Keep on the Sunny Side

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In the 1950s and early 60s growing up in Lebanon County, PA, there was a program on the local radio station, WLBR, at 5 in the afternoon called “The Jack Hains Show,” which featured Jack Hains who manufactured and sold potato chips, which sponsored the show, which he co-hosted with his wife, whose name I forget, but Jack called her “My Mountain Rose.” She ran a mission-shelter in Lebanon and sometimes when hobos passed through the South Mountain and stopped at our home for a bite to eat, Dad would drive them to her shelter. My grandmother listened to the show religiously.

They played old hillbilly music and sent out birthday greetings and get well wishes to their listeners who were mostly farmers. “Well, we’re gonna send out a happy birthday to Elvin Zimmerman in Iona who must be milking his cows right about now. Your wife Mary requested that we play “Waiting for a Train” by Jimmy Rogers. Happy birthday, Elvin. Sing it, Jimmy.” This was all said and done with a heavy PA Dutch accent. Jimmy Rogers would be pronounced Chimmy Rochers, for example, and you never got anything modern like Buck Owens singing “I Got a Tiger by the Tail” or Johnny Cash “I Walk the Line,” but you might get Loretta Lynn singing “The Old Rugged Cross.”

They began and ended the show with the Carter Family singing “Keep on the Sunny Side.” When I taught American Music Studies during the summer at Wuhan University in China from 2006 to 2010, I included “Keep on the Sunny Side,” and got my students to sing it, but I took Jesus out of the final stanza: “Let us trust in our Savior always to keep us every one in His care,” and replaced Him with the people, common you and me: “Let us trust in each other always and keep us every one in our care.” I am not sure if Jack Hains and his Mountain Rose would have approved, but it is the version I prefer and use. I think it is about time we stop expecting Jesus to do it, and roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves. I guess I’m a communist. One has to admit that it is capitalism not communism that is destroying the world—some might say greed. Right about now my sister would be shaking her head at me and saying, “Donny, you always have to bring politics into everything!”

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