Glad I wasn't around for the 'Dirty Thirties'

Around here folks used to say the sand would blow for three days straight before the wind would lay. I’m just glad we didn’t get three days in a row as bad as last Sunday.

I don’t know if that old saying about a three-day blow has any basis in statistical fact or not, but I remember a lot of times in the spring when it would blow several days in a row, sometimes with a cold front accompanying the wind, but always with dirt in the air. But when it broke we always had the prettiest days with the most gorgeous blue sky you can imagine.

I guess the weather is really not all that much different from back in the “bad old days,” we just have learned to live with it better — at least until we hit a day like last week, when we all thought the end was near.

There is no doubt we have less dust in the air, those sky days than we had when I was growing up. No, we’re not getting more rain, especially the last decade or so. The farming methods are better now and don’t allow land to blow. By the same token, farming practices had already improved a lot by youth in the 1960s over what it had been three decades earlier in the “Dirty Thirties.”

I lived in three old farmhouses growing up and none of them had doors and windows that stopped the kind of fine dust we had last week. We got that kind of dust in the house all spring long when I was growing up. We didn’t always have enough bath towels because they were all rolled up and stuck along the windowsills and door bottoms to keep the dirt from drifting inside.

But it did drift inside. I can remember waking up under a quilt and looking down to see a fine layer of dust across the quilt. The sandstorms were bad, but so were those old frame and stucco houses. And I’ll remind you there was no filtered central heat and air, at least not in my neighborhood.

When I first started school we lived east of Portales in a sandbox. The sand drifts after the kind of blow we had the other day would be epic in the eyes of a 6-year-old. We would get right into that sand pile and play with the snakes, lizards and centipedes

Somehow last week, despite my filtered climate control, I still had a sliding patio door with doggie door that let in copious amounts of sand. I mean it is bring in the little kids with their toy trucks to play in the sand sort of stuff. Right in my dining room.

Also, despite staying inside all day, I’ll admit the dust in my craw almost got me down. After three days I finally quit coughing.

I didn’t like it a bit, but I was fortunate not to have damage. I’m glad for that and I’m glad I wasn’t around in the “Dirty Thirties.”

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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