I hear the train a-comin"

On this day in 1968 Johnny Cash performed two concerts at Folsom Prison in California, one at 9:40 AM, the other at 12:40 PM. The album recorded from the two sets was released in May of that year and helped resuscitate the singer's flagging career. He was 35.

Cash wrote "Folsom Prison Blues" in 1955. It's about a man stuck in Folsom Prison for not listening to his mother. (She'd urged him not to play with guns, but he subsequently shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.) Johnny Cash appears three times in A Book of Ages. The most poignant anecdote is about the time he met June Carter. It was love at first sight, but as so often happens in country music, Miss Cash was already married.

Joe Bananas

In October 1964, Guiseppe Bonanno, a.k.a. “Joe Bananas”, was allegedly kidnapped by alleged mob rivals Peter and Nino Magaddino, while allegedly walking down Park Avenue in New York City. Bonanno was allegedly released after he agreed to retire from the business he was engaged in. But according to Sam “The Plumber” Decavalcante, none of this ever happened. Mr. Bonanno was 59. He appears five times in A Book of Ages.

I leavened the mixture of sports heroes, rock stars, politicians, film actors, authors and artists with a selection of anti-heroes, rogues, bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde, and a few murderers. It gave the book more flavor. Bonanno finally died of natural causes in Tucson, Arizona at age 97. Clean living and regular habits, I guess. After the boss's death, Joseph "Big Joey" Massino and Richard "Shellackhead" Cantarella immediately started singing to the Feds.

Jesse James

On August 21, 1863, Jesse James rode with Quantrill’s Raiders in their attack on the abolitionist community of Lawrence, Kansas. 150 men, women, and children were murdered. James was 15.

Tea Party

On August 16, 1773, Paul Revere dressed up like an Indian and took part in the violent takeover and looting of a commercial merchant vessel sitting in Boston harbor. He was 38, a successful silversmith, engraver and part-time dentist, a businessman with a family to support and plenty to lose if he were caught and tried for this kind of hooliganism. But he did it anyway. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Paul Revere appears four times in A Book of Ages.

O. J.

Today is O. J. Simpson's 62nd birthday. Few people appear in so many categories of the popular imagination: star athlete, film actor, pleasant TV pitchman, celebrity, criminal defendant, armed robber, con (in both senses of the word.) Juice appears three times in A Book of Ages: winning the Heisman Trophy at age 21, running through airports for Hertz Rent-a-Car at 29, becoming a widower at 47. I doubt we'll ever drink another glass of orange juice without seeing his smiling face.