Charles van Heck's Woodhull Journal

Good songs survive time because they are strong. The lyrics speak to us even after the passage of time.

This morning, while listening to Johnny Cash’s Cash Unearthed produced by Rick Ruben, the stories my grandparents told me came to mind. My great grandfather owned a farm in Allentown, New York in the 1880s. My grandmother and all her children were born in the same farmhouse. When my grandmother married, her husband, my grandfather was made co-owner. The bank called in a note, and they lost the farm in the Great Depression. My grandfather went to work in the oil fields around Richburg. Poverty and hard work were their way of life.

Memories rose of the people I met and became friends with from the hallows around the coal fields of eastern Kentucky. I taught a few classes in the hill country. I recalled those living in poverty I encounterd in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, and those displaced by Hurricanes Wilma and Rita. I thought about the people living in poverty in Tennessee, central Kentucky, Patterson, New Jersey, Washington, D.C. I remembered the living conditions of the migrant farm laborers I worked side by side with.

And the homeless, single mothers and Veterans living on the streets, and in parks are among those I am unable to forget.

It would be remiss of me if I failed to mention the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Somalia and Sudan made worse by the U.S. government’s policies regarding aid. Hana Kiros writes in The Atlantic of the Trump Administrations plan to incinerate 500 tons of emergency food.

We prefer to speak of “food insecurity” rather than confront the issue of hunger, starvation, poverty, and homelessness. The end of U.S.AID should have caused an outcry of protest louder than it did. The department’s closure was about more than government workers losing their jobs.

Over the years, as I lived in different parts of the country and wandered America’s backroads, spoke with people and listened to their stories, I was struck by their dignity even in the harshest of conditions. I could recount those stories here. Instead, I would ask you to read and reflect on your own experiences through the lyrics to the song composed by Stephen Foster.

Hard Times

Lyrics written by: Stephen Foster

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;
Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door:
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say –
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor:
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;
Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away
With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:
Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day –
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;
Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:
Many days have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
‘ Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
‘ Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave, –
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;
Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
​Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

Lyrics written by: Stephen Foster

The hard times are still here. Matthew Desmond writes in his book Poverty, by America, “Living our daily lives in ways that express solidarity with the poor could mean we pay more; anti-exploitative investing could dampen our stock portfolios. By acknowledging those costs, we acknowledge our complicity. Unwinding ourselves from our neighbors’ deprivation and refusing to live as enemies of the poor will require us to pay a price. It’s the price of our restored humanity and renewed country.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/07/usaid-emergency-food-incinerate-trump/683532/

Image:

Photograph by Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash