Dust Bowl Blues (Woody Guthrie)

01

August 24th, 1940

Billie Holiday's smooth, milky voice accompanied me as I drove down that familiar dirt road. It would have lulled me to sleep were it not for the constant humming of my Dodge. That car radio was probably as expensive as the truck itself and I felt mighty fancy cranking it up. The familiar plains of Oklahoma flew past me. Who would have thought I'd miss something as simple as some that? I was no stranger to those plains, but they hadn't seen my face in years. It had been a long, long time since I was last in Okemah.

I knew the path to my grandfather's house by heart. I passed his neighbor's ranch, which appeared to be abandoned, and I knew I was close. A feeling of nostalgia and sadness weighed down on me as my eyes scanned the barns and sheds that the wind knocked down. It had been four years now and my homestate still hadn't recovered.

Grandpa was on his front porch when I pulled up to his little house, rocking in a different chair than the one he did all my life. The wind must've got ahold of that too. He squinted when he spotted my truck. I got out and he grinned, giving me a big wave. I watched him tap the ash off his cigarette as I approached him.

"The dust bowl troubadour, in the flesh and blood! How've you been?" he asked as I stepped onto the porch.

"Oh, I'm alive. Can't complain all that much. How're things around here?"

"Real boring," Grandpa said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "Sit down, son. Seein' you stand there is makin' my legs ache."

"Yessir." I sat cross-legged on the concrete beside his rocking chair, not wanting to sit on the bench and get my clothes all dirty. He took another hit from his cigarette and offered me one, to which I declined. He smoked Old Golds, the grossest cancer stick out there. You couldn't pay me to smoke one of those suckers.

It felt strange being there after so long. I was used to seeing the busy streets of New York everyday for years, so suddenly coming back to the country was a drastic change in scenery. I felt out of place at the home I visited almost everyday as a kid.

"How're those kids of yours, Woody? Arlo must be six or seven years old by now." I nodded.

"Yep, turned seven last week. I would've brought the crowd with me, but some of 'em have school. I figured I'd bring them down to visit this summer," I said.

"That sounds like a plan."

It was silent again. Grandpa stomped out his cigarette and grabbed his cane, slowly standing up. I followed him inside that small, old house. It looked much dirtier than I remembered it ever being before. He turned off the TV, which was blaring a Cary Grant movie, and sat in the recliner. I took a seat on the sofa.

"Y'all ever get new cattle?" I asked, knowing the dust bowl probably killed off all their animals that I knew.

"Shit, I don't have the damn money. I haven't had money for much since your grandma's funeral."

My breathing hitched in my throat. We had quite a few telephone calls since I left and I couldn't remember him telling me Grandma passed at all. If he did, I knew I wouldn't have forgotten. I wondered if he was pulling some kind of twisted joke, just to try and get a reaction out of me.

"Whaddya mean?" I asked, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees.

He sighed. "I wanted to tell you in person. This ain't the kinda conversation one should have over the phone, y'know?"

I nodded, biting my lip as I dreaded the words about to fall from his tongue.

"Grandma Rudy died years ago from dust pneumonia. I wanted to invite you to her funeral, I did, I woulda if the drive was safe, but it was back in 1936."

Back in New York, I read in a newspaper that the death toll from dust pneumonia, a fatal illness caused by large amounts of dust settling in the lungs, got to over 7,000 by the end of the dust bowl. I was worried about my family back in Oklahoma from the day I left, but seeing how I never got any bad news about their physical health, I assumed they were okay. I wondered if anyone else had died that I didn't know about.

"Well, how's fame?" Grandpa asked. I wanted to know more, but I decided to drop it. It was clear he didn't want to talk about the subject any longer.

"Not too bad. I gotta say, it feels good being able to buy the kids whatever they want."

"Y'know, your daddy may not've had much dough, but he always managed to provide for his family," the old man said. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. "I think about him a lot. Never did get the chance to apologize to him before he died."

I wasn't sure what Grandpa had to apologize for, but I didn't care. I hated hearing about Charley. He died when I was only ten years old from suicide, leaving my mom, a Huntington's disease sufferer, to raise my siblings and I. When she became too sick to take care of us, we relied on my oldest brother until I dropped out of school to work with him. Hearing Charley being referred to as my father irritated me, even if it's true. I don't remember much about him, but I remember enough to know that I'm lucky he passed.

As a child, he was very open about his political beliefs and was a proud member of the KKK when it was first founded back in 1915. Around 1911, he was involved in the lynching of Laura and L.D Nelson, a black mother and her son, near Okemah. I only know that because Grandpa told me about it and how even he, a man alive during the days slavery thrived in the south, was disgusted by the act. It was rumored poor Laura had another child who survived, but I can't tell you if that's true or not.

Grandpa never said anything bad about Charley, despite his poor character and lousy parenting. The dad side of me understood, but the hurt child didn't care to. Charley was the main reason I shied away from southern culture and fascism, eventually supporting the idea of communism as I got older. It was a belief that the majority of my family criticized me for, but they stuck to their roots and didn't dare wander out of the comfortable, racist familiarity they knew all their life. I refused to do the same.

Grandpa still had his eyes closed and his head tilted back. Eventually, I could hear him snoring loudly. I chuckled and shook my head, standing up. I wandered around the house, taking it all in. There were pictures of my grandma hung up in the hallway that weren't there before. I figured grandpa put them there after she passed. My heart tugged in my chest, but I wouldn't let myself get too emotional.

I left the house, shutting the door behind me quietly and going to my truck. I started it and drove down that old dirt road, squinting as the sun shone in my eyes. I suddenly felt very detached from reality, as if I were watching myself from a third person point of view. Everything from the last twenty years was fading away. Mom was dying slowly from disease, my siblings had all dispersed and lost contact, Okemah was a ghost town, Dad and Grandma Ruby were dead, Mom's parents died over a decade ago, and Grandpa would meet his end soon enough, all alone in that little house in the middle of nowhere. It was all so crazy and frustrating that I couldn't help the tears that built up in my eyes. I turned up the radio, drowning out my thoughts with the sound of Leadbelly's voice. I wouldn't let myself cry over something I have no control over. Not then, at least.