My Johnny Cash Trees

Mimosa trees close their leaves at night,
which is why it looks poorly

When I was at Johnny Cash's abandoned house in Hendersonville I took a few seedlings from a Mimosa tree in his garden. I dug them out with my car keys but I don't think the word "stole" is appropriate!

We took them and lovingly kept them in a polystyrene cup with tissue and lake water until we got home 7 hours later. I'll always remember Craig running down to Johnny Cash's  lake edge to get some water for them.  We started with 9 seedlings, now we have 5.  Mmmmm. I have read all I can about how to grow them. In most states they are considered a bloody noxious pest. So why have I lost four?  

I'm nurturing them like a mother hen and if there's a storm tonight I'll probably run out and rescue my Johnny Cash trees before I put my contact lenses in or put underwear one (that should keep the neighbours amused). I do hope I don't lose them. I know they live in this neighbourhood because at the end of our street there is a magnificent specimen. But that's the only one I've ever seen around here.

My mum I'm sure finds it all amusing that I am loving Johnny Cash right now because I laughed at country music. I am from a house of music that rung out all day long and we were all different. My sister Jenny loved Motown and northern soul and pop, I loved pop and Indie music and Irish stuff. My mum & Tom have always loved old country: Hank Williams, Charlie Pride, Johnny Cash. Tom T Hall, Merle Haggard, George Jones. I always laughed about old country and my mum would say  "when you are older Pam you'll love it, trust me".  And I do.  Even really old stuff like Woody Guthrie - who's 100th Birthday celebration is this weekend! I just listened to his "Hobo Lullaby" and it makes you feel humble that he wrote it during the dust bowl, when just about everybody had nothing.

So I'll keep everybody up to date with my Johnny Cash trees and how they fare.

And in the meantime, here's a very cool project that happened recently. Fans of Johnny Cash were asked to send in their hand-drawn pictures  to make up a music video and it looks like thousands did. In the video he goes back to his birthplace in Arkansas - a little white, dilapidated, abandoned  shack  that you can still see on Google Earth.

WHY is no one making his legacy a treasure?  I tell you what. When I win the lottery.....


THE JOHNNY CASH PROJECT