[HN Gopher] Where Johnny Cash came from
___________________________________________________________________
Where Johnny Cash came from
Author : tintinnabula
Score : 75 points
Date : 2023-12-16 17:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.neh.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.neh.gov)
| AlbertCory wrote:
| With love & respect to the Man in Black:
|
| I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
|
| I keep my eyes wide open all the time
|
| I hold my pants up with a piece of twine
|
| If you are mine, I'll pull the twine.
| quantum_state wrote:
| Very much indeed!
| User23 wrote:
| I highly recommend his autobiography. It gives some detail on his
| time growing up picking cotton, among many other interesting
| anecdotes.
| lotsOstuf wrote:
| Just seconding this as it was one of the most compelling
| biographical books I've ever read. I binged it during a holiday
| shopping trip to the mall 20-ish years ago. Couldn't put it
| down, just followed along with the group as they went from
| store to store with my face in a book.
|
| We sure don't live life like that anymore.
| ronnier wrote:
| > The Man in Black grew up in Dyess, Arkansas, in a community of
| poor farmers working government land.
|
| Similar. I grew up in Arkansas for 6 years of my childhood
| working on a turkey farm until I was 11~. Hard work ,7 days a
| week for 6 years working with turkeys and cattle. Something is
| lost today by most kids being removed from hard work, I think.
| Defiantly brings a different perspective going from that to
| working in the largest tech companies
| ttymck wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what is lost? What is the difference in
| perspective?
| DaveSchmindel wrote:
| I can, from the other side of life.
|
| I was raised in middle-class suburbia, in the North East U.S.
| My family wasn't wealthy, but wasn't hurting either. I did
| well in school, but didn't have to try very hard to maintain
| grades in Advanced Placement classes. Outside of school, I
| worked easy lawn-care gigs with my neighbor and we made
| decent cash with 20-30 hours of work per week.
|
| It afforded me a life of coasting, leisure, and throwing away
| my downtime.
|
| I am nearing 30 years old and just realizing that I'd
| consider my behavior to be bad habits I need to kick. I want
| to work harder, and I have to teach myself what that means.
| mcculley wrote:
| I would hope that there is some optimal balance. A lot of
| my childhood was spent doing manual labor for money. A lot
| of that was wasted opportunity to learn more and get
| experience that would have benefited me financially later
| on.
| ronnier wrote:
| What was lost was hard work ethic and the perspective of how
| good life is now, respect for others, and we've gained some
| arrogance from never having to suffer.
|
| I had an odd life, I lived in the projects as a child until I
| was sent to my grandfathers farm for 6~ years, and after
| that, back to the violent city I had originally lived in. I
| was at a huge disadvantage compared to my peers but from the
| hard word I was subjected to in those 6 years (work ethic it
| taught me), pure luck of getting into computer science
| (thanks to John Carmack via doom/quake), and meeting the
| right people, I was able to work much harder than those
| around me and rise up quickly through the worlds biggest tech
| companies, make a ton of money to the point where I was able
| to retire at 40 (though I didn't and still work).
|
| To answer your question, in my view, that's what was lost --
| a connection to brutal hard work that keeps the world moving
| forward.
| jdewerd wrote:
| My parents infected me with the same disease -- an intense
| conviction in the nobility and virtue of individual hard
| work -- and it led me to a terrible place, the physical
| sciences, where I received a harsh lesson in the nature of
| capitalism. It's not about creating value, it's about
| capturing value. In a low-leverage situation, when everyone
| works hard you are simply paid less. Surplus is captured
| through ownership and ownership is concentrated at the top.
| In low-leverage jobs, this system transforms hard work from
| a noble individual value to a collective curse.
|
| The explosive growth of the software industry over the last
| few decades has led to an abnormal situation where regular
| employees have enough leverage to capture a substantial
| fraction of their surplus. Most people are not so lucky.
| For most people, the system looks more like:
| You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day
| older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don't you call
| me, 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company
| store
|
| and having experienced work environments that were low
| leverage through no fault of the employees, I understand
| this, I respect this, and I did not forget it when I left
| for software, where we have it much easier not because we
| work harder but because we are in a growth industry.
|
| I too found it easy to climb. I too enjoy the "free" money
| from real estate investments and a stock portfolio. But I
| know where it comes from. I do not pound my throne and
| launch spittle as I demand for those beneath me to work
| harder for my benefit.
