Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Patrick Johnson
So you think your job has nothing to do with maths..
Analysis: from vets and sports presenters to farming and the law, maths plays a surprisingly major role in a lot of careers We all know that maths is important and plays a pivotal role in our lives and careers. But when asked to name specific careers or jobs that utilise mathematics, most people struggle to go beyond the typical answers of 'engineers' or 'scientists'.
Aging requires adapting
I wonder what I would have thought if a high school teacher or college professor told me life was going to be difficult. I doubt I would have given it a second thought. M. Scott Peck, M.D. made “Life is difficult” the first sentence of his 1978 bestselling book, The Road Less Traveled. He emphasized that meeting life’s difficulties is essential for the development of personal growth and spiritual maturity.
MMR vaccine: We need to follow the data
Has anyone noticed that bunting has all but stopped in Major League Baseball? That’s because the data shows it’s almost a guaranteed out to advance a runner so, it doesn’t make sense. The batter might as well swing away. In 2002 there were 772 bunt hits and in 2024 the number was down to 167. Baseball managers, as we can see, follow the data. Since 2000, measles cases in the U.S. have generally been under 100 until 2025.
Dolly Parton offered another way of being American | Opinion Original
Dolly Parton loved the place she came from and kept pulling up chairs for people unlike her. Her life made a better America visible, leaving the harder work of building it to all of us. Patrick R. Johnson Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Aug. 26, 2026, 10:43 a.m. CT Dolly Parton is remembered for her seven-decade career and for making her public persona look joyful. The author reflects on Parton's legacy of generosity, including her Imagination Library and support for workers' rights.
Aging is interesting, unpredictable and important
I don’t generally quote the Bible but I recently read an article where in parts of Genesis it says humans are made for labor. And the point of labor isn’t to finish, it’s to do it. Meaning our identity is tied to our productivity. That’s why retirement can be a problem. When someone looks at a senior citizen what do they see? An unproductive old person? The little that is remembered of our resume evaporates like skywriting.
Flipping the script on aging: value isn't measured by productivity
I don’t generally quote the Bible but I recently read an article where in parts of Genesis it says humans are made for labor. And the point of labor isn’t to finish, it’s to do it. Meaning our identity is tied to our productivity. That’s why retirement can be a problem. When someone looks at a senior citizen what do they see? An unproductive old person? The little that is remembered of our resume evaporates like skywriting.
Waynesville is suddenly a race paradise
The science is clear. We need to increase our walking or running and decrease the time we spend on our phones to improve our physical and mental health. Summertime in Haywood County is the perfect time and place for both.
Navigating first world problems versus real problems
Somehow, I recently came across the concept of first world problems, which are typically inconveniences in well-off, wealthy or stable environments — things that are frustrating but not close to life threatening. Like heavy traffic on Russ Avenue, nothing to watch on TV when we have hundreds of channels and numerous streaming services, or four people ahead of us in line at the grocery store. These are annoyances but no threat to our basic needs.
An ode to PB&J Day
April 2 is National Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Day. A PB&J is a simple, inexpensive, nutritious meal. Peanut butter has a long history. John Harvey Kellogg, a Seventh Day Adventist vegetarian, promoted peanut butter as a healthy, high-protein alternative to meat in 1895. Peanut butter is actually a very good protein choice in any diet.
April 2 is PB&J Day, no foolin’
April 2 is National Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Day. A PB&J is a simple, inexpensive, nutritious meal. Peanut butter has a long history. John Harvey Kellogg, a Seventh Day Adventist vegetarian, promoted peanut butter as a healthy, high-protein alternative to meat in 1895. Peanut butter is actually a very good protein choice in any diet.
The fallacy of easy living
We’re lucky to live in the mountains. The mountains speak of difficulty and resilience. No one really gets anywhere in life without some struggle. On the flip side, we won the lottery by being born in this modern world of convenience. Many of us have a roof over our heads, clean water, sanitation, transportation, health care, dental care, employment, education and groceries all at our fingertips for our entire lives. Then there’s our high-tech communication smart phones, computers and social media.
All James Van Der Beek Movies Ranked by Tomatometer
“I’m mad at the world, Joey. I’m a teenager.” From 1998 to 2003, every angsty adolescent saw themselves in James Van Der Beek’s Dawson Leery, the hopeless romantic dreamer who wanted to be the next Steven Spielberg. Van Der Beek was 21 when he starred in Dawson’s Creek and became a household name overnight, thanks to the show’s breakout success (it didn’t hurt that he was also listed in People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world).
Is our country healthy or unhealthy right now?
