By Pat Gracey
Drought, grasshoppers and crickets
The Spirit of Tehachapi
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My parents moved to Tehachapi in 1923. Then, in 1926 they moved to Mojave as my father secured employment as a switchman for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Consequently, I was born in the Mojave Desert where rain doesn’t visit often. In fact, when it rained while we were at school they let us go home! It was called a Rainy Day Session. I only remember that happening twice but it was a happy time for the children. It’s strange though that sometimes a desert rain can turn into a flash flood and be quite dangerous. Mojave, in those long ago days had what they called a storm drain east of town to take care of the extra water, when and if it came. I always wondered if it ever had water in it.
In 1937, when I was nine, we moved back to Tehachapi and it was one of those glorious wet, rainy, snowy years. We were thrilled, and both 1937 and 1938 had over fifteen inches of precipitation for each of those years.
I recall my first day in the fourth grade at Tehachapi Grammar School; later to be called Wells’ Elementary. The teacher had us read a chapter in our Social Studies book and I still remember the first sentence: “What do you think about when you turn on the faucet?” Even then, the state had, for years, already been working on dams and reservoirs for water usage and for electric power. In that book I read about the future plans for construction of dams and reservoirs up and down the state. Still, to this day, I can recall that opening sentence in our Social Studies book. Water is not taken for granted by California natives. Today statistics show some 1,500 dams and 1,300 reservoirs in this state.
In the spring of 1939 the Tehachapi valley received visitors in the form of grasshoppers; thousands of them. It is said that in drought situations and very mild winters, grasshoppers are liable to show up. We had had a very nice, wet winter that year but I guess the hoppers decided to show anyway. When you walked they would boil up around your feet and jump on your clothing. A grisly situation. What made it worse was that they spit brown stain on your clothing. We called it tobacco juice. All of our valleys were eaten: the crops, the wildflowers and anything that was growing. It took several years for the wild flowers to grow in profusion again as that year the hoppers came before the flowers went to seed.
I was talking to Dennis Collins a few days back as we waited in line to see Princess K.I.M. on Tehachapi Community Theater’s premiere night. He was born here and we both remembered another grasshopper invasion in June of 1979. He said that his parents had chickens and they (the chickens) profited greatly during the invasion. Free chicken food. I recall our garage wall was a solid blanket of the darned things. It looked like a giant grasshopper carpet hanging there.
They were eating my husband’s garden so I called the Dept. of Agriculture and they recommended we use Malathion; which we did. It worked. We also ate the products from the garden and now I see many caution instructions about ingesting the spray. Oh my, too late!
In 1983 we had a cricket invasion. We managed, once again, to survive it but the residents and stores did extra duty keeping them outside.
The lowest record of precipitation in my files was in 1898 -1899 with 3.70 inches and the most rain/snowfall was in 1982-83 with 26.89. What a great year that was. This past year, according to the weather people, was the driest “ever.” I went online and could not locate the figures. I even left a message with Channel 23 with that question but they never answered. I should have kept track!
A friend of mine from an eastern state spent a few days with me some years back. Upon taking a shower she spent thirty minutes of water running. I finally tapped on the door to see if she was all right. She said she was fine, that she “always took long showers.” After I recovered from that statement I told her that in California one does not take long showers.
Well, if the “old timer’s” prediction of “mild winters bringing on plagues of grasshoppers”, we ought to have a bumper crop this year. I prefer to hope that the drought is waning and the wet days are in the future.
Besides, I already know how to make it rain. Just wash your car!
