http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2012-10-13/beilue-survivors-were-heroes-dust-bowl

Let’s thrust ourselves back in time, say, to around 1935.

Some residents of the Panhandle are old enough to remember those days. That was an era of incessant dust storms that blackened the sky. Farms literally were blown away. Along with the dirt went people’s livelihoods. Dreams were shattered. Many people surrendered to their darkest instincts.

But many of those folks endured. They powered through the crisis. They came out all right on the other side. And when the world plunged into war in the late ‘30s – with the United States joining that conflict in late ‘41 – the nation rallied to defeat a hideous enemy and the greatest industrial and military power in the history of the planet emerged from the carnage.

Timothy Egan wrote a book in 2006, “The Worst Hard Time,” and has been the subject of some talk around these parts on the eve of the showing of a PBS documentary on the Dust Bowl that will air next month. Egan came to Amarillo recently to talk about his experiences talking with survivors of that terrible time. I know a few of them myself and they possess the stoutest of souls.

I want to mention this bit of history as many of us ponder an economic crisis that has become a major focal point of a presidential election campaign. One side says the worst is behind us and that we’re on the way back; the other side, though, says we aren’t emerging quickly enough from that crisis and we need to do more.

Whoever is right depends on one’s political persuasion. Me? I side with those who hold out hope that a brighter future is on the way.

And when I consider how difficult times really got on the High Plains during the first half of the previous century – and then look at where we’ve come since – I really don’t feel so bad.

I am keeping the faith.