Samantha Serrano's Digital Journal
41890
Stinging Dust And Forgotten Lives 2/12/16
The Dust Bowl occurred the 1930s, also know as, the Dirty Thirties. The reason why the Dust Bowl occurred was because of bad farming practices, which affected the soil and the land. States that we were mostly affected by the Dust Bowl were Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North & South Dakota, and Colorado. The Dust Bowl lasted about ten years, and during that time, people had to use precautions such as wearing masks so it wouldn't get in their mouth and lungs. Living during the Dust Bowl was complicated, some survivors would say that they would go to sleep and end up covered in dust. They also tried using gum tape to prevent the dust from entering, unfortunately it proved to be useless against the strong winds. This conditions forced millions of people to migrate to California. Many tried looking for jobs, but it wasn't an east task, due to the Great Depression. John Steinbeck uses this allusion in his little masterpiece, Of Mice and Men, where jobs were hard to find because of the depression. A lot of people that stayed behind developed Dust Pneumonia. Finally, the government decided to help farmers by educating them with better farming techniques and aiding them with monetary support.
Describe the fight scene 2/15/16
It all started with Curley being suspicious of Slim when he couldn't find his wife and Slim was nowhere to be seen. The truth was that Slim was out putting tar on his mule's foot. Candy, George , and Lennie had a conversation about their dream land when Curley, Slim, and Carlson burst in the room. The men started to attack Curley by talking back to him and how they weren't afraid of him. Curley, with his pugnacious attitude, saw Lennie smiling and misinterpreted it as Lennie laughing at him. Obviously, Curley didn't like that so he picked a fight with Lennie by slashing, and slugging the defenseless Lennie, who wasn't fighting back. George urged Lennie to fight back, and as Curley aimed for another punch, Lennie's hand engulfed Curley's, breaking every bone in his hand. Finally, George managed to get Lennie to let go of Curley's hand and made Curley promise not to get Lennie "canned" or they would tell everybody what really happened. The chapter/section ends with Carlson taking Curley to the hospital, and George recalling that nobody should pick a fight with Lennie, and reassures Lennie that it wasn't his fault.