Saturday’s Songs – Hard Times Come Again No More
Because I was on the road this weekend, I wasn’t able to post my weekly Saturday’s Songs, though I thought of one as I drove to Highland Park, New Jersey for a book reading/signing for my novel, Love’s Compass.
As it turns out, the song I thought of will have to wait – because today would have been my father’s 90th birthday, had he lived past age 76. With thoughts of him in mind, I share with you a song written by Stephen Foster, who my father talked of to me more than once – always with high regard and perhaps disappointment that Foster’s reputation as the father of American music was not fully carried forward to my generation.
My father had a beautiful singing voice, and keen interest in a variety of music; classical, American folk, and contemporary included. Some nights he’d hum a tune at the dinner table and ask us if we knew the song. He was humming songs by James Taylor, Dionne Warwick, and Glen Campbell. He would have heard them on the radio, as music was piped into the operating room while he performed surgery. And though the sound of rock and roll didn’t appeal to him, he sometimes would find the lyrics of interest.
I know he’d be overwhelmed by the staging of this version of Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More” – a song that resonates in today’s economic climate. (I’ve included the lyrics below the youtube video.) But he’d be glad that in September 2009, a popular rock band chose it as the first song of its encore while touring in Greenville, South Carolina.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
- Hard Times Come Again No More
by Stephen Foster
- 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.
- Chorus:
- 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.
- (Chorus)
- 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.
- (Chorus)
- 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.
Love’s Compass – book reading and signing
My book reading/signing on Saturday at Nighthawk Books was wonderful! I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and am grateful to Nighthawk Books owner, Steve Hart, for having me as a guest at his store’s grand opening. Sincere thanks, too, to those who listened as I read, who asked great questions about Love’s Compass and my writing techniques and style, and who purchased copies of the book.
Nighthawk Books is off to a running start. There was an endless stream of customers throughout the day. The local community seems happy to have a bookstore!
Because I was away all weekend, I didn’t post my Saturday’s Song. It’s coming….
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, residents and neighbors of Highland Park, New Jersey
Nighthawk Books – an independent book store, owned and operated by Steven Hart – has opened this month at 212 Raritan Avenue in Highland Park, New Jersey.
On Saturday, February 20th at 2:oo p.m., I’ll be at Nighthawk Books reading from my novel Love’s Compass, and signing copies.
Would love to see you there!
Ms. Maven’s (Occasional) Monday Market Musings – Spinach
Fairly regularly, my mother served spinach at our dinner table. Through the early years of my life I could barely tolerate the sight of it. I thought my older siblings were ingesting something totally gross.
Perhaps when I was about ten, perhaps on a dare, I survived putting a speck of spinach in my mouth. Bit by bit, forkful by forkful, by the time I was in my mid-teens, this shredded green, which came out of its box in a frozen block, had become a favorite vegetable.
I discovered fresh spinach once I was out on my own and doing my own food-shopping. And one day, when I was in my mid-thirties, I found “baby spinach” in the vegetable section of Whole Foods. It wasn’t until I was home that I realized I’d paid over $10 for a pound and a half of these little flat leaves.
The only drawback to fresh spinach (in addition to the cost of the loose baby spinach) is the washing of the leaves. For regular spinach, it’s just a messy job, cleaning out all residue of sand or dirt from the cracks and crevices of the jumbo leaves. For baby spinach, washing seems a waste of time as the tender leaves most often appear clean – perhaps they are prewashed. And the home washing is a risk to the delicate leaves, which stick to each other and can easily tear.Last week I found a great baby spinach product. Noreast Fresh 
has a 9 oz. bag of baby spinach that has been cold-water washed and is microwaveable – right in the purchase bag! There are three servings in the bag – which at Market Basket was about $3.69 – and each serving provides:
110% Vitamin A
40% Vitamin C
40% Folate
15% Iron
15% Magnesium
8% Calcium
In addition to great taste….
And that’s what keeps Popeye and me hepped up over spinach!
Saturday’s Songs –
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
♥All the world needs is love. Happy Valentine’s weekend ♥
And for you loving lovers –
Hugs and kisses all ’round!
Will Valentine’s Day Be Happy?
Life is tricky. Sometimes we’re up, sometimes we’re down. Sometimes we’re teetering on the brink – of good health or bad, of fortune or poverty, of love or loneliness.
Just because Valentine’s Day comes around each year doesn’t mean the day will be happy for each of us.
Think of the people in your life. Think of your spouse, your life partner, your lover, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your daughter, your son, your best friend, all your friends. Think of yourself.
Review the past year for each.
And then ask yourself if Valentine’s Day will be happy for each person.
And then decide who most needs you to express your love to them.
And then, by whatever means you can manage, send your love.
Given or received, love is a gift, that costs nothing but can mean everything.
I’m sending my love to a friend whose life-long best friend died in her arms last year, and whose words in a recent email keep playing in my head, “In my best moments, I hear her speaking to me through my heart, just as she said she would do. And in my heart broken moments, I feel lost without her.”
I hope the love I send her brings her consolation.
Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.
C. S. Lewis
Prius Revisited
I still love my Prius. I still love Toyota. A 30 year love relationship does not dissolve overnight. We are a culture with undying loyalty to our favorite products.
