Song: Dust Bowl Refugee
By: Woody Guthrie
Start song at (1)
Idea suggested by Randomly Talented
The second round went differently, Jack hung on to his invisible bronco and after a while the whipping wind slowed down till Jack was floating once again.
"Wooh." Jack wiped his four head on his sleeve though there was no sweat to wipe away really. Only then did he notice the mix of confusion, shock, and wonder that was coming from his audience. "What? Everything is under control." He lounged on the wind to prove his point.
"What just happened?" Albert asked.
"Sometimes wind gets in a tizzy. She wants to gust and blow, with excitement, or anger, or even just excess energy. When she gets like that I ride her and help her run it off. Just now it was a matter of wind being antsy." Jack looked at the far wall, or more accurately the wind currents that was there. "You know that you could have gone off by yourself for a bit. I'm safe here."
A breeze made the spirits lounging form drop a bit, and then lifted him none to gently, back up. Before Jack could retort the wind's actions one of the grade school cousins, Sarah, jumped in with the question.
"Why do you need to wear the wind out?"
Jack looked conflicted and didn't answer.
"Did the wind do something wrong once?"
Jack looked like he was about to put his hood and hide.
"I found that some of the best stories are the ones where bad things happened and we learned from them." Albert said gently. Jack seemed to consider his words so he went on "those stories also seem to help the one telling them work through what they're feeling."
Jack looked Jamie's father in the eye. "All right, it's not one of the fondest experiences of my spirit life, but it would be nice to have others to share it with. Instead of always dealing with it on my own." He had hoped to stay away from sad trains of thought and memories but maybe that was the point. Jack and half a mind to believe that was the winds reason for suddenly acting like it had, so he would be persuaded into telling about it. "Jamie would you give me your family encyclopedia?"
Jamie had a confused look but did as he was asked. Book in hand Jack flipped to the D section until he came to a photo of a cloud of dust rolling over the flat plane.
"The dust bowl." Great grandpa murmured.
Jack nodded. "That great, long drought was hard on everyone but for the farmers who didn't know any better than to work all the land they could… It was… Crushing. I couldn't do anything about the drought, it was a balance of nature that had to happen but seeing all those people hurt, he kids especially, made me feel I should do something. I visit as many people as I could, bringing the temperature down with my presence to make it a little more comfortable but my inability to really help caused me to feel useless. And the wind… She picked up on my ease and would gust and blow in her own frustration. With no trees or any natural to buffer her currents great amounts of sand and dust gathered into clouds like this." He tapped the photo in the encyclopedia. (1)
"The conditions became so bad that people abandoned their homes and ran to try and escape. They moved as groups, or just families. Crossing mountains and treacherous land, they had no home, never staying in one place for more than a night. Caravans, homemade tents, and cars were all they had. Always covered in sand and coughing as the dust entered their lungs. Fun was almost nonexistent as day in and day out people struggled to get out of the desert."
Jack had pulled up his hood and was doing his best to hide tears. "However inadvertently, I was a cause of their trouble. Maybe not the entire cause but I played a part."