“I’m a-goiri where the dust storms never blow.”
— Song lyrics, “Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way,” American folk singer Woody Guthrie.
While in the West Texas city of Abilene a couple of weeks ago, I spent time visiting familiar landmarks. Recalling my fondness for the region. Remembering a time when I lived there not long out of college. In the 70s.
By the time I entered grade school in Crockett, we had lived in the West Texas burgs of Ballinger and Muleshoe plus Pampa up in the Panhandle. The following year, we were back out west in Baylor County just in time to enroll me in the second grade at Seymour Elementary School. That stay was longer than anywhere. Then then we moved to Mount Pleasant in Northeast Texas just as the fifth-grade year was wrapping up.
It’s funny nowadays to joke about how the dime store chain, Perry Brothers, moved store managers like my dad more often than the Methodist Church moved ministers. But for a grade school kid, leaving friends and having to make new ones in the next city wasn’t all fun. Or funny.
That nomadic lifestyle in West Texas, however, probably accounts for my fondness of the state’s western region and my desire for frequent visits.
Truthfully, living in Abilene back then was based on a good job offer rather than that fondness. But I liked the dry summer heat, comfortable nights, and four distinct seasons. It was just some springs that could often be, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.”
Those “West Texas springs” were topic of reminiscing with a friend recently who had also lived in West Texas.
“West Texas Springs are exactly what drove us back to East Texas,” he grumbled. “We didn’t even have to drive back. We were deposited somewhere near Henderson by one of those beautiful West Texas spring dust storms.”
Texas newspaper columnist Clyde Wallace once wrote about those dust storms, “In some parts of the state, you have to live there for years before you’re accepted as a local, but in West Texas, you’re in after you’ve survived ‘The Winds.’ All it takes is one spring.’” Like Wallace, I remembered my first spring in Abilene. I arrived in March, just in time to get acquainted with coworkers before the first “duster” blew in.
Maybe it was listening to me bragging about East Texas small towns, trees lining creek banks, lots of lakes ... all uncommon sights in West Texas. But for whatever reason, everyone in the office seemed eager for me to experience what was about to happen.
Happen it did one day when the western sky got dark about mid-morning. Everyone gathered in the front office near a large window looking south from our location at Eighth and Pine Streets in downtown Abilene.
As the storm swallowed the city and was bearing down on us, a flurry of activity was underway locking doors and placing wet towels around window and door openings.
Darkness slowly swallowed the sun. The old 16-story Wooten Hotel just four blocks away gradually disappeared. Looking at darkness in the middle of the day was eerie. You knew there was a city surrounding you, but you could no longer see it.
Seeking a personal experience with the freaky phenomenon, I went to the service department in the back and opened a door. Regret was immediate.
My face was sandblasted. My eyes and my lungs filled with dust. My nose flattened against my cheekbones. Convinced it was real, I grabbed the door and pulled it shut.
“Bet you never saw anything like that in East Texas,” someone chuckled.
“Sure we did, “I replied, dusting myself off and coughing. “But over there, they blow up out of the Gulf, they’re a little wetter, and we give’m names.”
Just like the duster had slowly surrounded the city in darkness, it faded away. All over in a couple of hours. Office cleanup started, and my co-workers granted me full-fledged West Texas citizenship, including a certificate of authenticity.
The following year, as winter gave way to warming hints of spring, I was sitting on the back porch at my house “on the hill,” as they call the ACU area of Abilene. Enjoying a cup of coffee and the late afternoon ritual of watching B-52 bombers from Dyess Air Force Base on the city’s west side. For about an hour late in the day, they would fly around the city’s south side to Abilene Regional Airport on the east side where they practiced landing approaches before pulling up and returning to Dyess.
Just as sure as knowing I could catch the bomber practice show in the evening, I also knew that winter’s warming meant spring was coming back. That’s when I laughed, recalling how Wallace ended his West Texas column.
“So come on out. You’ll love the summer, the autumns, and the winters. The springtime is nice, too. Ha, Ha, Ha ... sucker.”
I stayed in Abilene for a couple more dust storm seasons. They didn’t seem that bad although it could have been the experience of the first one causing others to pale in comparison.
To me, West Texas is still a great place to live. If you don’t let a little dust blowing every now and then bother you.
