Arthur Rothstein. Fleeing a Dust Storm. Cimarron County, Oklahoma, April 1936

"All the days was about alike then. For a three-year-old kid, you just go outside and play, dust blows and sand blows, and you don’t know any different. One evening a black duster come in here from the north. We had kerosene lamps. And it got so dark you couldn’t see with kerosene lamps.

"Last spring we had some pretty bad days. They weren’t the old black dusters, but I mean, there was plenty of dust in the air.

"I don’t really know why I like living here. I guess just ’cause this country’s home. Dad always said that if anybody ever come here and wear out two pairs of shoes here, they’d never leave. Back in the thirties, my dad had some relatives in California that was fairly wealthy, an aunt and uncle, and they wanted him to get outa here. They said they’d pay his way out to California, the whole family, but he said he wouldn’t go. He was just a hard-headed Coble, I guess. He was pretty independent. I just imagine he thought that if it was going to be somebody else’s money, he wasn’t gonna go, period."

—DARREL COBLE