Permission to play at the Palace. - P26
Someday, I plan to play for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself. Maybe I’ll go all the way to the White House in Washington, D.C. - P29
No Too Much To Ask
We haven’t had a good crop in three years, not since the bounty of ’31, and we’re all whittled down to the bone these days, even Ma, with her new round belly, but still when the committee came asking, Ma donated: three jars of apple sauce and some cured pork, and a
feed-sack nightie she’d sewn for our coming baby. February 1934 - P30
Ma would have thrown a fit
if I’d taken a gift from him. - P33
Fifty Miles South to Home
In Amarillo, wind blew plate-glass windows in, tore electric signs down, ripped wheat
straight out of the ground.
February 1934 - P34
We shake out our napkins, spread them on our laps, and flip over our glasses and plates, exposing neat circles, round comments on what life would be without dust. - P35
all the while I glare at Ma’s back with a scowl foul as maggoty stew. - P42
Instead she makes me feel like she’s just taking me in like I was so much flannel dry on the line. - P44
I sensed it before I knew it was coming. I heard it, smelled it, tasted it. Dust. - P45
The wind snatched that snow right off the fields, leaving behind a sea of dust, waves and waves and waves of dust, rippling across our yard. - P46
While we sat taking our six-weeks test, the wind rose and the sand blew right through the cracks in the schoolhouse wall, right through the gaps around the window glass, and by the time the tests were done, each and every one of us was coughing pretty good and we all needed a bath. I hope we get bonus points for testing in a dust storm. April 1934 - P49
I look at Joe and know our future is drying up
and blowing away with the dust. - P51
I wish I could see poppies growing out of this dust. - P56
On Sunday, winds came, bringing a red dust like prairie fire, hot and peppery, searing the inside of my nose, the whites of my eyes. Roaring dust, turning the day from sunlight to midnight. - P58
I wish the dust would plug my ears so I couldn’t hear her. - P75
Ma died that day
giving birth to my brother. - P77
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