RUBY LEE
The newspapers reported so many dusters in spring of 1939 they ran out of descriptions. Dusty conditions across Oklahoma, moderate- to gale-force winds carrying considerable dust in southwestern Kansas, frequent dust storms in Texas, local soils blowing in isolated parts of the Dust Bowl, widespread storms, a black gale here, a light dusting there, much erosion in farm fields, with gusting dust killing or damaging young seeds in all blowing areas. Dust made visibility low one day, cut it to one hundred yards the next, then reduced visibility decidedly. But never a drop of rain.
I read all the reports and heard only Pa’s voice. When it rains.
Waco, as usual, was spared the bad blows. The air I breathed here, at least, was no enemy.
Mrs. Roosevelt mailed me a copy of Collier’s from April with a note she’d penned over her byline. For Ruby Lee, my companion in the air. Her article, “Flying Is Fun,” described how flight offered her a sense of freedom. She wrote it would become just as natural for boys and girls to want to fly as it was to drive an automobile. We’d need to learn, though, it is not courageous to be reckless.
Reckless would be risking my lungs to live in Hartless, I heard her pleasantly oscillating voice.
Chatter barnstormed the campus with news of a pen pal in the White House. I contrived nonchalance, but made dang sure Matron and Superintendent knew.
What really put Clay and the football gang back in good standing happened that fall.
The Hornets had such a winning football season in 1939 they went unbeaten and untied. Clay and some teammates made all-district, and heard talk of college scholarships. The Hornets shut out Hillsboro. They whipped Waxy, tamed Tyler, and outplayed Oak Cliff. The mighty and winningest team ever, the Waco High Tigers—who dubbed themselves “the pride of Waco”—were afraid to play the Hornets (so the rumors went). The good times on the field reverberated, not only on our campus, but all around town.
The coach was heaped with praise and took it all.
The football fever was for everyone except Red. Despite our hopes for harmony after that tapered leather ball united our home, things never got smoothed over for him. The coach held a grudge and a belief that for every slight, somebody would pay. His target was Red, who had the backing of those who ruled, from the superintendent to Miz Wills. Clay thought his little brother was naive enough to expect his innocence would prevail.
“Cannot be rehabilitated,” the coach said of Red. “Inferior and no good.”
The superintendent concurred. With no evidence beyond his streak of vengeance, the coach had prevailed. Red was sent to Gatesville for juvenile training. Re-training, we heard through horrified whispers, in a wicked teenage prison, where frequent clubbings were harsh. Where the unluckiest boys only got out by burial in the State Juvenile Training School Cemetery.
I wrote Mrs. Roosevelt for help.
Thank you for hosting Jann Alexander on your lovely blog today, with an intriguing excerpt from her new novel, Unspoken.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club