American Pastimes: Woody Guthrie in Chico Ca. 1938, Part Two

After his traveling partner Roy Crissman returned to southern California to move his family north, Woody Guthrie continued his trek throughout the central valley of California, staying and singing with farm workers in labor camps, living under bridges, hanging out in skid rows, writing in his notebooks, and sending his reports off to “The Light”, a Los Angeles-based progressive newspaper.

On July 25, 1938 he met up again with the Crissman clan as pre-arranged in Chico’s downtown Plaza Park. He joined them at the camp they shared with other struggling migrant families somewhere along the Sacramento River. For two weeks he stayed with the Crissmans, spending his days fishing, and his nights singing around the campfire with his old radio singing partner Maxine “Lefy Lou” Crissman.

Biographer Joe Klein calls the riverside campground a “state park.” This is not possible since there weren’t any state-owned parks along the Sacramento River in 1938. There was plenty of space though, and quite a few homesteads were established along the river during the late 30’s and early 40’s. The memories of a half-century ago can be foggy, and this does raise the question of whether they were actually along the Sacramento River. Perhaps they were somewhere along Big Chico Creek which flows into the Sacramento? Maybe even in Chico’s municipal park, Bidwell Park? In 1938 Bidwell was still a mostly unimproved wilderness. It would have been a more convenient campsite, much closer to town, and it’s not difficult to imagine Woody ambling through the park making his way downtown to mingle and perform. It also would have been wonderfully coincidental that within 10 months of each other, two heroes of social justice and the working class, Robin Hood and Woody, would make their temporary camps in Bidwell Park!

Woody’s other biographer Ed Cray, points out that while in Chico, Woody and the Crissmans had to resort to stealing ripe peaches from local orchards in order to eat. The peaches were ready for picking, but in order to keep the prices high, the farmers would let most rot. Woody wrote: “It was peach-picking season, but a million carloads of good peaches were going to rot and nobody hiring to pick them.” This revelation had a major impact on him. Cray writes that when added to “the squalor and deprivation that he saw…it rasped him. Twenty-six-year-old Woody Guthrie was angry.” And his anger surfaced repeatedly in the new compositions that he produced in the coming months. “Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore”, “Gypsy Davy”, and “Dust Bowl Refugee” all share a bitterness and rage that isn’t found in his earlier songs.

I'm a dust bowl refugee,
Just a dust bowl refugee,
From that dust bowl to the peach bowl,
Now that peach fuzz is a-killin' me

From the south land and the drought land,
Come the wife and kids and me,
And this old world is a hard world
For a dust bowl refugee

With his sense of economic and social injustice heightened and amplified Woody left Chico, traveling east through Nevada to Oklahoma, then returning along Route 66 back to southern California. That fall, by box car and thumb he headed north again with actor / organizer Will Geer to perform in labor and migrant camps across the state. On their way to Redding to perform for the construction workers building Shasta Dam, they stopped in Chico. Woody was hoping to convince Maxine to rejoin him in Los Angeles at KFVD where he had been offered a new timeslot. But Maxine was suffering from anemia that had left her very weak, too weak to sing for very long. She also fell in love with a local guy, Pat Dempsey, a mechanic. She declined Woody’s offer, but before he left town “Woody & Lefty Lou from ol’ Mizzou” did sing together ‘professionally’ one last time; in a Chico bar where they collected a few dollars each.

Sources:

Joe Klein “Woody Guthrie: A Life” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980)

Ed Cray “Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie” (W.W. Norton & Co. 2004)

Richard Reuss “American Folklore and Left-Wing Politics: 1927-1957.” (Indiana University, 1971)

Photo: Maxine Crissman.

On American Pastimes: Guthrie songs written circa 1938 -- “Ain’t Got No Home in this World Anymore”, “Gypsy Davy”, “Sally Don’t You Grieve”, “Dust Bowl Refugee”, “Gypsy’s Fortune”.