The Worst Hard Time

Every October is national book month. The Utah Humanities Council is a big supporter of national book month. This year is the 15th Annual Utah Humanities Book Festival, with events all over Utah. The OPL participates every year in the book festival through Orem Reads (formally known as Orem's Big Read).

Each year, a single book is selected. This year, Orem Reads is focusing on the book The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan. For the month long event, OPL has pulled together a fantastic program featuring authors, professors, and other experts speaking on the themes and events surrounding the book. There are also movie screenings and exhibits. This year's program includes square dancing and a canning how-to.

Last night, at the good, old OPL I had the opportunity to hear Timothy Egan talk about his book in the kickoff event of Orem Reads. This nonfiction book, winner of National Book Award in 2006, follows five people through the dust bowl, the worst environmental disaster to hit the US. Ever.

Egan said the dust bowl was played out in 3 acts.

Act I - before the misery. The dust bowl used to be the greatest sweep of grasslands found the world over. The nation was determined to settle it and offered a mile square to anyone willing to farm the land. It was difficult to find a plant that would grow there, but the Germans from Russia brought turkey red wheat with them which grew well in the grassland conditions. At first they prospered. People who had never owned anything had land and enough money to buy nice clothes for their children.

Act 2 - the crash. Prices for the wheat fell dramatically. There was too much of it. The stock market crashed. Banks closed all across the plains and the farmers, who couldn't sell their wheat, no longer had any savings. Then the drought and the wind hit. There had always been droughts in that region of the country and there is always wind down there. The only difference was the plowed up fields. All that grassland with nothing to hold it down blew up and became the dust bowl. Some of the dust bowl storms were so awful they carried dust through Chicago, past New York, and 100 miles out into the Atlantic.

Act 3 - trying to fix it. This was the first time the federal government stepped in and tried to help in a natural disaster. They planted 200 million trees and tried to reinstate the grasslands. Nothing they did helped much. All the people could do that stuck it out and didn't move to other states (where, by the way, they were not very welcome; think Grapes of Wrath), was wait for the drought and the storms to end.

Timothy Egan called this living history. It's a story within our memory, but just barely. All five of the people he followed in the book have passed away since its publishing.

I've wanted to read The Worst Hard Time since it was first published. I've also always had a vague interest in Orem's Big Read and have attended events here and there, though I've never read the selected book (often I have already read the book selected, making participation in the events easy).

This year I'm going for it. My copy of The Worst Hard Time is currently whizzing to me through the magical medium of Internet purchasing. I've got my schedule of events at the OPL pinned up and hope to be back there at least a couple of more times.

I'm so excited I almost can't stand it.

Saga of the Wilty Plant

Me: Kelly! Will you water my plant? I just run him under water til it comes out the bottom.

Kelly: I was going to water all the plants and my hunky russian said that he already did so I was like cool. But then the next day I saw yours and it was all wilty and sad and I was like OH NO!!! And my hunky russian was like oh I didn't see that one cuz it was on the counter so I watered it a couple days ago and now look at him! So happy! << picture of happy plant >>

Kelly Belly is pretty much the best saga teller you'll ever meet. The suspense, the drama, the real emotions, all wrapped up in a four-line saga.

29 Years

With a title like that this ought to be a birthday post.

My parents recently celebrated anniversary 29. Twenty-nine years is literally more than a lifetime for me. I think of everything I've done with my lifetime, slap on a few more years to make up for the difference in time, and that's what my parents have given to each other. All of that life, lived for someone else.

Sometimes I wonder how they did it. My parents seemed to have learned not so much how to work with each other over the last 29 years as much as how to work around each other. An important skill, they both acknowledge. The dinner conversation is always fun as Ma and Pa think they've communicated perfectly when really I'm the only one that understands what they've said and also that they have no idea what each other has said. When it matters I point it out (Pa thinks Ma has told him to do something when Ma thinks she's told Pa not to do something); when it doesn't, I don't.

But it's always been clear to me how much they love each other. Not a day has gone by that I have seen both of them together (which doesn't always happen, even when I live with them in their house) that they don't kiss and tease and smile. Even if just a moment before they were exasperated and shaking their heads at each other. They would also do anything in the world for each other. Though it ought to be noted that they don't often ask each other to do things that they can do for themselves because they know the way the other person would do it would drive them crazy. Still, it's the feeling that counts here.

What it all comes down to is that I'm glad my parents have stuck it out and made it work for 29 years, crazy in love the whole time. Not because they are driven crazy by their love, but because they drive each other crazy, but still love every bit of each other, even the craziest of the crazy bits.

Happy 29 years, Ma and Pa. Someday, when I make my 29 years lived for someone else, it will be because you showed me how.