I thought I knew something about the Dust Bowl. I was taught about it in school when I was a child, read about it in “The Grapes of Wrath” when I was a teenager, and read about it once again, years later, in “Out of the Dust.” 

I knew that in the 1930s vast areas in the middle of the country were overplanted and that the soil dried up and nothing grew, and locusts came and farmers in droves packed up their families, gave up their land, and headed to California.