Truck driving was my father’s default occupation, the job he turned to when other projects didn’t turn out. It was a default occupation because he was good at it, and though he disliked working for other people, he did enjoy driving and took pride in his skill at handling the big diesel rigs. Below are … Continue reading Jack Willems: “Truck Driving Exploits”
1930s California
Young Mother
Paul Buxman painting: "Winter Vineyard" Winter is the rainy season in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Some years the rain is sparse; other years it rains and rains and rains. And when it isn’t raining, and the sun tries to come out, the dreaded tule fog rises from the wet ground and turns everything a uniform, … Continue reading Young Mother
Old Photos: 1930s
The photos in this week's post used to be mounted in a big photo album that sat on my parents' coffee table when I was a growing up. It had a hinged wooden cover held together by a leather shoe string threaded through holes drilled into the narrow strip of wood on the left edge. … Continue reading Old Photos: 1930s
The Canadian Twins
My father left home to make his way in the world sometime in January or early February of 1933. He was eighteen years old and restless. He said he borrowed a dollar from his young uncle, Jack Zimmerman, and caught a freight train going to Los Angeles where his oldest brother, Nick, was working on … Continue reading The Canadian Twins
Old Photo: Willems Family 1930s
During the 1930s Depression, my grandparents, Jacob and Lena Willems, leased three different farms from the California Land Bank. The first was near the town of Reedley; the second was just a half-mile east of Dinuba; the third was near the tiny town of Orosi a few miles east of the farm in Dinuba. The … Continue reading Old Photo: Willems Family 1930s
