Hand bill

Do you  remember handbills? The small chits of paper  given to you advertising  their shops etc.? Instead of these ever snoopy, unstoppable sms and emails used nowadays? 

Have you ran behind the people who were throwing these handbills from an auto? To catch more of these? You might not have unless your childhood was in sixties and seventies. Very, very long ago. 

Anyways, these handbills were seen by Joads. Like so many other farmers in Oklahoma and other eastern states. And these handbills said "Ten thousand workers needed in orange/grape/peach farms."

It was like a godsend for these people who lost their livelihoods because of dust bowl. They thought that they will go to California and will work hard in these farms. And give a better future to their families. They dreamed of proverbial land of milk and honey.

So Joads - Pa, Ma, unwilling Grandpa , Grandma, two kids Winfield and Ruthie, Al, Tom, Rose of Sharon and her husband and uncle John started their long and tiresome journey. Selling all of their belongings except for the bare minimum. Loading few mattresses, a stove and few vessels and some food in the truck. 

Little did they think that the handbills were just a fraud. A way to get very cheap labor. 

They camped in the evenings and rested. Grandpa died first. And Joad unwillingly buried him in a pit - they did not have money for his funeral. When they reached California, grandma also died. But such is life.

The first day in their dreamland, as they are putting on their tent, their neighbor tells them that work is hard to find here and one does not get steady work. The pay is abysmal. 

And they are not allowed to stay in a place for a long time before cops evict them. And most of these farms need thousands of workers  during harvest, alright. But just for a week or so. Once harvest is over, all they need is ten workers to maintain the farm. 

Listening to these stories and seeing the ill behavior of cops and land owners, Joads do not go back. They have no where to go back to. 

Reading the book "The grapes of wrath" is like reading  an epic. You go on their journey, you feel their feeling and you are there with them.