Bakersfield.com

Thirty years ago I was a young woman living in north Oildale with my husband and five year old daughter. We rented a small, solid house that was built at the close of WWII. Our front door was made of  wood but it was so short that it had a ½" gap at the bottom. The windows were large and loose in their frames so that the slightest wind made them rattle. The roof was made of ancient shakes that curled and waved over the roof.  Even after forty years they were reliable in shedding the rain.

The morning of December 20, 1977 dawned clear and windy. As the time neared for me to send my daughter off to kindergarten, I had a sudden attack of nerves. The wind was taking on a strange quality that was unlike any windy day I’d ever seen before. I impulsively decided to keep my daughter home.

My husband turned on the news to see if anyone else was concerned about the wind. All three stations were devoting their morning newscasts to the weather. The wind became louder and dirtier by the hour. My husband suggested we use towels around the windows and doors to keep out the dust but I didn’t want to use my freshly laundered towels in a pointless effort.

I decided to bake cookies to quiet my nerves. The rest of the morning I rushed around the kitchen pulling sheets of cookies out of the oven while glancing anxiously out of the kitchen window at the black wind tearing the roofs off of our neighbor’s houses. Through the eerie gloom I could see that the street lights had come on.

My sister called at noon and we shared our stories about the wind. Her family didn’t have power at their south Bakersfield home and she didn’t have anything hot for her family to eat. I invited her to drive across town to our house for dinner because we had heat and electricity. The extra cooking didn’t take my mind off the fact that the dust was beginning to settle on every surface of the house. The gifts under the Christmas tree were becoming grimy. I reversed my earlier decision and called for my husband to help me line the doors and windows with towels. We soon learned that wet towels stopped the dirt more effectively than dry ones did.

After a long harrowing trip my sister and her family finally arrived for dinner. The warmth and light cheered them but they were clearly anxious about the return trip home. We quickly ate the spaghetti dinner I’d prepared and they were on they’re way again with a promise to call as soon as they got safely home.

By early evening my nerves where "shot". I’d had enough of the roaring wind, the dirt and the loud unexplained noises outside. I wanted to bury my head in the pillows and block all of it out of my mind. I felt like the woman in Michener’s Centennial who had gone mad from the incessant shrieking of the wind. I fell asleep praying that it would stop.

The next morning when we woke, the wind was still blowing but the dust was gone. It looked like the first day of creation. Hallelujah