Love, eddie

dust in the wind was written during the summer of 1988 when my wife, my son, and i were living in ziegelhausen, germany. i was a guest professor at ruprecht karls universitaet (the university of heidelberg) for the academic year. i had conceived the central idea of the book years earlier when i was in college, but i didn't have a form for the story. then when i happened onto donald worster's dust bowl in the english department library at the university, i was struck by the stark world evoked by the illustrations worster had chosen. immediately, i sensed that the story of the rabbit drive should be connected to the dust bowl experience. after that, it was relatively easy for me to use my experiences on a farm in rush county, kansas during the 1950's to provide a sense of the time i was writing about from the perspective of ben, my counterpart. ben is older than i, but i think we share many experiences, especially the awareness of poverty and the omnipresence of dirt in our lives. to this day, i still do not like getting my hands dirty.