|
| You shouldn't either.
| diob wrote:
| Thank god, I'm also well off and work hard. But I know
| plenty who work hard and aren't. Luck is a big factor.
| jackfoxy wrote:
| Worked my way through college on semester breaks on farms
| in Oregon and Germany. I can totally relate. The
| camaraderie of showing up at the shop with the other hands
| on a frigid morning, working until sunset, sometimes
| longer. Watching crops grow. Harvesting. It also helps that
| I grew up in the last great generation of feral children.
| We were outdoors all the time. Rain or shine. I get
| depressed if I'm not outdoors enough to this day. Outdoor
| living (as well as hard work) seems lost on so many people
| today.
| itronitron wrote:
| I don't think it's hard work that has been lost but rather
| a connection to 'direct results' which are notably lacking
| from a lot of jobs.
| hereonout2 wrote:
| It sounds like your saying from the age of 5-11 years old you
| worked 7 days a week as a farm hand.
|
| Could you say more about what era this was and how many how's a
| day?
| ronnier wrote:
| Yup, 7 days a week with my grandfather. I'm 44 now, he's 96
| and still going strong but without the farm since he got too
| old to run it and simply retired.
|
| But yeah, 7 days a week I'd tend to the turkeys, cattle, dig
| potatoes, pick tomatoes (we grew a lot of vegetables) , cut
| hay, rake hay, fluff hay, etc. Being 7 years old on a tractor
| cutting hay all day was extremely fun. We'd also make the
| square bales of hay and being 7 or 8, I wasn't strong enough
| to lift them, so I'd drive the truck with a trailer and my
| grandfather would be behind loading the square bales. We'd do
| this for hours in the heat (I had the easy part), he had pure
| raw strength. We had almost 200 acres of land.
| hereonout2 wrote:
| Thanks, sounds different and would certainly instill a
| certain work ethic.
|
| I'm similar age and have been in paid employment since the
| age of 13, a lot of different things through farming,
| manufacturing, retail and catering before I started in
| tech.
|
| I was always grateful for the work ethic but also important
| was the experience of being the most lowly employee being
| made to do the grunt work. I think that gave me the
| confidence to get on with the job without complaint or too
| much assistance, I feel that especially helped me progress
| early on in my tech career.
|
| Still, I'm not sure how I'd feel about my own kids working
| so young. And in all honesty, don't really think those
| opportunities would be there for them now anyway.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > And in all honesty, don't really think those
| opportunities would be there for them now anyway.
|
| Modern governments actively endure that working before 18
| is like chilf exploitation or something which is
| ridiculous as you learn much more by doing than by
| watching videos or reading books
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| My mom grew up in Appalachia, in the same time as Johnny Cash,
| dirt farmers in a "holler". No indoor electric, plumbing, or
| phone. Wood stove cooking and heat. A spring house for water.
| Baths every Saturday night. Their livelihood was completely
| dependant on growing food and lumber. I find it unimaginable.
| Technically I know how it worked, but it's completely alien. In
| one generation.
| itronitron wrote:
| My father had a similar childhood. Grew up in a 3 bedroom
| cabin that his father built, shared a bedroom with his 3
| brothers, and spent a lot of his childhood running around the
| woods with a rifle and trapping animals to sell furs. Despite
| having a very successful career, he refers to this time in
| his life as 'when we were wealthy'.
| freedomben wrote:
| Same, my grandfather grew up the same way. Horses were their
| way of life, and the house was located in a spot where
| electricity and other utilities would never make it, and
| paving a road was unfeasible. The house was essentially
| abandoned once the kids were raised and the parents wanted to
| nice
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| the children yearn for the mines
| itronitron wrote:
| hence the popularity of minecraft?
| bsder wrote:
| > Something is lost today by most kids being removed from hard
| work, I think.
|
| I'm not sure I agree.
|
| The work was hard _and you didn 't get anywhere_.
|
| You worked the farm, the mill, the mine, etc. just like your
| father did and his father did. You didn't get rich. You didn't
| even get comfortable. You were still poor, and your children
| were going to remain poor.
|
| The window where labor unions made mill, mine, and factory jobs
| something livable was quite short--1960 to 1980, roughly.
