I like to think that I am descended from the two great migrations that had swept across the prairies of America into this California, where I was born, and where I live.
My mother’s great-grandfather came out by wagon train from the family farm to take part in the gold rush, had in fact been elected wagonmaster after a mutiny halfway out from Missouri. My father, on the other hand, rode the same distance almost a hundred years later, by freight train from Oklahoma, where the dust bowl had embraced the plains.
Both young men remained here— Robert to start a family dynasty in a brand new state, and Charlie to marry into that family some 85 years later— well, perhaps not into that family but a daughter from that family. Oakies, after all, were not easily accepted into polite California homes at that time.