J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

PHB

My photo
Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Grapes of Wrath: Oklahoma







From my tour of the Hi-Lo country. Boise City is the county seat of Cimarron County, the westernmost end of the Oklahoma panhandle. This was the heart of the Dustbowl of the Thirties, and it is looking pretty dry these days. The only water I saw was in the Arkansas River and that was a trickle. Of course in this season most of the year's moisture is still locked up in mountain snow. But there is not a lot up there. The West may be in for another dry summer.
      The handsome bank building and the courthouse were both built in the late 1920s. Within a couple of years the grapes of wrath were being stomped around here, and people were hitting the road for California, where Merle Haggard was born (Oildale, Calif., 1937)

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