Dry Oklahoma

The description tells me that this black-and-white photograph portrays Oklahoman drought refugees camping by the roadside in August, 1936. They are looking for work in the cotton fields of California. Although there are seven in the family, we only see the mother, father, and one baby in this picture. In the foreground on the right side, the father leans his head against his right hand and his elbow against a wooden table or platform. The mother sits behind him on blankets that cover part of the platform. She fills the left side of the picture. The blonde-haired baby sitting in her lap turns his front towards his mother's protective breast, grasping her dress with one hand while still keeping his left eye on the photographer. The mother bends an arm over and around the child. A tent roof, tree, and various household items are seen in the background.While the father, being closer and larger because of the photograph's angle, is the main focus of the picture, the mother and child are equally as interesting. What makes this photograph so interesting are the facial expressions. The father looks tired. His eyes gaze off into space. His hair looks as if he runs his fingers through it constantly. The woman grimaces, looking almost as if she is on the verge of tears. Like her husband, weariness covers her face and body. They have traveled hundreds of miles from their dusty home, seeking desperately work and water.

I've known a hint of that weariness. If you live in Oklahoma, as I do, you know drought intimately. It comes as do the seasons, predictably almost every year. During the summer, the city usually calls its citizens to ration water. Even numbered houses can water lawns on Monday and Wednesday. Odd numbered houses on Tuesday and Thursday. One summer--do not water your lawns at all. That was the year the lake was several feet below its normal level. I can hardly imagine having to leave my home like the subjects in the photograph because I couldn't fulfill my most basic need, my thirst for water. Food, I can live without you for a week. Water, I won't even last a day. I saw another picture in the exhibit that showed flood refugees in Arkansas, 1937. How can it be that one state has too much water while the one right next to it has almost none at all? It we picked up 2012 Oklahomans and plopped them into 1936 Oklahoma, could they survive? We definitely couldn't water our lawns then. There would be a rush on all the stores to buy out water bottles. The President would call a national emergency. We probably wouldn't have to leave our homes, but that same dust that hit the faces of Oklahomans in 1936 would hit our faces, too.