If you want to ruin your health there’s a simple formula. Eat donuts for breakfast every morning, wash them down with chocolate milk and chase with a few cigarettes. For lunch go to a fast-food restaurant and sit in the drive-thru lane while smoking. Order a super meal. A big double bacon cheese burger with fries and a large sugary soda. Every day. For dinner mix it up. Go out for some drinks and salty chips before going to a different drive-thru and another super-duper meal. Make sure not to exercise.
As the new year approaches, rethink your resolutions
Age is a funny thing. Life expectancy continues to rise but chronological age tells us less about a person’s health. While we grow older our mental perspective improves, critical in dealing with stress, but it also means increased physical wear and tear on our body. So, boomers know what’s coming. Most likely we’ve seen it happen to our parents and heard about what happened to our grandparents. This is a time many of us evaluate our fitness regimen.
Guest Column: Aging runners have lessons to share
Runners quote: “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” A Catholic priest introduced me to running in 1974 during a summer volunteer experience in Dahlonega, Ga. I joined him on his three-mile route through the Blue Ridge mountains on a cool, misty June morning wearing my camp counselor shorts and Hush Puppies shoes. It was the farthest I’d ever run. Although neither one of us knew it at the time, this run would fundamentally change the course of my life.
'Sober October' could change your health and your life
One of my favorite books in recent memory is Michael Easter’s “The Comfort Crisis” where he builds a case for why embracing discomfort can lead to a healthier and happier life. He shares his experience of a month-long hunting trip in the Arctic, where he was exposed to extreme cold and physical challenges as well as time spent living and working on a Trappist monastery and Mennonite farm.
In the “Long Game” of Follicular Lymphoma Care, Quality of Life Is Key
When it comes to the treatment of patients with follicular lymphoma, determining how to balance disease control and quality of life is “probably the question,” says Patrick Connor Johnson, MD, attending physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
What’s your most valuable asset, health, money or time?
There are two topics that interest almost everyone as they grow older: health and money. Possibly because we know when our health begins to fail, our time is limited and money…well, no one wants to run out of it. You don’t have to be an expert in either topic. I’m certainly not. If you show an interest, your knowledge and understanding of each will grow. Besides, health and finances are not clearcut disciplines like physics and chemistry.
If you join the military, you're going to get shot
Men and women join branches of the military for a variety of reasons: patriotism, employment, travel, excitement, job security, medical insurance, a retirement plan. The term “three hots and a cot” described basic benefits to enlisted personnel being met. My reason to join came suddenly and unexpectedly. A co-worker, another public health nurse, had visited an Air Force Reserve recruiter but decided against joining and handed me a recruitment pamphlet.
To get calm, get outside - without taking the world's turmoil along
I’d had my fill of the news and turned off the radio. Earlier that morning I scanned two newspapers and now I was driving up the bypass on my way to do trail maintenance with the Waynesville crew of the Carolina Mountain Club (CMC).
Get calm and get outside - without taking the world's turmoil along
I’d had my fill of the news and turned off the radio. Earlier that morning I scanned two newspapers and now I was driving up the bypass on my way to do trail maintenance with the Waynesville crew of the Carolina Mountain Club.
My first summer job was one to die for
I still remember the first time I buried someone. It was the morning of the first day on my first job, about an hour before lunch on a sunny, warm Minnesota morning in early June. I’d just finished my sophomore year in high school. I thought I was hired to cut the grass on rich family plots intermingled throughout a 100-acre Catholic cemetery. I was wrong. Right now, lots of high school students are starting their first job to help pay for a phone, car or saving for college.
May is stroke awareness month. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, although it is more likely to be the cause of disability than death. Knowing those two awful scenarios, it’s important to realize a stroke can be reversed if it’s recognized early and medical help is provided quickly. A stroke is a medical emergency. It happens when blood flow to part of your brain is interrupted. Without blood, brain cells start to die.
Appreciate the aging journey
I’ve become fascinated with the topic of aging since I turned 70. As a runner it was always exciting to enter a new age division. But now, I rarely race and when I do there’s hardly anyone joining me there. The older I get the more I realize we need to appreciate the aging journey. Life expectancy in the U.S. is now 77.5 years. That’s because today’s medicine is very good at delaying death. Neither of my grandfathers reached the late 70s and my father died 12 years below the target.
Are you happy this Thanksgiving?
We hope our family and friends are happy at Thanksgiving. We sure say it a lot. If you were asked where the happiest place on earth is what would you guess? Probably Disney World. After all, 17 million people visit there each year and spend thousands of dollars during their stay. Some go into debt in search of this happiness according to a recent report. In fact, according to the report, the cost of being at Disney World is going up while the perks are going down.
