Leaving Oklahoma

Jimmy sat in his rocking chair and smoked his pipe on his porch like he did every evening. This was his moment to think.  He would think about the work he completed that day and what it meant for his future, the future of his wife, Carol, and the future of their three young boys, who would one day take over the farm.  But today was different.  The past few months had been different.  It had weathered him.  The wrinkles around his young eyes have become more pronounced and although he was never a large man, the stress had made him boney.

Jimmy scratched his beard and only thought of these past few months and what went wrong.  It started with wheat.  It did them good at first.  It was the crop that helped them expand the farm.  In less than a decade, they went from fifty acres to one hundred acres to five hundred to over a thousand acres.  And since the wheat was doing so well, Jimmy kept planting it with every acre he purchased.  

With his small fortune, he bought various trinkets and dresses for Carol, bikes, and toy trucks for the boys, and a new pocket watch for himself.  But most of the small profit he made, he put back into the business.  He bought a three-bottom gang plow, a tractor, all kinds of various other farming equipment, and trucks.  Lots of trucks. His production not only became easier with the new equipment but faster as well.  With each piece of equipment, he bought he sold his horses until there were none left.  He didn’t make a large profit on the horses, but he didn’t care.  He wasn’t in the business of selling horses. He was in the business of growing wheat.

One day, after a long day of harvesting, Jimmy went out to sell his newly harvested wheat.  Even though he was tired from the day’s work, he whistled on his drive to the mill, thinking of what he will buy for Carol with this harvest. He was feeling good about the new combine he recently bought.  It allowed him to pick almost twice as much wheat and he was looking forward to being paid twice as much as he was used to.

But once he got to the mill where he typically sold his wheat, his joy quickly turned to rage.

“What do you mean that is all you can offer? Last week you gave me triple that!” Jimmy demanded from Tom, the mill manager.  Jimmy was so close that their stomachs nearly touched, more due to Tom’s than Jimmy’s.   But at this moment Tom was focused on Jimmy’s blue eyes.  It was almost as if they were transparent.

Tom took a step back, “I’m sorry.  All our farmers are producing so much wheat, we just can’t mill all the wheat they are selling fast enough.  And People are just not buying our products.  They can’t afford it.  So, we end up storin’ it with the limited space we have.  Half has gone bad before we can sell it.  I’m giving you a good deal here.  We really don’t need your wheat.  I could tell you to bug off but I’m not.  Take the price I’m offering you.” 

That day, Jimmy took the price.  But the following week the price was lower.  And the following week, the price was even lower.  And Jimmy stopped replating the farm, leaving hundreds of his farmland that was once his cash cow, bare. 

He took another puff of his pipe and looked over his barren farm.  If only that was the end.  He thought to change to another crop, if for nothing else but to feed his family, but by then the fertile topsoil had blown away and nothing would grow.  And then the rain stopped coming and that was the nail on the farm’s coffin. It had been three months since the last rainfall.

The screen door slammed and Jimmy looked up to see Carol.  She sat in the rocking chair next to him and grabbed his free hand.  Her hair, pulled up into a bun, had grown dull with the dust and the lack of water to wash it. 

They rocked in silence before Carol spoke up, “Jimmy?” She said with a soft voice. 

“Yes, Carol?” He looked at his wife with pride.  If there was one thing he did right was marry this woman and have a beautiful family with her.  No dust and no drought could take that away from him.

“How do you feel about leaving this place?  Packing up the boys and what we can in one of those trucks of yours and head out west.  Leave all this behind” 

Jimmy shook his head.  He couldn’t leave this place. Although the place gave him much grief it was also a source of pleasure for him over the past decade.  He couldn’t just pack up and leave it could he?

“Soon,” Is all Jimmy could say.  He didn’t want to disappoint his wife but he also didn’t want to leave what he worked so hard to achieve. 

Suddenly, the sky darkened, what seemed like out of nowhere.

“Oh bugger,” Jimmy called out.

“You grab what supplies you can and I’ll grab the boys,” Carol stood up and swiftly disappeared into the house. 

At first, the dust storms were mild and lasted only a few minutes but as time went on they became more frequent and lasted longer.  The family had become accustomed to spending time in the cellar.  Carol made a makeshift bed at the back of the cellar.  It wasn’t big enough for all of them but they were able to take their turns.  Jimmy had brought down the small wooden table from the porch a few weeks ago for the family to gather around and distract themselves with games and stories.  They had blankets around the entry and the small high windows for extra protection from the dust. 

The family huddled there for hours.  Every few minutes, Jimmy would look behind one of the blankets covering a window to see if there was light coming through.  It was hard to tell if it was dust or just night, but Jimmy figured it was best to stay down there regardless. 

Once light could be seen through the window, the family crawled out of the cellar and onto the barren yard that once held a nice full lawn. Jimmy was proud of this lawn as it was the first thing he planted.  Now it too was dust. Jimmy climbed out first, then the boys, and followed up by Carol, helping the little one in front of her. 

They entered the house through the front door.  Although they did their best to fill any crevices in the outside world, the dust always seemed to find its way in. 

Jimmy sighed, “I guess it’s a good thing I no longer need to tend to the crops.  This will take all day to clean.” 

Carol smiled at him but Jimmy could see right through the smile.  The smile was full of exhaustion.  Jimmy was not ready to let go of the farm but he realized he didn’t have a choice.  It was not for himself, it was for Carol and the boys.

The next morning, Carol woke up and she felt a void beside her.  Carol always woke before Jimmy so she could feed him a hearty meal before he started his day.  She yawned and put her bare feet on the mat next to the bed.  She could still feel the dust between her toes.  She walked into the living area and when Jimmy was not there, she walked outside.

Jimmy had one of the pickup trucks pulled as close to the house as he could get it and the gate pulled down.  Half of the bed was already full of their belongings.  What specifically, Carol couldn’t tell.  Jimmy was standing in the bed of the truck, wrestling something onto it.

Jimmy was hunched over and caught a glimpse of Carol to the left of his left leg.  He stood up, jumped out of the bed of the truck, and approached her.  “We are doing it.  We are finally doing it.  Get the boys and a few things you want to keep and let’s go.  California is where it’s at!”

Carol smiled and mouthed the words “Thank you.”  She was too afraid that if she said them out loud she would start to cry.  She turned back into the house to do as Jimmy had asked.