(Can you spell T-Y-L-E-N-O-L?)
I’m trying to be smart about this – to not be blinded by love, to not miss the cues that my relationship with Toyota is threatened.
But here’s what I think about as the unfolding news about the safety of the Prius continues. Four Toyota cars have carried my family and me safely across more than a half million miles. Each of my three prior Toyotas (two Camries, one Sienna) had approximately 170,000 miles on it when it was traded or sold. Only once did a Toyota car let me down – when, at 120,000 miles, the original drive train gave out. It had lasted 30,000 miles longer than its expected life.
Through the years there have been occasions when I have had to defend my buying of a Japanese car, even though I believe two of the cars came from a plant in Kentucky. My defense is that for the past few decades, without the competition of the foreign market, American car builders would not have the motivation to improve their product to the extent that they have. In my opinion, all foreign car markets ensure the American car market keeps in stride with world knowledge and inventiveness.
I remember the moment when I first understood that there are times in civilized history when the decision is made to accept that some number of lives will be lost in the use of a product that has overall good benefit for the whole of humanity. In wars, this is called “collateral damage.” I forget what it’s called in the automotive industry.
And don’t we all feel sad when a tragic life-claiming car accident is on the front page of our local paper. But perhaps we feel a bit less sad when we read about deaths in statistical figures – such as, approximately 43,000 people die annually in car accidents.
We live in a society that accepts that cars are not perfect, in fact, that they are dangerous. We live in a society that accepts thousand upon thousand of casualties each year for the convenience of driving cars.
I’m not implying that Toyota is free of blame in the dangerously imperfect brake/acceleration glitch. And I’ll be hard pressed to stay loyal to Toyota if negligence is apparent in their handling of the Prius issues.
We know there are car recalls, we know there is human error in design, we know there are injuries and fatalities by the scores, daily, from automobiles. We are all a little to blame for any automotive mishap or death every time we turn the key, or press the Power button, to start our car engine.
Ms. Maven’s (Occasional) Monday Market Musings
For Christmas each year, I might give as gifts those products that have impressed me through the year. My closest girlfriends received deodorant in their little gift bags a couple of Christmases ago. I have no idea what my lady friends did with that gift but I am still loving my deodorant.
For years I had become concerned about the subtle concern that the contents of popular deodorants might be carcinogenic – the antiperspirant ingredient aluminum zirconium in particular was getting some bad press. The same way we wonder if the suspensions in which our vaccines float are causing autism, so too there is the uneasy feeling about a connection between deodorants and breast cancer.
In an effort to move away from aluminum zirconium, I first tried Tom’s of Maine deodorant. I found that while the product had a wonderful scent, it was sticky and did nothing to prevent perspiration. Note that there are two components in your everyday “deodorants” – first is the antiperspirant ingredients (aluminum zirconium), then there are the scents, to make you smell good. So while the Tom’s products made me smell good, they weren’t keeping me dry. As this trial was five years or more ago, there might be improvement in the Tom’s product since then.
Sometime along the way I became aware that there was a “crystal” – a stone that when rubbed underarm did the trick! At that time, the image in the catalogue in which I saw this product made it look like the kryptonite crystals in a Superman movie. It looked too far-fetched for me.
Then one day, while shopping at Whole Foods, I saw a normal looking deodorant stick that was in fact the stone – not all jagged and Superman looking, but smooth and rounded – just like “normal” deodorant. So I bought it.
The stone is only an anti body-odor product. It does not act as an antiperspirants (although I don’t find any difference in this regard) nor does it make you smell good. When using this product, you’ll have to rely on your perfume or cologne for that. What it does is neutralize, or perhaps eradicate, the odor causing bacteria.
The CVS near my home now carries Naturally Fresh Deodorant Crystal – pictured here.
It is Hypoallergenic, Paraben/PG free, and fragrance free. And best of all – it does not stain your clothes as regular deodorants do. To use it, you just run water over the smooth surface and then apply it under your arms.
The one drawback is that it does leave marks on your countertop if it drips – so you need to dry any drops from the counter or lay a towel on the counter when applying your deodorant.
Try it, and if you like it, pass it on to your mothers, daughters, girlfriends, and the men in your life (who in smaller percentages do get breast cancer).
sublime days 
Saturday’s Songs – Imagine, John Lennon
Matthew Shepard crossed my mind about a week ago. I’m not always sure what it is that makes me think of him. I do know what it was that day but it doesn’t really matter. All that matters to me is that no other day in my history – not the Kennedy assasination (either one), nor the walk on the moon, nor Woodstock – nothing except 9/11 – caused in me such emotional reaction ( in this case overwhelming sorrow) as the day I heard of Matthew Shepard’s death.
In October ’09, President Obama signed legislation(in the form of a rider to the National Defense Authorization for this year, 2010) called the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expands our hate crime laws.
John Lennon would be happy about this, if he had lived to witness it, and had not himself died a violent death.
…the greatest of these is love, love one another, love is all there is, all you need is love…
Whatever phrase suits you, keep it alive, pass it around, share it.
PS I love you.
Imagine by John Lennon
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