|
| Yeah, shitty, excruciating work was a good way to beat you kid
| over the head with "go find _ANYTHING_ else to do as a career.
| " Worked for my dad. Worked for Joe Namath's dad. etc.
|
| Not sure I count that as anything "being lost" though.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| > The window where labor unions made mill, mine, and factory
| jobs something livable was quite short--1960 to 1980,
| roughly.
|
| I'm sorry, what? What do you think 2023 mills, mines, and
| factories look like in the United States?
|
| Here's a tour of a wheat mill:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYP6AnNQjNo
|
| Here's a modern coal mine:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwo3slH1wsk
|
| And here's a modern factory:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr9kK0_7x08
| briHass wrote:
| If nothing else, it should humble you and make you appreciate
| how lucky 'you' are now to have found and be good at one of
| few remaining white-collar jobs that pay well. That list of
| high paying jobs is shrinking rapidly, and it's pretty
| reasonable to think that in 20 years, software engineers are
| going to be the miners/mill-workers of the previous
| generation.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| All that lovely prose and wonderful history and not a single
| reference to the well known conditions of working poor musicians
| who turned to stimulants like speed and cocaine to make it from
| gig to gig rain or shine or you don't get paid.
|
| There is an even darker undercurrent from where Johnny Cash came
| from - it's something I've been discussing often in 2023 with
| other musicians - the US tries to kill us. It makes this the
| worst and most dangerous job possible and yes that also means
| Cops harass us. Because of that???
|
| Our music is raw and real - Guns N Roses, Nirvana, Run the Jewels
| - the biggest export is our culture of rebellion that won't quit.
| You can take credit for the good stuff yeah put a song on the
| playlist at the Bar in your Carhart stuff...
|
| Johnny Cash, Waylon, Willie, and the ongoing legacy of "I will do
| this no matter what" and being exploited is no joke. I'm proud of
| the Hendrix family. I'm sad to see this, this big wall of text,
| just gloss over how Johnny Cash got out of where he came from. He
| didn't do it with thoughts and prayers y'all.
| tshirthoodie wrote:
| > _the ongoing legacy of "I will do this no matter what" and
| being exploited_
|
| If you're willing to do it no matter what, you're begging to be
| exploited. That's the entire history of the labor movement in a
| sentence.
| schneems wrote:
| > you're begging to be exploited
|
| A "yes, and" pivot: you're going to be exploited, you
| _should_ be begging for a union.
|
| I've been musing on what an open source (users/creators)
| union would look like. The best of us write software in this
| "no matter what" category. How could we collectively support
| them while they support us and we support each other?
| zakary wrote:
| If you're only sellable skill is making music, and you have
| to put food on the table, that isn't begging to be exploited;
| it's grit
| bequanna wrote:
| It simply seems like supply and demand to me.
|
| There many, many people trying to be successful in arts and
| entertainment.
|
| Why would someone overpay for something that may be seen as
| a commodity because of the overwhelming supply?
| jzb wrote:
| Vulnerable. Not begging, vulnerable. This is prime blaming
| the victim. People who have an innate drive to make music or
| art are vulnerable to be exploited, but place the blame where
| it belongs: on those who would exploit them.
|
| Most humans enjoy music and art. We want it to exist. It
| makes life better. We shouldn't be looking down on those who
| want to supply it.
| bequanna wrote:
| > People who have an innate drive to make music or art are
| vulnerable to be exploited, but place the blame where it
| belongs: on those who would exploit them.
|
| I don't understand this.
|
| Why are only people who make music or art special in this
| regard?
|
| If I am someone who enjoys Software Engineering, am I also
| ripe to be exploited? If not, please explain.
| roflyear wrote:
| > It makes this the worst and most dangerous job possible
|
| Then why do it? You know the answer to this, just like I do.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| > He didn't do it with thoughts and prayers y'all.
|
| Johnny Cash would probably argue otherwise, given his beliefs
| and discography.
|
| Here is him singing "The Junkie's Prayer":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkDJt5GutqA
| epiphanitus wrote:
| Take us on the road with you. What's it like?
| confd wrote:
| > It makes this the worst and most dangerous job possible
|
| I'm sure the Wichita Lineman would disagree.
| swader999 wrote:
| I grew up with all those too but still found a lot of time for
| Johnny Cash. Saw him live once too in a small venue.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-12-17 23:00 UTC)