麻豆社

A fierce drought in Oklahoma鈥檚 鈥楴o Man鈥檚 Land鈥� 鈥� a region that was the heart of the 1930s Dust Bowl 鈥� stirs up dust storms, memories and myths. In this parched terrain of ghost towns and abandoned ranches, the wells are running dry, but the stories continue to flow.

Around 鈥榯he Liars鈥� table鈥� at a roadside diner in the small prairie town of Boise City, old timers and young farmers share tales of dust storms past and present, trying to outdo each other in the retelling of local legends. Voices of Dust Bowl survivors entwine with stories of today鈥檚 drought. Stories blow out like drifts of sand, embellished with fine layers of imaginative silt.

Storytelling spins out of the landscape itself. Boise City was founded on a fiction by fraudsters who enticed people to buy plots of land in a town that did not exist. Expecting elegant, tree-lined streets and fountains, the newcomers found nothing but dirt. And when they ploughed it up, the dirt soon turned to dust.

Millard Fowler (who has sadly died since being recorded) was 102 years old, and remembers the 鈥楧irty Thirties鈥�, when relentless winds scooped up the topsoil and rolled it through the town in billowing black clouds, turning day to night.

Many families packed up and left, but those who stayed have a deep attachment to the land. The stories that echo through it today 鈥渕ay not all be straight down the bean line,鈥� but they offer a subtle architecture of hope and survival.

(Photo: Joe Dixon, rancher and windmill engineer. Credit: Cicely Fell)