Off topic...
Curious reader emailed today and asked....
A) Where am I from? Dust Bowl area?
B) Had I read the book before?
C) Do I know the author?
D) Do I know anyone in the book?
E) Was my family (grandparents/great grandparents) touched by events depicted in the book? How or why not?
For him and other inquiring minds... I will try to answer....
A) I live in Arkansas....and I've never lived anywhere in the region covered by the Dust Bowl map. Born in southern California...grew up in Arkansas...lived in Germany for 3+ years courtesy of the US Army...and then back to Arkansas.
B) No...but I enjoyed reading it...and just thought I'd explore a few things in the book. I'm sure the instructor...knows the answers to any questions I might have about the book...but what would be the challenge in that.
C) I do not know the author....at all.
D) I do not know anyone in the book...nor anyone that I know has even a remote connection to anyone in the book.
E) I don't have a family connection to the Dust Bowl saga either.
My dad's family lived in Arkansas where my grandfather worked as a barber at the VA Hospital at Fort Roots in th 1930s. My grandfather was born in Austin (Lonoke County) Arkansas in 1900. My grandmother was born in Austin (Lonoke County) Arkansas in 1903. They lived in Oak Grove (Pulaski County) from 1922 until their deaths in the 1980s. My dad (6th of 6 kids) was born in 1936 in North Little Rock, AR on the same day that King Edward VIII signed the documents abdicating the throne....Dec. 10th. That summer (while my grandmother was pregnant) saw Arkansas hit the highest temperature recorded to date in the state.... 120°F in Ozark. 1936 also saw 37 consecutive days of measurable rain.(trivia tidbits) My dad moved to California after his service in the Army in the early 60s. Anyway...more of a rural culture than urban personal connection to the 1930s...but not one dependent on agriculture or the weather.
My mom's family lived in Indiana where my grandfather was a machinist in Hammond, Indiana in the 1930s. My grandfather was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1909. My grandma was born in Hammond, Indiana in 1912. They lived in Hammond until 1944 when they moved to Texas. My mother (2nd of 3 kids) was born in Austin, Texas in 1945 on the same day the Army designates as the end of the Southern Philippines Campaign....July 4, 1945. Post-war, my grandfather continued to work as a machinist which took them to California in the late 1950s. So my mom's family has more of an urban blue-collar background...not dependent on agriculture or the weather either.
....long way of saying that.... no, I did not grow up hearing family legends or stories of surviving the Dust Bowl era or epic Depression era suffering.
any more questions?
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