Saying farewell to the Air Force wasn't easy
I surprised a lot of people who knew me when I joined the Air Force Reserve in 1987. A skinny, vegetarian, 32-year-old runner nurse just didn’t seem the type. It was even more of a surprise to folks who knew me when they learned I was suddenly out of the military in 2013. My career began at the Military Indoctrination for Medical Service Officers (MIMSO) at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.
Running a race with my granddaughter
The Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health Richmond 8k on Saturday, Nov. 16, will mark 50 years of running and 300-plus races for me. Aging is not what I anticipated although I’m happy to still be running after a heart valve repair, a stroke, pacemaker, seizures and cancer. As a longtime healthcare professional, committed runner and vegetarian, I wasn’t expecting any of those conditions.
Let's put the election rhetoric aside and focus on our health
Was it this bad when Kennedy ran against Nixon, Reagan vs. Mondale, or Dukakis vs. Bush? I doubt it. There’s so much meanness now it’s overwhelming. If we’re not careful it might affect our well-being just listening to this stuff. Maybe it’s best to forget about politics for a while and focus on our health.
Conservative blueprint has both good and sketchy plans for the military
My wife and I recently attended the Air Force Basic Military Training (“Boot Camp”) graduation of our 18-year-old grandson at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. In spite of the oppressive August heat, we were impressed and inspired by the 850 graduates of the 7.5-week training as they marched, ran in formation, recited the Airman’s Creed and sang the Air Force hymn in unison. These young men and women were proud of their accomplishments and excited to be moving on to their first assignment.
Maybe we should just focus on our health
Was it this bad when Kennedy ran against Nixon, Reagan vs. Mondale, or Dukakis vs. Bush? I doubt it. There’s so much meanness now it’s overwhelming. If we’re not careful it might affect our well-being just listening to this stuff. Maybe it’s best to forget about politics for a while and focus on our health.
Aging is coming for each of us
I remember the first time I noticed when my father seemed old to me. He was in his early sixties, struggling to till his garden. He had to stop because he was short of breath. The proud Marine Corps WWII veteran, wounded in the bloody Battle of Tarawa, planned to retire on his 65th birthday and move to Florida. He did exactly that and died 29 days later of a heart attack. His body and lungs worn out. I was determined to not suffer the same fate. So, I changed my diet and increased my running mileage.
Podcasts or birdsong for stress reduction?
I spend some of my time these days doing yard work listening to either a wide variety of podcasts or an assortment of birds. The podcasts give advice, some good, some questionable. Birds provide calls and songs, all good, some downright magnificent. So much so I’m beginning to wonder why I listen to podcasts. The other day I heard a TED Talk podcast featuring the Blue Zone guy, who studies healthy centenarians all over the world. His goal is to teach us to live to 100 and to get there himself.
Embrace unpredictable aging
The guy at the convenience store in front of me had two tall boys and a pack of smokes. It was 9 a.m., and the clerk told him she had to check his ID. “Happy Birthday,” she said while scanning the beer. The man turned to me and smiled, “I never thought I’d make it to 60.” The thing about life is, it’s unpredictable, and the journey of aging isn’t easy. Jim Fixx was an overweight, two-pack a day smoker at age 35 who transformed his life through running.
The importance of coffee
I grew up watching my father drink percolated coffee in the morning, reading a newspaper while listening to awful Minnesota weather reports on the radio. He would drink it strong and black and ignore the four kids at the kitchen table. My first cup of joe was from a vending machine at the trucking company where I worked part time as a janitor during college. It was an early Saturday morning, and I was fighting a hangover. Some guy told me coffee would help. Coffee is good for everything.
How’s your memory?
Memory has been in the news lately. I’m not sure where my memory falls on a scale of one to ten but like my aging body it’s seen better days. Let’s face it, aging and traumas (emotional and physical) slow the brain a bit. We don't want our joints, sight or hearing to fail and it's the same for our memory. I remember many details surrounding my father’s death even though it was 39 years ago. He and my mom came to visit me in Florida a few weeks after he turned 65 and retired.
Expect a miracle
Do you ever wonder how much of your life course was determined by a chance encounter? How the lives of your children and grandchildren will be impacted by some random meeting? The famous writer F. Scott Fitzgerald from Minnesota, was stationed at Camp Sheridan in Montgomery, Alabama, awaiting orders to fight overseas in World War I in 1918. One evening at a dance he met a beautiful young woman from Montgomery society, his future bride Zelda.
Cancer is… many things, and all are bad
Checking in as a patient for the first time at a cancer center is humbling. I should be there as a volunteer to wheel around emaciated patients or to support a friend with a malignancy. “Can you give me your date of birth, sir?” asked the young woman at the reception desk. I hesitated pretending this was a Congressional hearing and I should give her some context like the president of Harvard. She doesn’t realize I’m a longtime vegetarian runner who’s not supposed to get cancer.
