Issue 4, October 2009
{
}+previous next story+ Transcript of Thomas
Custard Carl:
Recorded April 5, 1955
Alan Stewart Carl
Recovered by Alan Stewart Carl from the Amarillo, TX Public Library Archives where the Panhandle portion of the Texas Oral History Project (1954 – 1956) is stored.
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Hello – do I need to say hello? Is that how I should start? Should I give my name? All right. Hello. My name is Tom Carl, born on the third of August in the year eighteen hundred and ninety one. {clears throat and coughs} What I got to talk about happened back in nineteen hundred and thirty five, not more than a few miles from here. {unintelligible} – wheat, which had suffered something awful, as you well know. By then, we had become accustomed to the dusters rolling across us – if you can ever become accustomed to the earth rising up at you like that. I still remember the dry taste of that dust. And the way it coated everything, even the food. {coughing}
Our youngest, Timothy Samuel – going on two at the time – he got what they called the dust pneumonia, wheezing like somebody was clutching at his throat. The doctor – name of Trudow, God rest his soul – Doctor Trudow had us take the boy to an infirmary they’d set up down at the only gymnasium in the county. They said the dust weren’t coming in there like it did everywhere else, although me and my wife – particularly my wife, Rosie, you see – we had our reservations. But when we saw the cross out front – a big sight, tallest in the county, I’d stake – when we saw that cross, we thought we’d been given an honest chance. We’d already lost one boy right after he was born and we didn’t … well … with Timothy … {silence followed by unintelligible remarks} … his own bed and nurses with white aprons. I don’t believe I’d seen anything white – true white – in a number of years, dirty as we all were, by no want of our own, as you well know. {coughing}
Well, we put Timothy in the infirmary as Doctor Trudow said we should and went back to our lives as such they were, being as our crop was drying and there weren’t no rain. This was late March, you see. Nineteen hundred and thirty-five, like I said. So you know what was coming. On the fourteenth of April – Easter Sunday – we had a black blizzard like nothing nobody alive had ever seen. The thing of it – well, it was a sunny day, everybody out – and – {unintelligible} – blackest cloud coming up from the west. Me and Rosie and our two girls were outside as it came blowing in. My oldest boy, James, he was out with the neighbor boy in their Plymouth, picking up provisions, although to-this-day I do wonder if they weren’t out tomcatting. On Easter. They say a sin like that don’t go unnoticed – although plenty of sin seems to. And the Lord knows there is worse crimes than young men out and about on a fine afternoon, particularly when there’s no rain – making idle hands and all – well, I think – you can’t – well – {coughing and then unintelligible remarks} – I don’t need to tell you what that storm was like.
We took to the house, but the dust followed us right in. Me and Rosie held the girls’ hands so as not to lose each other in the blackness. Prayer was about all anybody had during that storm. And I prayed for my boys, the youngin’ in the infirmary and James out there in the car. {coughing} When it was done and the stars came out, there was no sleeping. I made my way to the neighbors – Gina and Roland Houghton, you remember them – they had a phone, but it was out. We waited together for our boys to come home. We waited all night. {long silence} No, no. I’m fine. It’s been twenty years. {long silence} I don’t need to talk about James. That’s not the story I wanted to tell. This is about Timothy. Tim.
{unintelligible} – made it down to the gymnasium. I remember Rosie’s face, dust clinging to her – you could see the streaks of her tears, cutting white lines down her cheeks. {coughing} When we came up to the building, we noticed all these people gathered around – staring. It was Rosie what said the cross was gone. And it was. As if it weren’t never there. Then we both saw what everyone was staring at. There, on the bricks of the gymnasium wall was the perfect outline of a huge cross – like those bricks had never been touched by the dust – like if you were to wet your finger and run it across a dusty desktop. Except this was larger than anything one man could have done. We knew then that Timothy – Tim – was fine. All the kids were. And I don’t just mean they were fine that day. They were fine every day after that too. They all lived. Doctor Trudow said there was no reason for it. Some had been very ill. {coughs}
Did you know Tim has his own boy now? A few months ago. Can you believe it? Named him Alan Stewart. I ain’t had the chance to see the little one yet, but they tell me they will bring him by. They live in Dallas now, you see. {lots of coughing} No, no. I’m fine. Thank you. That thing was a miracle. You know that. What else could it be?{long silence}
No. Well. I do wonder – have wondered on occasion, you see – why give us a miracle amidst a storm when not having the storm at all would have been fine enough? {coughs} I think – and I include myself as much as anyone – I think we see Tim and his little boy now – Alan – and all those others and all the children they been having – we see them and we say the winds knew which way to blow. {coughs} I guess they did. What else are we supposed to believe? {coughs} That’s what my Rosie says. And she knows better than me.
