When Larry was in the military and came back from
overseas, he was stationed in OK. I had moved to AZ with my parents while he
was gone, so he flew into Phoenix. From there we drove to OK to rent a house by
the base, as we weren't eligible for base housing. So we found a house to rent
in Dill City, which is a very small village. I looked it up online and it’s
still about the same size as when we lived there.
Then we went to OH to spend time with the rest of our
family members for several weeks. I went to get my hair cut, and the beautician
said she heard there was a tornado in Dill City. Back then the news wasn't as
easy to get as it is now. We couldn’t find anything about a tornado and thought
she was wrong,
When we arrived back to OK and turned onto the road
that would take us to the house we rented, the entire street was flattened. I
had never seen destruction from a tornado before. My first thought was, is this
what we’ll find when we get to our rental? We drove further and found the house
we rented was standing as were the others in that part of the town. The entire
town was and still is less than 2 miles. (I googled it)
Back then Larry was young and healthy and was asked to
pitch in to clean up the mess.
One thing I remember about living in OK, sirens went
off a lot. One of our neighbors had a storm cellar and we would head to
it with the others and sit out the storms. And people were friendly and
helpful.
Larry once cleaned out a septic system for the
landlord for a bag of groceries. I learned to eat green beans from the garden
planted by whoever lived there before us. Since we didn’t have much money, we
never had soda. It was popcorn and Kool Aid. I still can’t drink Kool Aid!
When we rented the house, a man who lived in the town
came to the door to greet us and tell tell us he’d check on the “matters and
tatters” while we were gone. We learned to eat the food from the garden, and I
learned to be less picky.
In the military you moved with the car pools. Next we
moved to Cordell, then to Elk City before being shipped to Indiana. We had two
Okie babies. Not much to do in OK back then. One TV station that had locals
singing over and over "Gum Chum."
Dee
