Today, we take a break from discussions of politics and the bailout of the greedheads on Wall Street to offer up some North Carolina folklore and a story you have never heard but might just find interesting if you are 1) a fan of the great Johnny Cash or 2) a fan of Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes -- otherwise known as the American flag or 3) a native or transplanted North Carolinian. If you are none of these, then we would like you to meet us out back and ... well, never mind. Here goes.

In the early 1970s, Johnny Cash was as big a music star as there was. He traveled the country, and Europe, and on his return from overseas once, he was, he said later, inspired to compose one of his most famous performance pieces, "Ragged Old Flag." It was a recitation, using Old Glory as a sort of metaphor through American history.

It began something like this: "I went to a county courthouse square, on a park bench an old man was sitting there. I said, your old courthouse is kinda run down, he said, it'll do for our little town. I said your old flagpole is leaned a little bit, and that's a ragged old flag you've got hanging on it. He said, have a seat, and I sat down ..." The recitation really is a masterpiece and takes the listener through the Civil War, the World Wars, Vietnam, using the flag to tell the story.

OK. Now we are going to go back before that time a bit and turn for another part of the story to Jack Morton of Raleigh, a friend of long standing who's with the Golden Corral company in communications. Jack, a professional photographer as well, also happens to be the grandson of the late Hugh Morton, the owner and developer of Grandfather Mountain and a conservationist and rather famous photographer himself who long chronicled the people and places of the state through his lens. He would also be considered one of the most beloved North Carolinians of the 20th century.

One of the multitude of events Hugh Morton used to host on Grandfather was the Singing on the Mountain, a gospel gathering that survives to this day, every June.

And this brings us back to Johnny Cash. In the early 1970s, or thereabouts, Johnny Cash had come to the singing. He had long loved gospel music, and it was a big deal for him to come to perform. He drew the largest crowd ever at the singing, and today the Morton clan can still remember the long lines of cars backed up on mountain roads. This was before Jack's time, but he knows the stories as if he had been an eyewitness.

"Johnny Cash did his thing," Jack says, "and he was in all black, of course, and afterwards he rode with my Grandad to the top of the mountain. And he was looking at the flag that was flying, and then he just looked at Grandad and said, 'Hugh, may I have this flag?' and Grandad said, 'It's yours, if I can take your picture with it.' And so he took his picture [which appears above]. Grandad loved to take famous people to the top of the mountain. Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams both hit baseballs off the top of the mountain, for example."

Hugh Morton might have been perplexed by the request from Cash, because Grandfather Mountain had to change flags right often.

"The weather was pretty rough up there sometimes," Jack said, "and I don't know how often they replaced the flag, but this one was rather worn at the time. He told Grandad he would like to put it behind himself in concerts."

And this was something Johnny Cash did for a while thereafter.

Oh, yes. Now we bring you to the end of our story. Everyone is free to speculate on whether this notion is true: It may be that the Grandfather Mountain visit had a role in this famous singer's spectacular poem. For it seems that as Hugh Morton and Cash were riding down from the top that day, Cash kind of patted the Old Glory he had resting on his knee, and at one point, he looked over at Morton and said, "Hugh, this sure is a ragged old flag."

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