In 1954 I was involved in taking my sister-in-law Judy back home to Spearman, Texas — A dusty town in the center of the dust bowl that whipsawed the Great Plains in the 1930s. The bedraggled panhandle town, like many in our part of the world had lost a lot of its population. But Judy had to go home. I was elected to drive her to Spearman.

I had a nice little ‘47 Ford with 17,000 on its odometer and reassuring sound under its hood, but did I mention the dust was blowing again? As I cleared Oklahoma City that day I could see the darkest cloud of dust to the west. The normally fast-moving traffic on 66 that stretched westward was almost stalled. I soon found there were road graders on both sides of westbound ‘66 plowing sand drifts off the highway. This went on all the way through Weatherford. High winds out of the north were blowing tons of dirt onto the road from dry wheatfields.

I was feeling pretty depressed as the traffic crept west. We finally made it to Spearman late that night but I found that too much fine sand in my engine had done its work and when I got back to Stonewall I had to fix it. My engine was capote. I had to totally replace it.

Depressing as that was, more depressing was my draft status. I had learned that my time was up. My engine may have been 4F but I was 1A. Uncle Sam was taking me away from the dustbowl and mass population losses of my beloved Sooner State. Not my worry any more. I would soon join the Navy. Dust affects all of us, one way or another.

Time has a way of passing and it wasn’t long before I had spent quite a bit of time in our Navy. In fact, I sort of liked the Navy. Not much dust at sea. I found myself in love with a girl named Pat in Stonewall and our plans had evolved on how and when to get married. As it worked out while I was home on leave we made “for sure” plans on this momentous event. But first I had to finish up my enlistment. Eventually I headed back to Boston for another sea assignment and drove up there alone. A long way.

The next morning I left. I drove north toward Boston. Again, historical destiny got in my way. After all, I am a child of the great dustbowl, and my memories and history are still connected to what happened during this historical time. Driving north, I got to a point on old HW-48 (a gravel highway) when I realized I had lost my bearings. I stopped and thought. I had driven through Lula and hadn’t seen it. In spite of my needing to make “time” I went back and found a disaster of sorts had taken downtown Lula away. All that was left was my Uncle Leck’s gas station and grocery. Aunt Oma’s old house on 3rd street (and the sign) gone too. All of its Main Street as well as its big two-storied hotel on the hill were missing.

I knew several towns in Oklahoma had nearly disappeared, but none had vanished like Lula had. Owl Creek, Jesse, Centrahoma, Citra and many other towns were shrunk up. But only Lula had been bulldozed and hauled off. I continued driving and made it to Boston. Which was still there. And I finally did marry my girlfriend Pat in Latta that July 19, 1958.

Still married too. And Lula is still gone. Be sure and go to your church Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com