Recorded April 5, 1955
Alan Stewart Carl
Recovered by Alan Stewart Carl from the Amarillo, TX Public Library Archives where the Panhandle portion of the Texas Oral History Project (1954 – 1956) is stored.
------
Hello – do I need to say hello? Is that how I should start? Should I give my name? All right. Hello. My name is Tom Carl, born on the third of August in the year eighteen hundred and ninety one. {clears throat and coughs} What I got to talk about happened back in nineteen hundred and thirty five, not more than a few miles from here. {unintelligible} – wheat, which had suffered something awful, as you well know. By then, we had become accustomed to the dusters rolling across us – if you can ever become accustomed to the earth rising up at you like that. I still remember the dry taste of that dust. And the way it coated everything, even the food. {coughing}
Our youngest, Timothy Samuel – going on two at the time – he got what they called the dust pneumonia, wheezing like somebody was clutching at his throat. The doctor – name of Trudow, God rest his soul – Doctor Trudow had us take the boy to an infirmary they’d set up down at the only gymnasium in the county. They said the dust weren’t coming in there like it did everywhere else, although me and my wife – particularly my wife, Rosie, you see – we had our reservations. But when we saw the cross out front – a big sight, tallest in the county, I’d stake – when we saw that cross, we thought we’d been given an honest chance. We’d already lost one boy right after he was born and we didn’t … well … with Timothy … {silence followed by unintelligible remarks} … his own bed and nurses with white aprons. I don’t believe I’d seen anything white – true white – in a number of years, dirty as we all were, by no want of our own, as you well know. {coughing}
Well, we put Timothy in the infirmary as Doctor Trudow said we should and went back to our lives as such they were, being as our crop was drying and there weren’t no rain. This was late March, you see. Nineteen hundred and thirty-five, like I said. So you know what was coming. On the fourteenth of April – Easter Sunday – we had a black blizzard like nothing nobody alive had ever seen. The thing of it – well, it was a sunny day, everybody out – and – {unintelligible} – blackest cloud coming up from the west. Me and Rosie and our two girls were outside as it came blowing in. My oldest boy, James, he was out with the neighbor boy in their Plymouth, picking up provisions, although to-this-day I do wonder if they weren’t out tomcatting. On Easter. They say a sin like that don’t go unnoticed – although plenty of sin seems to. And the Lord knows there is worse crimes than young men out and about on a fine afternoon, particularly when there’s no rain – making idle hands and all – well, I think – you can’t – well – {coughing and then unintelligible remarks} – I don’t need to tell you what that storm was like.
We took to the house, but the dust followed us right in. Me and Rosie held the girls’ hands so as not to lose each other in the blackness. Prayer was about all anybody had during that storm. And I prayed for my boys, the youngin’ in the infirmary and James out there in the car. {coughing} When it was done and the stars came out, there was no sleeping. I made my way to the neighbors – Gina and Roland Houghton, you remember them – they had a phone, but it was out. We waited together for our boys to come home. We waited all night. {long silence} No, no. I’m fine. It’s been twenty years. {long silence} I don’t need to talk about James. That’s not the story I wanted to tell. This is about Timothy. Tim.
{unintelligible} – made it down to the gymnasium. I remember Rosie’s face, dust clinging to her – you could see the streaks of her tears, cutting white lines down her cheeks. {coughing} When we came up to the building, we noticed all these people gathered around – staring. It was Rosie what said the cross was gone. And it was. As if it weren’t never there. Then we both saw what everyone was staring at. There, on the bricks of the gymnasium wall was the perfect outline of a huge cross – like those bricks had never been touched by the dust – like if you were to wet your finger and run it across a dusty desktop. Except this was larger than anything one man could have done. We knew then that Timothy – Tim – was fine. All the kids were. And I don’t just mean they were fine that day. They were fine every day after that too. They all lived. Doctor Trudow said there was no reason for it. Some had been very ill. {coughs}
Did you know Tim has his own boy now? A few months ago. Can you believe it? Named him Alan Stewart. I ain’t had the chance to see the little one yet, but they tell me they will bring him by. They live in Dallas now, you see. {lots of coughing} No, no. I’m fine. Thank you. That thing was a miracle. You know that. What else could it be?{long silence}
No. Well. I do wonder – have wondered on occasion, you see – why give us a miracle amidst a storm when not having the storm at all would have been fine enough? {coughs} I think – and I include myself as much as anyone – I think we see Tim and his little boy now – Alan – and all those others and all the children they been having – we see them and we say the winds knew which way to blow. {coughs} I guess they did. What else are we supposed to believe? {coughs} That’s what my Rosie says. And she knows better than me.
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