that's still your choosing.

40:12 And it is your responsibility to

40:17 Be open to.

40:20 The truth that comes about the nature of the universe.

40:28 You have to be really responsible about how

40:32 You put back together into a

40:36 Into what meaningful?

40:40 Corner.

40:43 Thank you, Dad.

40:49 I think girls were all out there. An ending. Thank you.