The gumbo of Montana and red Oklahoma clay.
My parents were born and raised in Oklahoma and all my relatives lived in that warmer clime. Dad’s job, working in the oil business, forced relocations creeping northward. My earliest memories were in Wyoming, then to the cold prairies of Montana.
Our little town sat at the edge of the Badlands, on a bluff above the Yellowstone River.
Badlands, eroded, gutted, deep gullies, scarred. Hilly fingers reach into my neighborhood; Hungry Joe was my back yard. A sudden summer storm sent silt flowing down the hill into the yard, covering the patio in sludge, leaving behind a hill of “gumbo,” an impenetrable mound. After a deluge we used a snow shovel to scrape the patio clean.
Hungry Joe; I always thought he must be a local Indian, a legend of lore. But, Hungry Joe is a white guy, who operated the ferry that crisscrossed the Yellowstone River, muddy and swift. He got his name because at noon, no matter the circumstances, no matter who might be waiting transport, Joe walked away in search of his lunch. Hungry Joe.
Little grows in the Badlands, concealing secret dinosaur history. My brother hiked into the hills with an archeological hammer and returned with bone fragments, petrified clusters of tiny seashells, evidence of past Cretaceous sea beds, an amateur paleontologist. He removed his clothes from the drawers, stashed them in his closet, to make room to display his treasures.
And God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. Gen 1:9 NASB
The Yellowstone River, thick and swift, home to pre-historic Paddlefish, with ugly snout but prized for its roe. In winter the river freezes over solid, a mini ice age. Come the spring thaw, huge chunks break up, like a shotgun going off, crash to shore and pile up, with glacier-like power, moving trees, trucks, anything in its path.
Winter roars onto the bare prairie too soon in a rush of cold wind and snow. Icy grains scour low across the highway and fields of stubble. Forty below. Ice crystals glint in the hard, cold air; sundogs run rings around the early morning sun. Forty below. Winter stays too long, nerves fray, and red Oklahoma clay beckons.
Each summer we leave the Montana gumbo, our southern migration, in search of red Oklahoma clay. The land is softer, genteel, tropical, the air dense with heat and humidity, and cicada vibration, Oklahoma’s own Cretaceous remnant. Vegetation is a thick blanket, kudzu folding over in its land flow.
Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with seed in them, on the earth”, and it was so. Gen 1:11 NASB
Life is slower, kinder; family waits to surround, embrace. I only saw Oklahoma in the summer so the other seasons didn’t exist. In my mind, it was always summer in Oklahoma.
Fans hummed in every room day and night. We slept uncovered, but for our sweat in the thick darkness. Grandpa lays on a cot in the back screened-in porch, in his boxer shorts, listening quietly to baseball on the radio. I knew he was there but the inky night concealed him.
By day, Grandpa trudged around in denim overalls, tobacco pouch in his pocket, oilcan in hand. I followed him around to see what develops.
He cut off a plug of tobacco and popped it in his mouth, offering a plug to me, “Hey, Sis, wanna chew?” for the fun of hearing my shrill little girl squeal, “Eww, Grandpa, that’s gross!”
The mysterious oilcan squirted slugs and snails with kerosene; they writhed and spasmed before turning to a slimy mess.
Later, I followed Grandpa to the garden, the sun high overhead, saltshaker in hand, to indulge in warm, ripe tomatoes, salty brine awakening the taste buds. Bees, butterflies, and a little girl moved slowly in the drowsy heat.
A bunker burrows into the back yard, deep, cool and musty, filled with Grandma’s canned goods, and ready for disaster. We were in tornado alley and always on the lookout. Grandma was terrified of the beast storms, refusing to live in any house that did not have a storm shelter. I never experienced a tornado but the subterranean cave thrilled and chilled.
Two soils, so very different; one feels foreign and unfriendly, the other the scent of a home I had never lived in. Yet, I grew up in the foreign but longed for the familiar I’d never known. Is it the longing for Oklahoma or just the Home yet to come?
Belonging 