SIOUX FALLS - The doctors were right: Brendan's dad is still there.

Sen. Tim Johnson settled any questions Tuesday about his cognitive whereabouts, a subject of some speculation since he fell critically ill with a brain hemorrhage last December. During a 15-minute speech that was carefully scripted and more carefully read, the 61-year-old Democrat showed a clear-eyed spontaneity - and an occasional raised eyebrow of impishness - that spoke louder than the script.

And in a palpable moment of collective relief, his audience seemed to say: "Yes, it's Tim. Of course it is."

In introducing his dad a few minutes earlier, Brendan Johnson admitted he had worried about that himself. After the confused, fearful time following the senator's emergency brain surgery on Dec. 13, it eventually became clear that he would live. But what was left inside the punished body that struggled so mightily just to move and speak?

Brendan Johnson said he posed this question to the doctors, as any son might: "Are we going to get my dad back?"

He received a sage reply: His dad was already back - in memory and intellect, love and wit, all the things that matter most about a father, and a human being. The real question was: How soon could he struggle past the frozen words and locked-up muscles?

It was clear Tuesday afternoon on the stage of the Sioux Falls Convention Center that Johnson still struggles, with both speech and movement. It was also pretty clear that he struggles forward, as he likes to say, "an inch and a cloud of dust" at a time.

Surely, he covered more than that on Tuesday, after pulling himself upright from the wheelchair guided by his other son, Brooks, and standing upright at the podium. With Barbara, the love of his life, at his side and his family and friends all around, Johnson made his return to South Dakota and to the political world beyond.

There's more hard work ahead. It includes a return to the Senate and what will be the most physically challenging campaign of his life in 2008, when he seeks re-election.

Showing a familiar set of the jaw, Johnson said he's ready for what is to come.

"Hard work is something in which I take great pride," he said. "So, let me say this tonight going forward: I'm back."

Brendan Johnson cheered at that, like everyone else. Then he smiled, put his head down and wiped his eyes - knowing, of course, that the best parts of his dad never really left.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com