Johnny Cash was born on this date in 1932. 10 things you might not know about Johnny Cash:
Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas and was named simply “J.R.” because his parents couldn’t agree on what to call him. His father, Ray, wanted to name him after himself while his mother Carrie wanted him to have her maiden name, Rivers. They compromised with J.R. And that is what everyone (apart from his father, who called him Shoo-Doo) called him. It’s even the name on his high school diploma. However, when he joined the Air Force, they insisted on him having an actual first name and he chose John, which led to the nickname Johnny.
His elder brother died in a tragic accident in the high school’s wood shop. The safety guard on the woodcutting machine had been removed and a larger blade put in, and the unsuspecting Jack suffered a nasty would to the abdomen, which he didn’t survive. Johnny, aged 12, was devastated. He helped dig his brother’s grave. Later, in an interview in 1995, admitted he thought his brother might have been murdered by a neighbour who was working with Jack at the shop that day and disappeared after the accident.
The young Johnny performed in school talent shows, and his mother, who had a musical bent, playing Guitar and Piano, sent him to a vocal coach. The coach, however, refused to teach him. She feared lessons would alter his unique voice and told him, “Don’t let me or anyone change how you sing.”
During his time in the Air Force, he spent three years in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, deciphering messages in Morse Code from Radio transmissions he intercepted from Soviet Union aircraft. In this capacity, in 1953, he became the first American to learn that Joseph Stalin had died. He relayed the message to his superiors, who directly informed President Eisenhower.
Other significant events in Cash’s career took place during this time. He bought his first guitar; he formed his first band, the Landsberg Barbarians, a play on the name of the military base’s newspaper, the Landsberg Bavarian; and saw a documentary called Inside Folsom Prison, which inspired his song Folsom Prison Blues.
He married twice. He met his first wife, Vivian Liberto, during his Air Force training. They had four daughters. However, although the relationship survived his Air Force posting, long separations during his showbiz career proved too much and she divorced him in 1966. By then he was drinking and using drugs, and quite likely being unfaithful. He met his second wife, June Carter, at his debut at the Grand Ole Opry in 1956 and it was love at first sight for both of them. Cash proposed to Carter in front of 7000 people during a show at Canada’s London Ice House in February 1968. They married in Kentucky a few weeks later, and the marriage lasted until June died in 2003.
Johnny Cash wrote three books, two of which were autobiographies: Man in Black and Cash: The Autobiography and a novel, Man in White, which was a biopic of St Paul. The novel was moderately successful and received positive reviews from religious periodicals, although outside the religious community it was less well received. Kirkus Reviews wrote that it “barely functions as a novel” and is “strictly for those with the patience of Job, and then some.” His choice of subject matter reflected the fact that he was a devout Christian for most of his life. He was a close friend of Billy Graham, and became an ordained minister in the 1970s. He presided at the wedding of one of his daughters, which may have been the only time he led a congregation.
Even so, he wasn’t always on the right side of the law, and was arrested seven times, for crimes like drug possession and reckless driving. The most notable occasion was in Starkville, Mississippi, when he got done for being drunk in public after performing at a concert at the university there. Cash protested, claiming he was just picking flowers, but the officers took him to the local jail anyway. Cash probably didn’t endear himself to the local PD as he sent the night screaming and cursing and kicking the cell door until he broke his toe. He was released the next morning, and the ordeal inspired his song Starkville City Jail. Since 2007, Starkville has held an annual Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival, at which a pardon was issued in 2008. “Johnny Cash was arrested in seven places,” festival founder Robbie Ward said, “but he only wrote a song about one of those places.”
There are a couple of interesting incidents involving birds. One was a prank that Cash played in Omaha, Nebraska where he was staying in a hotel with his band. The three of them went to a hatchery and bought 500 day-old chicks and set 100 chicks free on each of the five floors of the hotel. The second is that around 1981 he got mauled by an Ostrich. Cash had amassed a menagerie at his home which included a pair of ostriches. Sadly, the female died, refusing to go indoors in winter and dying of cold. The Male, Waldo, reacted badly and one day charged at Cash and kicked him in the stomach. Cash suffered several broken ribs and slashes from Waldo’s talons. Cash was quite embarrassed by the incident and said it “sounded so dumb.” While many would have had Waldo put down, Cash gave him to a zoo where he would receive proper care.
He has a species of tarantula named after him. The spiders were discovered in 2016 around California’s Folsom State Prison, the setting for Cash’s legendary live album in 1968, and also they were covered in black hair which reminded arachnologist Chris Hamilton of the “Man in Black”. He named the spiders Aphonopelma johnnycashi.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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