March 22, 2011

Hometown Flavor - Living in the Dust Bowl

"A dust storm rolls through Lubbock in 1938. Improved agriculture techniques revolutionized farming in the 1950s, which reduced the number of fierce dust storms in West Texas." source;Doug Hensley- Lubbock Centennial

My front porch today

* "People could see the menacing clouds methodically moving toward town. It wouldn’t be long before darkness settled in, and it was still the middle of the day.

  Tornado?

  Not this time. It was another weather phenomenon all too familiar to West Texans: the dust storm." 



My mother was born here in Lubbock, and grew up here as well. I can remember her telling me stories about the  rolling red clouds of dust visible from miles away. A flurry of activity would ensue as people scooped up children playing in yards and plucked laundry from the clothes line. I remember my mom telling me about a time she was caught walking home from school in her little dress -  her legs being sandblasted as she scurried for home. I also remember stories of how it was necessary to place a wet bandana over your nose and mouth so that you could breathe inside your own home and of neighbors cleaning up the aftermath with shovels; shoveling up drifts of sand from between the houses as if it were snow.


While it's true that agricultural improvements have made tremendous progress in the area of "sand fighting" we still get pummeled yearly with multiple dust storms and with Spring comes the onset of dust storm season. True to form, we are having dust today and though today's blowing dust left it's calling card on my front porch;today's storm isn't too bad( I promise to take a picture of the next really gnarly storm for you) those of us that live here know this is only the beginning of dust storm season - batton down the hatches West Texas-here comes the dust.


* Dough Hensley - The Lubbock Centennial

1 comments:

Splurge Sisters said...

This is really interesting, I've never been to Texas but had a best friend from there when I was younger. I enjoyed reading this post.