The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

Uncle Simpson was visiting us at that time and he was on his way to Lamesa in his car and he happened to be passing by Ballard School when we got news of the snake. When he saw us leaving the building as we did, he was somewhat shocked at our seeming total disregard for discipline and order. He thought we were getting out for recess and he was used to seeing kids march out in a straight line and stand at attention until the teacher said, "Dismissed." But back at home that night we told him he had witnessed a crash operation in an emergency. He was relieved to learn that it was not always that way at our school. We didn't dare tell him how nearly this procedure approached the normal at Ballard.

On our Lamesa farm, quite a lot of our raw land had catclaw bushes on it. When clearing the land for cultivation, we would cut the bushes off just under the surface of the ground and wait for strong winds to roll them away like tumbleweeds. They would cling together because of the claws on their branches, and often long rolls of them could be seen rolling across the prairie. Then they would collect against our fences and we would pitch them over the fences and let them continue on their way.

And also, there were many whirlwinds on the plains—perhaps no more than in other places we had lived, but they were more conspicuous. I was plowing in the field one day when I saw a whirlwind coming across the field about a hundred yards away from me. At first it looked as though it had hit one end of one of those rolls of catclaws and was rolling it along on the ground. But a second look revealed that this was not the case. The roll of bushes seemed to get shorter and shorter until it was completely gone. All this took place within a short ten seconds or less.

Then I realized that there had not been any catclaw bushes at all. The whirlwind, at its bottom end, was bent at a right angle and was whirling horizontally along on the ground. The balance of it was standing upright. The horizontal part quickly became shorter and shorter until the entire whirlwind was standing upright.

Do you think I rushed to tell my family about seeing this strange thing? Goodness no! They wouldn't have believed me. Why should I make myself subject to being a bigger liar than I was thought to be already? I didn't even mention this incident until I was grown and had kids of my own half grown. I really believe to this day this little story is one of the reasons my kids think I am untruthful at times. I don't really expect anyone to believe it. I sort of wish I had never told it. But it really did happen, and I hadn't been sucking the old sow, either.

The wind blew more and stronger on the plains than it did most places. So from the time we moved there we began to hear stories about the wind. For instance there was the story about the family in the covered wagon who camped one night and tied their horses to a bush. About bedtime the wind came up and the sand started blowing. And next morning they were surprised to learn that the bush was really a tall tree which had been almost buried in the blowsand. Through the night the sand had blown away and by morning their horses were hanging 40 feet high up in the tree—both of them dead.

Before they could cut the tree down and recover their ropes and harness, the wind changed and the sand came back, burying the horses and the tree.

Then there was the story about the family who went to their storm cellar during a wind storm. The wind blew harder and harder until the cellar shook as if by an earthquake. The man opened the door to see what was happening. The cellar was rolling across the prairie and the man fell out. He ran back to get in the hole where the cellar had been, but the hole had blown away too.

The same wind blew the man's well up out of the ground and wrapped it around a telephone pole. Most of the water ran out before he could get it plugged up and put a faucet in the bottom of it. After that he didn't have to pump water, he only had to open the faucet and let it flow.

The story was told on us boys that we were not used to the strong wind and were always asking Papa if we could quit work and go in the house until the wind calmed down. They told that Papa settled the question once and for all one day. He hung a trace chain on the clothes line and told us, "As long as the bottom end of the chain is hanging down, go ahead and work. When the chain blows up in a horizontal position and waves like a flag in the wind, take off a few minutes and wait for it to settle back down a bit."