Stepdaddy: A Creative Memoir

by Bill Boyd

"In the 1930s, more than 300,000 rural American farmers, sharecroppers, squatters, and field hands fled the Dust Bowl. They left homes where some had lived for generations. Their destination: California's fertile valleys. They went with hopes of finding good-paying jobs and dreams of buying a small farm of their own." "Most of those who joined this westward tide of humanity were "Okies," the poor but proud people of Oklahoma. Whether moved by the most devastating drought ever to strike this country or the relentless onslaught of tractors that revolutionized farming, the dream of California riches lived in the hearts and minds of those who struggled to make ends meet." "In 1948, thirteen-year-old Bill Boyd and his stepfather, Daddy Philpot, joined this westward migration, wondering if it were still possible to double or triple an Okie's wage in California. They traveled Route 66, a national highway that stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles. The rigors of the 1,500-mile journey did not diminish their hopes as they hitchhiked West and dreamed of the California riches they would use to bring the rest of their family out West." In the summer of 2001, Bill Boyd once again set out for California. As he traveled out Route 66 from Okmulgee, Oklahoma, to the barren plains of the Texas panhandle to the former labor camps around Bakersfield and Fresno, California, he hoped to see what a young boy once saw, feel the emotions that he felt, and relive the adventure. And, of course, he wanted the goodness of Daddy Philpot, his stepdaddy who showed him the world beyond Oklahoma, to forever be remembered.

273 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Retired Macon Telegraph columnist Bill Boyd led a nomadic existence for the first 38 years of his life, first as the son of an Oklahoma sharecropper and then as a member of the United States Marine Corps.