Page 52 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

professor. And that’s how I got by after not working all the year before.
I stayed with Mrs. Forman that last semester, as I had the two preceding years I had attended O.C.W. She made me a special deal whereby I could have a cheaper rate if I was willing to sleep on the sleeping porch. I told her anything to save money, so I did sleep on the sleeping porch (completely enclosed and very warm and comfortable) and paid her $12.50 a month for board and room!
During the spring the outskirts of Chickasha were hit by a terrible tornado. Mr. and Mrs. Forman took me with them to view the aftermath. I had always heard of the unbelievable things which happened during a tornado, but never before had I actually witnessed them.
The two-story house had been crumpled by a giant hand and the whole thing had fallen into the basement. A cow had a regular blunt-ended 2x4 driven entirely through her body. A small tree, and even some of the fence posts, had straws embedded in them but left standing out perpendicularly from the post - as if they had been twisted, the straws inserted, then released.
The most unbelievable thing I saw was a high stack of loose straw left completely undisturbed, and a tractor placed gently and carefully right on top of the stack.
Mr. Forman was the owner of an appliance store in Chickasha, and these farmers had bought a new washing machine from him. He examined the washer with the intent of repairing it for them free, but decided it was beyond repair. Instead he gave them
another used washer in good condition. I remember that the lady cried, as they had no insurance.
I walked to school - about ten blocks I’d guess - and I still had trouble with my feet during the winter months as the result of the frost bite.
Since I was entering at midterm, it was too late to have my picture in the yearbook among the photographs of my classmates. The registrar was a photographer and took a picture of me dressed in my boot pants, laced boots, and cowboy hat, and holding my 38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. This he placed in the snapshot section of the year book as “OCW’s Annie Oakley.” A local reporter interviewed me, then sent her article and the picture to the Associated Press. It went out all over the United States, and I received nearly four hundred letters from almost every state in the Union, plus the Philippine Islands and the Hawaiian Islands (only a Territory then).
Most of the letters were from people who were interested in the country and in homesteading. Many would write, “Please write me a long letter telling me all about that country and how to homestead.” One added, “especially in Silver City” (several hundred miles away and a place I’d never even visited).
Some people told me how they admired me, three were from people named Howell who wondered about some relationship, and
eightwantedtoworkforme. Amongthe last were a man who murdered another man when he was eighteen, had been pardoned by his governor and had to leave the