Happy go lucky meets hard,cold,Reality

We are children of our own time & culture.

How big of a part did music play in your life back in 1959-60? One of the many voices I remember from my high school days was that of Johnny Cash. More than most, I think captured to a large degree the mood of our society at the time, at least from a teenager’s perspective. He recorded his first song in 1955 and soon after recorded this one, “I Walk the Line”, which became the name of a movie about he and his wife, June Carter.

Here is Johnny Cash in his happy go lucky days singing to a crowd in San Quentin Prison. Now there is an example of ‘hard reality’ if I ever saw one-even in the ’60s. When I look at these men’s faces, I can’t help but wonder if any of our classmates did time behind bars? Cash’s career became a sort of American tragedy but that was later in his life- here he is in 1969.

Johnny Cash was twenty-eight at the time of our graduation.

Much of Cash’s music, especially that of his later career, echoed themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption. . .a devout but troubled Christian, he has been characterized “as a lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges”.

(from the article at Wikipedia)