As promised, I was left alone and given total access to “be creative.” Staying focused and on task was difficult. The amount of material was vast and my mind wandered like a school kid in class. I was so hyper-focused on the subject matter, the assignment seemed meaningless.

At first I felt a little uncomfortable… like I shouldn’t be reading his personal notes, handling his guitars, or messing with his stuff… like his boots or blue jumpsuit from San Quentin! But then I realized Johnny kept all these things for a reason. Collectively, they represented him… his memories, thoughts and special moments on earth. Some were fragments… personal pieces of a complicated puzzle, clues from an unconventional life. Many of his notes, sketches and lyrics were scribbled out on random sheets of paper, crossed out, rewritten, edited, and often left unfinished. It was these pieces that I connected with most. The fragments… ideas he had worked on but never finished. The idea seeds… the work in progress… the unsolved mysteries that we all carry with us throughout our lives… hoping to someday find them a home.

It’s easy to focus on the tangible successes and failures in someone’s life… I guess that’s why it’s commonly done. But to me, those fragments tell a much better story… a real story about a person’s passionate struggle to understand and connect the dots. And in Johnny’s case, his random fragments revealed these things and more. Regardless of what history says, this much I know… aside from his legendary status, Johnny Cash was a sincere person who experienced many trials and tribulations. He worked hard and pushed himself to be his best. He dug down deep inside himself and was a truth seeker. He loved his wife, June, his fans and his god.

After my second day of shooting, the curator (who was also a good friend of Johnny’s), asked me to join him and his girlfriend for dinner. As you might guess, the conversation was centered largely on Johnny. I asked many questions and he shared many wonderful, personal and intimate stories about the man in black… they all confirmed my intuition. Then I shared my impressions about Johnny and showed some of the photographs I had taken. After complimenting my work, he smiled and said, “You connect with Johnny… he would have really liked you.” What more could be said? I’m sorry we never met in this lifetime… but in some mystical way, I feel we have.

There’s one very vivid memory I have never shared before… but under the circumstances, I’d like to share it now. Besides, the statute of limitations for second grade violations surely has lapsed by now… right? I’ll let you be the judge.

“SEE ME!” was written in red ink at the top of my paper. After making my way to Mrs. Storm’s desk, she said, “Michael, a period is a small dot… why do you insist on making yours so large?” I glanced down at my paper. The nearly dime-sized dots sprinkled about suddenly seemed to be the only visible things on the page.

“Um, I really don’t know,” I responded. My answer wasn’t truthful. I knew exactly why I made my periods so big. I also knew I couldn’t tell her. In kindergarten I learned our imaginations were good things. In fact, kids like me with overactive imaginations were actually celebrated. But this celebration stopped—abruptly—in first grade. By the time I reached second grade, my glory days of sharing unusual ideas and observations with others had ended. But Mrs. Storm was a nice person and the fact I couldn’t tell her the truth made me feel terrible.

My punctuation problem (large periods) started one cold and rainy fall afternoon. Instead of going right home after school, I hung around the playground with some older kids until it started to get dark… until only Jim and I were left. Jim didn’t attend our school and I didn’t know him too well… only that he was considered a hoodlum of sorts by many parents, including mine.

“Hey, McMillan, do ya wanna go down in the window well?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“What’s wrong… you afraid?”
“No,” I replied.
“I bet you’ve never even done it before.”
“Yes I have!”

My answers were total lies… I was afraid and I had never gone down a window well before. I had seen older kids do it during summer vacation… but I had been too small to join them.

“Then do it… unless you’re too scared.”
The peer pressure was too much for me. So I went to the window well, climbed through the guardrail and hung from the bottom rung.
“What are you waiting for, McMillan?”
“Nothing,” I said as I let go and landed at the bottom.

Not only had I violated a serious school rule, but from my new perspective the window well seemed much deeper than I had imagined.
“See, I told you I’ve done it before,” I said, looking up and trying my best to sound cool.
“Yeah… but you haven’t gotten out yet.”
Jim had an excellent point. As is often the case, it’s easy to get into trouble… getting out of it is the challenge. Try as I might, I couldn’t reach the top of the ledge to pull myself up.
“Hey, Jim, can you give me a hand?”
“No way… you said you did it before!”
“I know… I just need a little help.”

I kept jumping up trying to reach the ledge as Jim laughed and taunted me. I was feeling angry, humiliated and near exhaustion when Jim said, “See ya later, McMillan… someone’s coming!” To my astonishment, he took off running just as I heard a car pull up and then a door slam. Fearing it was a teacher or the principal, I curled up in the corner and remained silent until the car pulled away.

For a while, I thought Jim may return to help me… but he didn’t. It was getting darker and I started to cry. I sat against the wall to gather my thoughts… and that’s when I first became aware of all the papers that had somehow made their way to the bottom of the window well. The concrete floor was covered with all kinds of debris… stories, tests, spelling worksheets, and art projects… it was like a library of sorts. Many were stuck together. In some cases, construction paper dye had run from one project to another. The really wet pages were translucent… you could see writing from both sides at the same time. I picked a few papers up and studied them closely. And that’s when I noticed the missing periods! I concluded the papers that had been exposed to the elements the longest were completely void of periods… while those less exposed were well on their way to losing them.

By this time, I was rested up enough to refocus my energy, and after a few more tries, I managed to jump up and grab the concrete ledge so I could pull myself out.

“Where have you been?” my mom yelled as I entered the kitchen.
“Um… at school… playing.”
“With who… and where at?”
I knew it wasn’t in my best interest to answer either of these questions truthfully.
“Um… we were all playing on the playground with the monkey bars.”
“No, you weren’t… I just drove down to the school and there wasn’t anybody on the playground.”

Whew… what a close call… it was my mom’s car that had pulled in and left! I suddenly felt relieved that Jim had run away… it could have been a bad scene. After receiving my punishment I vowed to always come straight home after school… and to never dilly-dally again.

That night as I lay in bed, I made three more vows: 1) I would never discuss my window well experience; 2) In the event any of my papers ever fell into the window well, I would make certain the periods wouldn’t fade… hence the oversized periods; and 3) The next time I saw Jim, I would let him know that he was the baby for running away.

After a few more “SEE ME’s” from Mrs. Storm, I went back to making normal-sized periods, but I never shared this story with her. I was afraid to tell her the truth back then, but things change over time. We grow up and often the things we once feared become the things we most cherish.

So in honor of Mrs. Storm, I’m finally sharing this story. If you have a memory to share with someone, don’t wait until it’s too late. The special people in our lives won’t be around forever. Neither will we—PERIOD.