It was a special Saturday afternoon, October 5, 2013, when a guest speaker came to present the life of Johnny Cash on a PowerPoint presentation in the Tea Room.
Normally we are left to fend for ourselves on Saturdays, except for a mid-morning meeting. We used to go to Saskatoon Saturday afternoons, a 1 ½-hour drive each way, but Ardyth stopped those trips.
Instead, she said, she would set up special sessions. Some of us complained in our minds, wanting to keep our weekends free. Others were glad, hoping this new aspect of our program would help while away our weekends.
We had no idea what a treat lay in store.
The guest was Blake Sittler from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon, son and grandson of early 20th-century settlers who broke land 12 miles east of Leipzig. Blake is an aficionado of Johnny Cash, a famous singer who all his life struggled with drug addiction.
Some of us were old enough, especially Gary, to remember Cash at the beginning of his career, a time when he and Elvis Presley sang together for a while. One of the old black-and-white videos Blake showed was Cash imitating Elvis. It was hilarious!
Most poignant of all was a video of “My Lord has Gone”, the last lyrics Johnny Cash wrote but never sang. His sound engineer used the words to show that Johnny Cash knew he would soon depart this Earth. He died in August of 2003, soon after June Carter, his famous wife, passed away.
There were few dry eyes in the Tea Room when Blake finished his presentation that special Saturday afternoon.