Musing on The Dust Bowl

I've been musing a lot about "The Dust Bowl" episodes I saw. They were just so incredibly fascinating ... and so unspeakably sad. Nobody asked for it - not even the farmers who caused it with their willful over-cultivation of the land. They certainly weren't as aware of conservation techniques as we are today - and obviously we're still abusing the land with excessive irrigation. Then you could say it was a result of both greed and ignorance. Today you would have to say it's greed alone.

The Dust Bowl hurt everybody, but I felt especially sorry for the children. They had to see and endure things children shouldn't. Always there were food issues, money issues; they saw their parents stressed, sometimes broken. Some people never did get over losing their livestock or land - were simply never the same people for the rest of their lives. One girl's mother just left. Another's had a nervous breakdown. Fathers had to leave to find work and the older children left behind had to shoulder the burdens. The children had to suffer through the stinging dust storms, struggling to breathe sometimes - some would sport homemade "gas masks" of goggles and handkerchiefs.

Then there were the little indignities that could wear heavily on a child. One woman talked about how her clothes were made from sugar and flour sacks: sugar for panties because the sacks were printed with little flowers, flour for dresses because those sacks had larger flowers. It was also tough seeing your friends move away; you never knew if someone might be gone by the end of the week.

And yet, like everything, there were bright spots too. One man spoke so fondly of the exquisite skies he remembered between the storms - brilliant blue with lovely puffy white clouds. There was the kinship of family and friends too. More or less everybody was in the same boat; there was certainly a lot of understanding and compassion and maybe a greater sense of community than many of us know today.

Still, the Dust Bowl is not a time I would like to have personally experienced. There was just too much hardship and suffering. I don't think I could have handled it graciously. One couple who farmed in Northern Texas estimated they had ten really good crops ... in eighty plus years! Pretty poor odds. (However the wife, Caroline Henderson, made some income writing about her experiences as a journalist for The Atlantic so, ironically, they were probably considerably better off than the people she wrote about.)

And talk about a shafted generation: straight from years of struggles and poverty as children to heading off to war (or watching brothers and sweethearts do so) as young adults. If anybody has a right to be bitter over their lot, it is the children of the Dust Bowl. But, while the people interviewed all had difficult memories, they also had a real stoicism and genuine appreciation for the good times that you have to admire. I can't imagine anyone wanting to relive those days, though. And it's utterly impossible for me to fathom why people are risking it all over again.