September 12, 2003

Today marks two years since Johnny Cash died. I didn't truly become a fan until after he passed away, which is something I will regret for the rest of my life. I'd heard of him - who wouldn't hear and remember a name like Johnny Cash? - but I'd never cared to listen much to an old country singer...

A few weeks after he passed away, Philo insisted that we visit the Museum of Television & Radio for a Cash tribute they were exhibiting. They screened a few documentaries but the one that stood out the most to me was "Johnny Cash at San Quentin." I'd grown up always hearing about that prison upstate whose walls held the worst of the worst in humanity. And yet here I could see the faces of the men it housed, spellbound, hanging upon Cash's every word.

He sung about the prisoners, about death, about crime, about cruelty. He sung about love, about humor, about peace, about Jesus. He had recently come off the worst in a battle against drugs and alcohol, come off a hardened lifestyle that had landed him in jail once or twice. Yet the experiences ultimately served to strengthen his presence and performance. But perhaps performance isn't the right word. The concert was being filmed, all right, but he wasn't some square, smiling dolt staging a publicity event in front of poor, misguided souls. He was there to meet his brothers. He was real and the prisoners understood that. He didn't have a number on his shirt or a cell to return to but he was one of them. The mythos that spun behind him was something to behold that day.

Johnny Cash is gone now but I'm proof that even in death he will continue to have his presence made known to inspire others. There may never be another Man in Black but somehow I think it was always his intention that there would be others to take up his mantle and carry on that legacy. And that's what I aim to do.