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A Spin Off of Keep a Word/Drop a Word and Music, Pics, and Whatnot

Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
May be an image of ‎amphibian and ‎text that says '‎When I was young I was scared of the dark. Now when I see my electric bill I am scared of the lights. ١١ یمي 2 ノ‎'‎‎
 
Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Finally made it back, somehow I managed to fall and hurt my wrist tryin to catch myself, already swellin up :facepalm: But we did more maters planted with some black plastic under to help control the weeds.
I fell yesterday carrying a 15 foot piece of fence too, I never usedta fall:crazy:
Headed for a tub of soakin water next.
I need a day off, been pushin it pretty hard for an old phart.
Thank you to everyone for playin today
Hope to see you all tomorrow:wave:


No photo description available.


May be an image of one or more people and text that says 'His parents left him before he could walk. A tired blacksmith and a cotton-picking grandmother took him in -and accidentally gave the the world one of the greatest musicians who ever lived.'




May be a doodle of text that says 'Good your dreams shine Mayyourdreamshinebright. GoodNight bright. God Night May Bless Let go Cetgooj of ftoday; embrace the promise of tomorrow's new light.'
 
Bliss Doubt

Bliss Doubt

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Jimi said:
Finally made it back, somehow I managed to fall and hurt my wrist tryin to catch myself, already swellin up :facepalm: But we did more maters planted with some black plastic under to help control the weeds.
I fell yesterday carrying a 15 foot piece of fence too, I never usedta fall:crazy:
Headed for a tub of soakin water next.
I need a day off, been pushin it pretty hard for an old phart.
Click to expand...

Jimi, yes, please take a day off. It seems you earned it this week. You want to be well and able bodied when that beautiful harvest comes in.
 
Jimi

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
May be an image of guitar and text that says 'LEes 2I HIS HIS OLDER BROTHER BROTHER DIED IN A HORRIFIC ACCIDENT WHEN HE WAS 12. HIS FATHER BLAMED HIM FOR FOR SURVIVING. HE CARRIED THAT GUILT INTO ADDICTION, PRISON CONCERTS, AND BECOMING THE VOICE OF AMERICA'S FORGOTTEN.'


