Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Lowlanders

It is true that in Scotland the McClellans were Lowlanders, based as they were mainly in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbrightshire, located within the region of Dumfries and Galloway, whatever that meant. However, in removing from California to Texas, not the Oklahoma of the book, it is doubtful that my grandparents, the McClellans, would want to be confused with the lowlife rabble represented in that pathetically seedy low-class book, "The Grapes of Wrath." The Do-Re-Mi Dogs of California are bent on lumping us all together into one indistinguishable rabble of Okie migrants but it was not exactly like that. You see, our Uncle John owned the migrant camp in which the fruit pickers lived, having bought it with the profits he made from selling used cars to the Indians of Arizona, and our family stayed at first at their house, because Uncle John had already been there for a while, until they could get their own place, various places actually, having also owned and operated a motel at one time, among other things. My mom's Aunt Betty owned and managed the Dinner Bell restaurant which was located sort of near the entrance to the campground. There the migrant workers were able to rent little cabins at low cost and various amenities were provided to them I would imagine during their short stays. I really don't know much about that. I only remember visiting that place maybe once when visiting the relatives. So, yes, you could imagine some superficial similarities between ourselves and that trashy low-class book, "The Grapes of Wrath," even if it did win a Nobel Prize, but that is because you either don't know who we are or you are some Marxist farmworker activist trying to score political points by stirring up class warfare among the lowlife farmworkers in branding us as related to the oppressive capitalist campground owner who must be crushed, even though the events of the book actually represent probably some other campground owned by some other person and populated by some other migrant workers. So it is just all politics to you! So in picking sides you reveal that you could not rise above your lowly station in life because you just couldn't get out of the box. Sorry but there is no reward for that type of tunnel vision.