"The Dustbowl" by Ken Burns on PBS.

[bobabode]

I have just watched part two and cannot recommend this enough. It is by far the best documentary that I have seen regarding this man made calamity on the southern Great Plains. It'll break your heart and leave you weepin' (fair warning) but it will also leave you with a sense of pride and disgust in your fellow Americans. Pride that these farmers who through no real fault of their own suffered but persevered through the Great Depression, disgust in how they were driven from their homes by the bankers and the drought and how they were treated once they arrived here in California.

Everyone with a lick of education has read the "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. There's another author by the name of Sanora Babbs whose work detailing the travails of the Dustbowl refugees in California was shared with Steinbeck by her FSA (Farm Security Administration) boss Tom Collins that inspired Steinbeck. Her own novel was shelved by Random House until publication in 2004. "Whose Names Are Unknown" is the title. I'll be putting this one on my reading list.

I think I'll spin me up some Woody Guthrie here on this Thanksgiving 2012, almost eighty years after it started and think about this hard tale.

Peace, Bob