Performing legendJohnny Cashpassed away at the age of 71 in 2003 . If Waldo theostrichhad his way , the vocalist would have departed much sooner .
AsFar Outreports , the seemingly apocryphal taleunfoldedin 1981 , when Cash ’s career was on the wane and the singer was spend a lot of time on his prop in Tennessee . As he recalled in his 1997 autobiographyCash , the vocalizer had build up a kind of privatized brute park near his home that hold a number of species . While out for a walk of life , Cash mark that an ostrichnamedWaldo seemed to be incommode by his comportment , a possible result of the bird having lately lose its mate .
This was a problem . Ostrichesare the world ’s big birds , stomach up to 9 feet tall and weighing upwards of 320 pounds . And they are not particularly docile giants . Owing to their size , an ostrich in a dirty temper can much gore an opponent with one of their discriminating talons .
As Waldo hissed , Cash continued walk but began word a plan for when he had to come back the same way . The Isaac Bashevis Singer pluck up a 6 - foot stick . As predicted , the cantankerous doll was still slant for a fight .
“ When he started moving toward me I go on the offence , taking a undecomposed hard swipe at him , ” Cash wrote . “ I missed . He was n’t there . He was in the air , and a split second subsequently he was on his path down again , with that big toe of his , prominent than my size-13 brake shoe , extended toward my abdomen . He made tangency — I’m certain there was never any interrogative sentence he wouldn’t — and honestly , I incur off lightly . All he did was fall apart my two miserable rib and rip my stomach open up down to my belt , If the belt had n’t been unspoilt and strong , with a solid belt buckle , he ’d have shed my guts exactly the way he mean to . ”
One blow from the peg struck the Struthio camelus in the leg , which finally deter him from disemboweling the recording artist .
The incident was leaked in the fall of 1981 , when a voice for CashtoldThe Tennesseanthat Waldo had “ criticize him down ” and “ scratch him . ” Cash was ab initio hesitant to affirm the history , the mortal sound out , “ because it sounded so dull . ”
The injury allegedly extend to Cashstrugglingwith painkillers . The entire event was dramatized on Sky Arts’Johnny Cash and the Ostrich , a 30 - minute programme that aired in 2018 . As for Waldo , Cash allow him remain on the basis before giving him away to a zoo .
