Spending a night in Folsom Prison

 

Spending a night in Folsom Prison

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for January 16, 2023

I had lunch with my old buddy, Steve "Cuds" Cuddihy on Thursday.  We hadn't seen each other in awhile so we had a pleasant time catching up primarily on Fantasy Sports, but we fit some other chit chat topics in there as well.

On Friday night, Miss Sheri and I found ourselves in Folsom Prison.  At least it looked a lot like Folsom Prison.  It was actually a theatrical experience meant to re-create the concert that Johnny Cash and his band played in Folsom Prison back in 1968.

If you've ever seen the movie Walk the Line, you'll know the story of the man in black, Johnny Cash.  This is from the Folsom Prison Experience Website "This fun semi-immersive drama delivers a high intensity recreation of one of Johnny Cash's most important days in his musical career.  Now in hind sight, it's amazing how well everything turned out as Johnny was in a pretty bad funk at the time.  Johnny's first marriage was ended that exact day and this effected him deeply.  The band had a hard time getting Johnny interested in recording in the studio so they decided to record LIVE in a prison.  What could go wrong?  Well come and find out just how drama filled this day was.  The now seemingly simple act of recording a show for a record in front of a captive audience in a prison was anything but simple.  The Folsom Prison Experience is directed by Stephanie Long and takes you back to this special day and gives you the drama of the day."

Jay Ernest played Johnny Cash and apparently has been the front man for a band called Church of Cash for some time.  He does a really nice job playing the part and sounds a lot like him.  Kat Perkins played June Carter and was also great.  She was a former semi-finalist on The Voice.  

Granted the music is all from an era that is a little before both of our times, we ended up really enjoying it.  It was a nice mix of a concert and an interactive play where the audience got to feel like they were part of the show.  

On Saturday night, we headed down to Minneapolis to watch our Minnesota Timberwolves take on the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cleveland features a couple of Timberwolves stars of the past.  Both Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love played in the game and each of them received a warm welcome from the crowd at Target Center.  Minnesota Nice prevails.

The home team put on a good show and won the game by a score of 110-102.  We had a nice time cheering them on to victory.

The highlight of the weekend was going to see the NFL Playoff matchup between our Minnesota Vikings and the New York Giants.  We've seen a lot of exciting football this year so we were geared up for another thrilling game.

US Bank Stadium was as full as we've ever seen it when we arrived.  People were pumped up like these two who appeared as if they were ready to start pillaging the food court at any moment.

We believed our Vikings were in for a win.  We believe in a lot of things that don't come true.

We enjoyed watching local celebrities on the field before the game began.  Timberwolves co-owner, Alex Rodriguez, took photos with Anthony Edwards and Olympic gold medalist wrestler, Gable Stevenson. amongst others.  

  One of the greatest running backs of all time, Adrian Peterson, was there to support the Vikings.  Miss Sheri caught this moment when he and Adam Thielen met on the sidelines.

She also ventured over to see our good friends, the Brown Family.  

I love the shirt, Troy!

 I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone the results of the game, but there were many exciting moments from Kirk Cousins and the offense.  They've provided us so many highlights this season and this game added several more.

Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, and the Giants proved too much for our defense and the Vikings season full of exciting comebacks came to an end when they lost the game by a score of 31-24.  It was a bunch of fun this season and now we'll just have to hope they can make the needed improvements in the offseason so they can take a deeper run in the playoffs next year.

On our way home from the game, we met up with Luke and Avery to drown our sorrow in some beers and Buffalo Wild Wings.  It was a pleasant ending to a busy weekend.