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His older brother died in a horrific accident when he was 12. His father blamed him for surviving. He carried that guilt into addiction, prison concerts, and becoming the voice of America's forgotten.
On May 12, 1944, in Dyess, Arkansas, 14-year-old Jack Cash was working at the high school agriculture shop, cutting fence posts on a table saw.
Something went wrong.
Jack was pulled into the saw. The blade ripped through his abdomen, nearly cutting him in half.
He didn't die immediately. He lingered for a week in agony, his organs exposed, his body destroyed, while his family watched helplessly.
His 12-year-old brother, Johnny, was supposed to be with him that day. They had planned to go fishing. But Johnny had gone somewhere else instead.
Jack died on May 20, 1944.
And Johnny Cash spent the rest of his life believing it should have been him.
After Jack's death, Johnny's father, Ray Cash, became cold and distant. Whether he ever said the exact words "It should have been you" is disputed—some biographers say yes, others say the sentiment was unspoken but clear.
What's not disputed is this: Ray never forgave Johnny for being the son who survived.
Ray had loved Jack. Jack was good, religious, obedient—the son Ray was proud of. Johnny was restless, wild, drawn to music and rebellion.
And now Jack was dead, and Johnny was alive, and Ray made sure Johnny knew he was the wrong one.
Johnny carried that guilt like a stone in his chest for the rest of his life.
Music became his escape.
He taught himself guitar. He listened to gospel, country, and blues on the radio. He sang in the fields while picking cotton on the family's 20-acre farm during the Great Depression.
In 1950, at 18, Johnny enlisted in the Air Force. He was stationed in Germany, where he bought his first guitar and started writing songs.
When he came home in 1954, he married his girlfriend Vivian Liberto, moved to Memphis, and got a job selling appliances door-to-door.
But what he really wanted was to make music.
In 1955, Johnny auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis. Phillips had just launched Elvis Presley's career and was looking for the next big thing.
Johnny and his band played gospel songs. Phillips stopped them.
"Go home and write something real," Phillips said. "Something you've lived."
Johnny went home and wrote "Folsom Prison Blues"—a song about a man in prison, longing for freedom, haunted by the sound of a train he'd never ride.
It was a hit.
Within a year, Johnny Cash was a star. "I Walk the Line," "Cry, Cry, Cry," "Big River"—hit after hit. He toured constantly, shared stages with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.
And he started taking pills.
Amphetamines to stay awake on the road. Barbiturates to sleep. More amphetamines to wake up. The cycle consumed him.
By the early 1960s, Johnny Cash was addicted, paranoid, and spiraling. He was arrested seven times—mostly for drug possession and public intoxication. He wrecked cars. He started fires. He nearly died from overdoses multiple times.
His marriage to Vivian collapsed. She took their four daughters and left.
Johnny was alone, broken, and drowning.
And then June Carter saved his life.
June Carter was a country music star, part of the legendary Carter Family. She and Johnny had been performing together since the late 1950s.
She saw what the pills were doing to him. She staged interventions. She pulled him back from suicide attempts. She refused to give up on him.
In 1968, Johnny proposed to June on stage during a concert. She said yes.
They married, and June became his anchor. She kept him alive. She wasn't perfect—Johnny relapsed, struggled, fell back into addiction multiple times—but she stayed.
And Johnny started using his fame for something bigger than himself.
In 1968, Johnny Cash recorded a live album at Folsom Prison in California. It was a radical idea—most artists didn't perform for inmates.
But Johnny didn't see inmates as criminals. He saw them as people the world had thrown away. People like him—broken, rejected, struggling.
The Folsom concert was electric. Inmates cheered, shouted, stomped. They treated Johnny like a hero because he was one of the only people who saw them as human.
"Folsom Prison Blues," performed inside Folsom Prison, became one of the most iconic live recordings in music history.
A year later, he did it again at San Quentin Prison. That concert launched the career of a young inmate in the audience—Merle Haggard—who was so moved by Cash's performance that he decided to pursue music after his release.
Johnny Cash became the voice of the voiceless: prisoners, the poor, the forgotten.
He wore black on stage—not as a fashion statement, but as a statement of solidarity. He explained it in his song "Man in Black":
"I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, / Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town."
But by the 1980s and early 90s, Johnny's career had stalled. New country artists dominated the charts. Johnny was seen as a relic, a has-been.
Record labels dropped him. Radio stations stopped playing his music. He was forgotten.
In 1993, producer Rick Rubin approached Johnny with an idea: strip everything down. Just Johnny, his guitar, and his voice. Record old songs, new songs, covers—whatever felt real.
The result was American Recordings (1994)—a raw, haunting album that reintroduced Johnny Cash to a new generation.
He covered Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" in 2002. The music video, directed by Mark Romanek, showed Johnny—old, frail, confronting his mortality—singing about pain, regret, and loss.
It became one of the most powerful music videos ever made.
Trent Reznor, who wrote "Hurt," said after seeing Cash's version: "That song isn't mine anymore. It's his."
But Johnny was dying.
June Carter Cash died on May 15, 2003, from complications after heart surgery. Johnny was devastated.
Four months later, on September 12, 2003, Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes. He was 71 years old.
He died of a broken heart, friends said. He couldn't live without June.
Johnny Cash spent his life carrying the weight of his brother's death and his father's rejection.
He turned that pain into music that spoke for people who had no voice: prisoners, addicts, the poor, the broken.
He wasn't a saint. He was a man who struggled with addiction, made terrible mistakes, hurt people he loved.
But he was also a man who refused to let his pain destroy him. He used it. He turned it into something that mattered.
His brother died horribly when he was 12.
His father blamed him.
He became an addict, a prisoner of his own guilt.
And then he became the voice of every forgotten person in America.
He died four months after June, heartbroken and alone.
But his voice never left.
 
gopher_byrd

gopher_byrd

Cranky Old Fart
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
Busy weekend for me. Wine club pickup party tonight. Tomorrow will be MG class then two more wine club pickups...

This where our MG class will be tomorrow. The class is on plant identification. Beautiful place and we had the plant id class here when I was a trainee 2 years ago.
 
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