Johnny Cash – Strawberry Cake | Hacker News Reader

Johnny Cash – Strawberry Cake

playingintheworldgame.com

72 pointsMrJagil10 comments

Amazing story! I’m a Johnny Cash fan and didn’t know this before.

I just wonder if the “bum” wasn’t some modern version of Diogenes…

You would hope . . .

Reminds me of this lady running down the metro hallway trying to catch a train that was coming closer. I could tell she was on drugs and maybe living on the street.

As she was heading for the train now almost stopping at the station, she saw a man lying lifeless on a bench by the wall. She quickly ran over to him, shook his shoulder a little and asked if he was okay. As he grunted some sort of "yes", she then ran straight to the metro train. She just made it inside before the door closed behind her and the train left the station.

Of all the people on the station that day, she was the only one who cared about the man lying lifeless on the bench. She opened my eyes that day and since then I have been – mostly – able to follow her example . . .

It's unfortunately often people that recover from some serious traumatic experiences, that are the most emphatic. They know what it is like to be completely lost with no one to help.

Children are too, but somewhere along growing up, many unlearn that.

> The photo is from the back of Johnny’s album

It is not - from the same series though.

I mean, it's damn near the exact same photo - so similar that I originally responded correcting you. Seems like an easy, and innocuous, thing to confuse.

You're absolutely right! I'm curious if more photos from the same series exist. I posted a comment on the site asking for more information about the collection where the author found the photo. The comment is not online yet. The post is from 2015, but the author seems to be active.

I quit. On my best day I'll never write a song like Johnny Cash on his worst.

   Oh that strawberry cake 
   Oh that strawberry cake
   Out in California them berries were grown 
   And into this city them berries were flown 
   For making that strawberry cake*

   Then I thought of Oxnard, just north of LA 
   Where I picked strawberries for many a day 
   Hard work with no future for the harvest was done
   And I headed eastward a-travelin’ by thumb 
   And nobody wanted me here in this town 
   I felt like a stray dog they all kick around 
   Them berries reminded me of my bad breaks 
   I’m hungry and I want that strawberry cake*

We enjoy our strawberry cake, all the fresh and organic produce we eat, at an amazingly low price if we are honest, yet we don't fight for the well-being and rights of the people who work the fields, so-called illegal aliens, who are paid slave wages, who have no health care, whose citizenship status leaves them even more vulnerable to exploitation than others on the bottom of America's caste system.

“Here am I, and there he is, but for the grace of God I’d be out there.”

~ Johnny Cash, in the OP video

I don't use Twitter (now X *eye roll*) anymore, but I used to try and get friends to follow the United Farm Workers. They post a lot of videos of workers in the field, both beautiful and heartbreaking. Here are a few posts:

Indiana strawberry harvester, age 7.

~ https://twitter.com/UFWupdates/status/1418834775280861192

Hundreds of thousands of farm workers in the United States are children.

~ https://twitter.com/UFWupdates/status/1418836903672094725 (see the thread)

Jose works in the Salinas area cutting strawberries. He shares, "I have been working in the CA fields for 21 years and in those 21 years I have not been able to see my parents again because I don't have legal status."

~ https://twitter.com/woodlandalyssa/status/141781224667613184...

UFW are now active in the Fediverse as well: https://union.place/@ufwupdates

Thank you!

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