So long its been good to know you, Woodie Guthrie

[elleng]

from the dust bowl

[rurallib]

1. thank you!

[drthais]

2. oh man

two hours of dust-bowl tragedy was exhausting!
and it was only PART 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ineeda]

4. Depressing, yes, but I learned

a whole lot -- especially that it was a man-made disaster, the worst environmental disaster in our history, by far. I hadn't read anything about it. My parents lived during that era but they talked about the Great Depression and WWII, not the Dust Bowl. My only exposure was 'The Grapes of Wrath'.

[classof56]

5. My parents lived in Oklahoma during that time yet like yours,

they never once talked about the Dust Bowl. A year or so after I was born, they, like the Joads, left for the Northwest, where other family members had settled. For the rest of his long life, my father constantly bemoaned his fate during "That Great Depression", but again, nary a word about the Dust Bowl and its awful aftermath. Curious...wish now I'd asked more. I recommend a book by Timothy Egan, "The Worst Hard Time", about Dust Bowl survivors. Very enlightening. I recorded Ken Burns' program, will watch when I can screw up the courage. Guess it will be good to learn more about what I survived but was too young to remember.

[allan01]

3. re: So long its been good to know you, Woodie Guthrie

thanks for posting . havent heard that in a long time
love what the sticker says on his guitar, "this machine kills faciasts"

[jtuck004]

6. Watching the special and being from Oklahoma it's interesting to see what wasn't

presented in school...learned a lot of this from other studies on my own, but it's nice to see it in a more popular form.

My wife's mom lives with us now, and talked about those days living through some of that, laughing (now) about the chickens going to bed in mid-afternoon 'cause they thought it was night...other things.

[elleng]

7. Interesting for all of us, whether in the area or not, to see what wasn't presented in school.

I have very vague recollections of learning about this. From the east.

Related to 'what wasn't presented in school,' a high school classmate, now a retired teacher in Yorktown, VA, has written a history book, don't know the title, but includes history INCLUDING slavery, in her 'neighborhood.' Hope to visit her there, take an historic tour, and buy her book.

[jtuck004]

8. I wonder how much easier it would be if 311 million people had been through schools

where they stressed how we had already caused one environmental disaster, to convince them that we are about to do it again, though on a much larger scale.

I understand how leaving detail out can make people more manageable, sway their opinions so you can turn them into the working poor, but that seems as short-sighted as any vulture fund capitalist out for short-term gains.

[jtuck004]

9. So we were watching the second part tonight, and they showed the

segment about the kids dresses being made from the flour and feed sacks.

Grandma remembered that in the late 40's, after the war, she was working for Texaco in their accounting department. She remembered that her mom had made clothes like that for them in the Depression, so she bought some flour sacks and made a dress for work. Her co-workers thought it was really pretty, she said.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

10. I hope they continue to show Burn's Dust Bowl. Every American ought to see it. Apparently not

taught in even the local schools. I knew a fair amount about the the dust bowl, but this show really filled in the missing pieces.

And thank goodness for Woody Guthrie. Hero.