An Okie Tale

My grandparents came to Kern County during The Dust Bowl. My grandmother on my mother’s side was a bona fide Okie. I don’t remember much about her because she died when I was young, but I do remember she liked to drink beer and play poker and she had a one-eyed dog that chewed on carrots. . Her husband, my Papa, is 93 years old, drinks one shot of whiskey with a 7-Up chaser every day and doesn’t need glasses to read. During The Depression he built a small station along the road, sold gas and actually made money. When WWII came he was sent to Wyoming to guard the Nazi prisoners. He said they were nice guys and sometimes he would play cards with them.

My grandparents on my father’s side moved to Bakersfield from Texas so my Pop could work as a roughneck in the oilfields. For a little while he was sent to work in Saudi Arabia. The work was hard and he died young so I never met him. His wife, my Nana worked as a 911 dispatcher until she retired to a mobile home in Plano, Texas. She smoked Chesterfield non-filter cigarettes and drank Coca-Cola out of a bottle all day every day. She had bone spurs on her feet that looked very painful and knitted a million blankets while sitting in the chair she called her “nest.” We drove to Texas every summer to visit and the thing I remember most is the funny sayings she used like “uglier than a mud fence” and “like a duck on a June bug.” She passed away 15 years ago of a brain aneurysm.

My parents met at BHS in the 50’s, dated all through high school and were married shortly after my mom graduated. My brother was born a year later and my sister a couple of years after that. They moved to LA so my dad could go to college and I was born there. My mom almost died delivering me and had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks. My dad couldn’t take care of me and my siblings, work and go to school by himself, so I was sent to live with the neighbors across the street. My family still swears that’s why I am so “different.”

My family moved to Bakersfield in 1970 and into a brand new house they could barely afford. For the first few years we didn’t have carpet and my brother and sister would place me on a towel and run down the hallway pulling me behind. When I was three years old we got a pool and my mom would make us stay outside so she could clean the house. When I was four years old my brother accidentally ran over me with his bike. That summer I was attacked by a spider monkey while eating a barbequed hamburger on the patio. The next year my brother stuck a penny toad in my ear and my sister played dead until I cried.

I got even by forcing both of them both to sit on the floor of the car all the way to Texas.