Longevity isn’t the goal of life
By signing up for our newsletter, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Longevity isn’t the goal of life
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just published data on life expectancy in the United States. We are now living to 77 years, which is still two years lower than our high in 2014. We mainly succumb to heart disease, cancer, accidents and stroke. Bryan Johnson, 46, is a tech billionaire and founder of a company focused on slowing or reversing the aging process. He hopes to live 150 years or longer. No kidding.
A way to navigate difficult times
We’re living in perilous times. Listening to or reading today’s news can cause anxiety, wreak havoc on emotions and disrupt sleep. We need to stay informed about current events going on in Waynesville elections, Washington D.C. turmoil, the Middle East and Ukraine wars and yet another mass shooting. But not to the detriment of our mental well-being. We have way too much access to information and commentary.
Winners, losers and real losers
By Patrick Johnson In 1969 I was a teenager when the Minnesota Vikings lost the Super Bowl. I was so upset I took my skates, hockey stick, some pucks and spent time at a nearby rink working out my disappointment. Recently I bet 50 cents my University of Minnesota Gophers team would beat a friend’s Northwestern Wildcats. The Gophers were up by three touchdowns entering the fourth quarter. Northwestern tied the game with two seconds left and won in OT. I paid him the next day.
Remarkable seniors are everywhere
State AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWashington D.C.West VirginiaWisconsinWyomingPuerto RicoUS Virgin IslandsArmed Forces AmericasArmed...
Social media is the new tobacco
In May the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, issued a public warning about social media. Surgeon General warnings are rare and used only when there are no legal standards in place related to the health topic. Such advisories are “reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action,” This warning was used in 1964 after years of scientific research revealed smoking had clear deleterious health consequences for people.
First Job was the graveyard shift
I still remember the first time I buried someone. It was the first day of my first job, about an hour before lunch on a sunny, warm Minnesota day in early June. I’d just finished my sophomore year in high school and was hired to cut the grass on rich family plots throughout a 100-acre private Catholic cemetery about a half mile from my home. Calvary Cemetery, the oldest in St Paul, held more than 100,000 burial sites. I was grateful my dad got me this summer job.
Thoughts on aging, hiking and ping pong
They came to our home in the western North Carolina mountains after a long Minnesota winter to hike, drink coffee and play ping pong. We played hockey together in high school fifty-one years ago. Steve and Pete captained the 1972 hockey team, I played defense. A half a century since our last hockey game brought us families, careers, happiness, stress, death of loved ones, and the body’s normal decline from aging. kAm(6 3682? 6249 >@C?:?8 H:E9 4@7766 @?
From commuting to work - to commuting to bliss
Anyone who drives I-40 to work from Haywood County to Asheville understands high speeds, multiple lanes, entry and exit ramps, and the unpredictable movements of vehicles, including eighteen wheelers. It makes for a dangerous commute. I drove it for three months recently and was grateful every morning I arrived at the office safely, usually an hour before my first meeting. We all know meetings are essential in every type of business. But some drone on with no clear outcome.
The old man and the job
They call it NEO, New Employee Orientation. The trainer was slightly older than my granddaughter and seemed desperate to make the session informative, serious, fun and captivating all at the same time. I looked around the room this gray chilly, late December Monday morning and saw tired, bored millennials (and me) staring blankly at her like we were about to begin a prison sentence. By the time she got to the video showing OSHA symbols I wondered if I’d made a BIG mistake.
Fort Stevens State Park
There are some state parks where you stop, get out of the car, maybe use the public restroom, walk around a bit to stretch your legs and the leave within 20 minutes. Maybe it has an interpretive plaque or trail, maybe one of the incredible stunning views that are scattered throughout the state, but overall it’s a pretty short experience. Then you have parks like Fort Stevens on the Northern Oregon Coast. This park is more than 4,000 acres, 4,247 to be exact, and has several different areas.
How long will you live?
Have you ever looked at an obituary page and were amazed at how some people live into their nineties and wonder how others don’t live to age 60 or even 40? What causes someone to live a long life and another to die young? Human longevity, or the length of time an individual lives, is influenced by a variety of factors. Genetics, education, gender, zip code, access to healthcare, finances, and lifestyle are all thought to play a part.
Enjoy a healthier holiday season
The holiday season gives us a chance to relax and celebrate the end of the year. The rich food, drinks, parties and get-togethers are a mixed blessing, however, because our health habits can take a back seat to all the fun. From indulgent meals to cocktails and late nights, we can easily let healthy living slide. December is peak for cardiovascular issues, and it’s not because of shoveling snow.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Patrick
Contact Patrick, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack