Word: fresno
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Having recently been through the mill, most farmers were being prudent with their new prosperity. In Fresno, Calif., heart of the San Joaquin Valley machine-farming area, Julius Neilsen, Bank of America farm-loan representative, said: "I never saw so many farmers come in ahead of time and pay off their loans." The Iowa Life Insurance Co. reported its sales to farmers through April were up 78% over last year. And, said Red Oak Agent Stanley Fagerland: "When the farmer gets around to buying life insurance, you know he is getting back on his feet...
They were part-time party workers and armchair politicians--college professors, businessmen, young lawyers, and the labor rank-and-file. They met last week in a Fresno hotel to endorse some candidates for elective office. The California Democratic Council proved that grass roots are not always green...
Last week the Republican big-weights had jockeyed themselves into position. At Fresno's amateur Democratic fling, there were few amateurs. The years had been a bitter education. Red-eyed, knowledgeable, and disillusioned, they nominated Pat Brown for governor--against William Knowland; and Congressman Clair Engle for senator--against "Goodie" Knight. They passed up Petter Odeguard (a Berkeley political science professor) and Richard Richards, and endorsed a ticket of warmed-over conservative vegetables to serve to the public in November...
Last week, a full quarter-century later, the San Joaquin Valley was thriving, and the Okies were thriving. In Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia, Modesto, the Okies were Californians, still speaking the accents of the Southwest, still voting Democratic, clapping their hands to the hillbilly music of their favorite TV entertainer (''Cousin" Herb Henson), still whacking away at religion, Bible-belt style (Scotch-taped legend on one Oklahoma car: OBEY Acts 2:38). They had, most of them, made good-so good that nobody even thought to ask, "Whatever became of the Okies...
Paul Peoples, who was eleven when his family drove in from Arkansas in a 1929 Overland Whippet, picked cotton, waited anxiously with his mother and three brothers each Saturday to learn if his father had made enough money for groceries. Today Peoples, 32, is a graduate of Fresno State College, works on his master's degree, and is Fresno's deputy probation officer. "There were two kinds of people then," he recalls. "Those who had never had a desire to improve themselves -and those who were looking for some way to better their lot. My father-he didn...