Biting the Dust
by Calendar Hacksaw
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Zanutto:
It is with a deep sense of personal regret, not to mention
growling stomachs and a buzzard's thirst, that Betty and I must respectfully
decline your invitation to dine with The Fence Post's crack team of
publishers, editors, writers, columnists, photographers, copy boys, printer's
devils, gandy dancers and other freeloading hangers-on during the upcoming 18th
Annual Walker Basin Publisher's Association Autumn Hiatus, Staff Retreat and
Sleep-over at Cheyenne's Stage Stop in Riverkern on November 9, starting at
11:30 a.m.
I include the particulars for any homeless couple that might
want to step forward and represent the Hacksaws by proxy. Order the most expensive item on the menu;
it's on the Zanuttos.
By way of apology, the bottom line is that our wallets are justtoo thin to make the trip
this month, owing to the fact that we blew our budget
all to hell during October while celebrating our anniversary in
Bakersfield. We had quite a good time, I
mean to tell you, and I will.
Our primary motivation in selecting
"Destination: Bakersfield" as the locale
for our annual love fest was to attend the Dust Bowl Festival at the Sunset
Labor Camp in Weedpatch. We had not
participated in this affair before, and wanted to experience it firsthand. And that we did.
For those readers not in tune with this event, let me
encapsulate (I always wanted to use that word in a sentence). The Sunset Labor Camp, AKA the Arvin Federal
Camp or Weedpatch Camp, provided a temporary home to many thousands of Okies
who fled to California during the Dust Bowl.
It played a significant part in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath,
which made known to the nation the plight of those who were a part of America's
greatest migration.
Well, Betty and me rolled out of the rack early Saturday morning
and motored on over to the camp about 9:00, arriving well ahead of the
masses. We flashed our handicapped
placard at one of the Arvin ROTC cadets directing traffic, and he passed us on
to other cadets who eventually directed me to park off in a field. It was only then that I realized Okies don't
believe in handicapped parking. If they
did, every space there would have been occupied by the handicapped, in that
just about everyone who arrived depended on an assortment of crutches, canes,
walkers and wheelchairs to get anywhere they were going, and every one of them
succeeded in doing so. The prevailing
philosophy seemed to be, "Just because you're a cripple don't give you no
damned right to go inconveniencing other cripples."
We settled into some folding chairs near a temporary stage and
dance floor they'd set up, and one of the first bands to play launched into a
spirited rendition of "Livin' on Tulsa Time."
This song has a particularly strange effect on women, possibly because
its lyrics describe the doings of a male loser.
Females find that irresistibly humorous and worth dancing about. Casting aside their prostheses, they crammed
the platform and began line dancing in earnest, exhibiting all the youthful
exuberance normally reserved for Principal Shive and her merry band of
schoolmarm cohorts whenever "The Macarena" comes over the speakers, in the same
manner that my dog's leg twitches and kicks when I scratch her secret spot.
In little or no time—or three-quarter time—one of the merry
celebrants (we'll call her "Wanda"), lost her footing and tumbled to the floor,
injuring her left Tulsa or something in the process. A call went out to summon paramedics, and a
squadron of ROTC cadets made a mad dash for the Kern County Sheriff's
Department booth, assuming they'd have a radio.
Apparently, there were no cell phones among those assembled.
Well, a full 30 minutes passed before help arrived, during which
time the band played on, Wanda stood in the middle of the dance floor,
supported by friends, while line dancers and square dancers went about their
business as if she wasn't even there.
Only when the ambulance eventually arrived did the band take a break, in
that the meat wagon effectively blocked the audience's view of Billy Mize and
the other musicians until Wanda got loaded on a gurney and carted off to
Weedpatch Memorial.
A number of "celebrities" were in attendance, including retired
CSUB history professor Jerry Stanley, author of Children of the Dust Bowl;
the much-older-than-she-looks former Sunset School teacher Barbara Sabovich,
who wisely latched on to legendary schools superintendent Leo Hart's coattails
at a young age and rode it for all it was worth; and yours truly, who attracted
scant notice.
Anticipating quite an outpouring of attendees, so to speak, the
event organizers had wisely laid in an ample load of portable latrines. As I stood admiring this blue plastic
sub-division of row housing, an old timer ambled over and shared his
recollection of privy life.
"When we was kids, our folks made us pencil our weights on the
outhouse wall every time we went, so's if we fell in they'd know how much to
scoop out."
I shared this bit of wisdom with my cousin-in-law, who recalled
my uncle's outhouse instructions were to take along one red corncob and two
white ones.
"Use the red one first, and then one of the white ones," his mom
instructed. "Then see if you still need
the other white one."
But one of the best lines I heard came from Roger Sprague,
grandson of Florence Owens, better known as the "Migrant Mother" or "Migrant
Madonna" photographed by Dorothea Lange.
Speaking in the camp's community hall, Sprague talked about growing up
in the shadow of that famous photo, and I paraphrase here:
"Everyone always said they saw so much in that picture, but
whenever I looked at it all I saw was that mean old woman who chased me around
with a switch in her hand."
Calendar Hacksaw can be admonished at calendarhacksaw@highdesert.com, and he
reminds you that Sunset Camp was a "dry" camp during the Dust Bowl years, and
still is to this day. Which explains why
all those old Okies were carrying 16 oz. red plastic party cups and making frequent
trips back and forth to their trucks.
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