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The story of a young Texas farm family struggling through the Dust Bowl debuts here, with a new mini-episode added each day. Contribute your interests in literature, history, and human nature. The author, Shelley Shaver, will visit the blog daily and respond.

Click on the titles on the right hand side of the page: they are meant to be read in sequence. Today’s poem will be the poem below the others in the column.

Imagine your world is stolen.
Imagine you stay.

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Times are hard.

Money is tight.

Jobs lost.

Homes lost.

Your grandparents survived it all before you.

How?

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Black storms of suffocating dust rolling up from the horizon and turning day to night. A young farm wife, Riah McKenna, trying not to lose her land, her family, and the sharp-tongued red-haired friend who is in but not of their small town.

A crisis of bank failures, foreclosures, lost jobs, and lost self-respect.

All this bounded by the close-mouthed culture of the Great Plains.

A people learning what they can hold on to when the ground opens up beneath their feet.

This is their story.

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Horton Foote, playwright of To Kill A Mockingbird, changed my life. 

Thanks to his belief in my writing, to the webmasters Susan and Robert Christensen of the Horton Foote Society, and to the readers who visit and revisit this story, this site has become the home for Rain: A Dust Bowl Story.

More recent poems appear on shelleyshaver.blogspot.com

Shelley Shaver

 

 

 

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For more on the outcast Louise, in Section I, try one of the following episodes: 2, 3, 5, 7, 15, 18, 19, 20, 27, 42, 48, 49, 63, 64, 65, 67, 72, 73….

For more on Riah or her husband Tom, in Section I, try one of the following episodes: 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74….

For more on the boy James, in Section I, try one of the following episodes: 6, 8, 9, 14, 30, 31, 32, 34, 39, 40, 47, 48, 50, 53, 57, 62, 69, 71….

For more on James’ deaf friend Barker, try one of the following episodes: 62, 81, 90, 105, 107, 121, 122, 123, 125, 145, 146, 149, 150, 169….

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