Page "Carl Perkins" Paragraph 39

Although he had been trying to rehabilitate himself by drinking only beer ( but large amounts of it ), during 1968, while on tour with the Johnny Cash troupe, Perkins began a four-day drunk in Tulsa, Oklahoma, starting with a bottle of Early Times.

Nevertheless, with the urging of Cash, he opened a show in San Diego, California, by playing four songs after seeing " four or five of me in the mirror ," and while being able to see " nothin ' but a blur.

" After drinking yet another pint of Early Times, he passed out on the tour bus.

By morning he started hallucinating " big spiders, and dinosaurs, huge, and they were gonna step on me.

" The bus was parked on a beach at the ocean.

He was tempted by yet another pint of whiskey that he had hidden.

He took the bottle with him onto the beach and fell on his knees and said, " Lord ...

I'm gonna throw this bottle.

I'm gonna show You that I believe in You.

I sailed it into the Pacific ...

I got up, I knew I had done the right thing.

" Perkins and Cash, who had his own problems with drugs, then gave each other support to refrain from their drug of choice.