Grapes of Wrath? Not here.

Before the sun peaked over the horizon,
Carl would be up and crossing the road with two 2-gallon buckets. He was headed for the school house across the county road where he filled each bucket with fresh well water from the hand pump. Then carry Ing both buckets full he slowly started back to his little four room house where he and his young family resided. He sat the buckets in the house for the day’s water needs, exited the house , and climbed into his dusty black Model-T Ford pick-up and drove off to his WPA job. A job as Forman of a road crew grading and laying gravel for a county road.
This routine went on for months and usually six days a week. A job that was a godsend from the Roosevelt administration. In Washington DC, it was known as the Works Project Administration or just WPA. None the less Carl was glad to have the work. His 40-acre parched red dirt farm just didn’t produce much corn crop. It hadn’t rained in months. The wind blew dry red dusty dirt into the air and Carl could look straight up at the noon day sun which on some days be a tinted a dirty orange. Rainless weather causing farming to be almost non-existent. Again, his family had little to live on but the WPA job certainly did helped.
You would think this was some other third-world country. Right? No. Carl’s family lived on the county road between Carter and Love counties in southern rural Oklahoma. It was 1941 and life was not easy for a beginning family.
Then one day, Carl was taken by surprise when he came home from his day’s job and his wife suggested moving to California. “Are you kidding me,” he blurted out.
So, they sold their tiny house, the 40-acres, his mule with plow, a pig and a few chickens. Then bought a reasonably new but used 1937 Ford sedan, packed in what they could take and drove all the way to Los Angeles county and mostly driving on gravel roads. Once there it didn’t take him long to find a reasonable job. Just one look at this farm strong man and employers knew he can work. So, he worked 40-years and retired with full benefits. And in the meantime, my younger sister and I were born in southern California. We all lived between the mountains and the beaches. Oil was pumping in the hills and schools were well staffed and supplied. Life was good to us. No Grapes of wrath here.