I was remembering the movie with Henry Fonda and John Carradine today. I'm sure many have seen it. It was a movie based on the John Steinbeck novel. I've seen it several times. It was about the Oklahoma family that had to leave their home during the dust bowl days. They traveled to California to find work and hopefully, a better life. Well, most have read or seen the story.

My dad was born in 1923 back in the hills of east Texas. Small town of Mt. Pleasant. He had three brothers and two sisters. Often times, I would ask him, or my uncles, or my aunts, how it was back in those days. They would tell me of the time when my grandfather, a jolly old hillbilly Irishman, won the Titus county fiddle championship. His prize, was a fifty pound bag of flour. Pretty good prize back in those days. You see, everyone was poor then. while the hustling, bustling northern US. was enjoying times of prosperity, the people of the mid south were barely scraping by. They had no electricity. No inside plumbing. Candlelight and a wood burning stove was how they had light, heat and a way of cooking their food, which most of the time was beans and tators. Somehow, they did manage to have a guitar or two to play. They all were very musical. Hard to be of Irish descent and not be musical.

The extent of my dads education was to the fifth grade. He was fifteen in the fifth grade. The rest of the family, likewise. You see, they all had to try and work. No time for school. The cotton fields was where they spent there days. Every now and then, my dad and uncle Joe would go to the movie house in nearby Greenville and sell popcorn for extra money. This was how it was back then. People just trying to get by. I asked them a few times, about how it was back in the great depression. They all would tell me, we never really knew what was going on. We didn't have anything anyway so, it really did not effect us one way or the other.

The times grew harder. They decided to move out west, where there was promise of work. Went to Plainview for a spell. Picked cotton and found a few odd jobs here and there. But, still, they struggled. They moved further west. Found jobs in farm camps. My Grandma would tell me that they lived in these little shacks in the compounds. They picked fruit or cotton or whatever they could find for work, and lived in these little shacks. They made just enough money she would tell me, to be able to by food for the day. Not much left. They bought their food at the company store. A place in the camp that provided food for the migrant workers. Of course, at a high cost relatively speaking. But, they got by. Eventually, they moved to Arizona and California, got married, raised their own families and did a little better. Stll, with the lack of education, all of them had to go the manual labor road to make a living. But, they were glad to have work of any kind. As long as they had a roof over their head, a few squares a day and a guitar to play, they were happy.

When I watch The Grapes of Wrath, I think of them. They're all gone now. The last two passed in the last year.

When you watch the movie, or listen to songs by Woody Guthrie about those times, remember that these were real people. With hearts and minds and souls. They laughed, loved and cryed just like anyone else. But, they were illiterate and had not the opportunities we had. Nor, the luxuries we have. These are where we came from. These are where I came from.

Sometimes, I forget how good I had it. All the opportunities in the world to be anything i desired to be. They did not have this chance. They, are the workers. The cotton pickers. The fruit pickers. The farmers. The carpenters. The maids. The butlers. The factory workers. The mine workers. The rail workers. The mill workers. The streetsweepers. The tree trimmers. The lawn mowers. The food service workers. They are, as President Obama has stated, the backbone of America.

I was just thinking about them today.