Joe

Well, you know how Joe and I love Johnny Cash. I busted out my CD and we listened to the standards he likes—“Folsom Prison Blues,” “A Boy Named Sue,” “One Piece At A Time,” and “Get Rhythm.” He has started really liking “Jackson.” He giggles about the line, “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout.”

The rest goes on to say:

“We’ve been talking about Jackson ever since the fire went out

I’m going to Jackson, I’m gonna mess around.”

Joe asked me if I knew where Jackson was. I said I figured it must be Jackson, MS; that’s the only Jackson big enough to get in the kind of trouble Johnny Cash was talking about.

“Can you take me to Jackson some day?”

“Probably.”

Then we got to the day care, and Joe tells the co-owner, “Me and Daddy are going to Jackson, and we’re going to mess around!” There’s no telling what they think about me.

Joe is a sweet baby. Sometime Saturday morning, he crawled into bed with me. I woke up and there he was. He started stirring, woke up for just a second and said, “I wish Mommy was here.” Then he was back out. I think I know what he meant; there’s no middle to get into now. That was his place. He’d say he belonged in the middle, “because I’m the baby.”