I just spent two hours watch History International about the dust bowl.

[texanwitch]

It will be repeated later.

I knew someone who lived during that, the stories she told me came alive.

All the fine dust that came into the house no matter what you did.

The people who died and became very sick from the dust.

This is happening in a part China, for the same reason.

[MrsBrady]

1. my grandmother lived through that

my grandmother wrote about it in her "life story" she wrote for her children and grandchildren....

"When I was ten....one Sunday an ominous rolling black cloud darkened the sky and turned day to night. That dark dirty storm was one among many that we endured.

Mama taped all the windows with sticky tape to try to keep the find dirt from sifting in. To a certain degree, the tape was effective, but not totally.
During one school day, the dirt blew in turning daylight to darkness. On the way home, we couldn't see a foot distance in front of us. I don't know how
some of the students saw the road to get home. Mr.---- walked with us across the pasture, but we didn't go straight south to the house. We discovered that we were in the draw
east of the house. We walked until we reached our driveway road and followed it to the house. The strong wind helped to blow us off course.

The cattle had nothing to eat and there was no money to buy feed. The government paid the farmers a small amount for their cattle and shot them. I was home from school the day they
shot nearly all of our small herd. Neighbors gathered at each others homes to can some of the meat.

During one winter, all of the furniture was moved to the basement....it was warmer and breathing was easier.....before we moved to the basement, when the dirt was blowing, we tried to sleep
with wet wash rags over our mouth and nose. Mama put a two-burner kerosene cook stove in the basement bedroom that had only one window. I remember eating only boiled eggs for supper.

Before we could move back upstairs in the spring, the dirt had to be cleaned out. The dirt had to be....scooped into a tub to be carried outside--more like two tubs full."

[texanwitch]

3. All that was in the show.

My grandparents has a farm but didn't deal with all that dust.

My father was in the CCC's and helped by planting trees in Texas and New Mexico.

He saw plenty of dust.

Your Grandmother had story to write.

[Mugu]

2. I remember the 1950s dust bowl in western Kansas.

Mom tried everything to keep the dirt out. Tape, wet towels, etc. but, every morning you could look at the bed and see where you had slept the night before.

[texanwitch]

4. It would be hard to keep out the dust without really air tight houses.

The dust was so fine it would be hard to keep out.

[Mugu]

5. That's true, but the wind was just horrific.

I was in kindergarten at the time, but still remember the old house creaking while watching the tumbleweeds emerge from the brown cloud and blowing past.

[texanwitch]

6. My father told me about the dust storms when he was planting the trees.

The sky would get dark and it would be time to find some shelter fast.

[XemaSab]

7. The book "The Worst Hard Time" is about the Dust Bowl

It really brings home the horror that people who lived through it experienced. :(

[texanwitch]

8. This show I just saw told like it was.

People had lung problems because the dust, little babies died.

It is a hard show to watch.

[XemaSab]

9. The book is nonfiction

and it's pretty grim. :(

[Mugu]

10. When the dust wasn't blowing

there was the Jackrabbits (not to be confused with bunnies.) You just can't believe how many there was. They were everywhere. You couldn't drive more than a few yards without running over several. When you looked out at the fields it looked like the entire landscape was moving around.

Then rabbit fever came through. For years after you saw more deer than Jackrabbits.

Edit to add word that I thought, but didn't write.

[texanwitch]

11. The show is starting again.

My grandparents had jackrabbits on the farm, they were big ones.

I shot a few of them myself.

The wolfs kept them in control until the wolfs were killed off.


The jack rabbits could run, out run the truck.

[Mugu]

13. People that have never seen a Jackrabbit run probably can't understand. n/t

[texanwitch]

15. I have seen more then one jackrabbit outrun the truck, not just keep up..

After the wolfs were killed off we had some jackrabbit summers.

The jackrabbits were everywhere, the dogs would hunt them.

So much for killing for killing off the wolfs.

I had to shoot many of them, didn't like it.

[Mugu]

16. I remember my dad telling stories about counties paying a bounty

of $.o5 per pair of ears and being bankrupt in a matter of weeks. He also talked about guys going out on the country roads and one guy driving with a man sitting on each fender of the car. They would come home and talk about killing over 200 rabbits each.

[texanwitch]

17. I believe it.

After those few summers, I more then believe it.

The dogs did eat well those summers.

[Withywindle]

12. I'm watching it right now, thanks for the heads up.

Why do we have to go to 'History International' to see the occasional good show about American history?

Oh, because the History Channel is all bullshit "reality" shows and Bible/Da Vinci Code crap now. I remember when my ex and I used to joke about it being the "Nazi Channel" 'cause it was all WWII stuff...but at least that was, y'know, actual history.

[texanwitch]

14. I love the History International Channel.

The History Channel is really bad, I call it the WWII channel.

I always check on the HI website see what is coming.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

18. History Channel is more of the NASCAR / pawn shop channel now...

they went totally lowbrow... the result of some marketing genius I'm sure.