LOIS

“People here are friendly.”

“I was born in the mid-60s. I’ve been here since. In Twin Pines. We only moved away a couple years, but I didn’t like it. This is where I raised my family, our three girls.”

“Things were different then. The kids barely got sick. I don’t remember going to the clinic or the hospital a lot. My kids never really got sick. Now Keely’s always got a bug, or I’ve got a cold. So things are changing.”

“It was nice growing up in Twin Pines. When I was a little kid we used to hike around the hills back there, back where the flares are at, back there. We never stayed home… In fact, I was thinking, how did we drink water? How did we stay hydrated?”

“You know, we were gone from like 7 in the morning until maybe even 7 at night. We were gone all day. My mom didn’t worry about us. Because it was open, who’s going to come after us? It was just family. I don’t know how we stayed hydrated. To this day I don’t know how we did that. Where did we drink water? …We must have, I don’t remember taking water with us, so we must have went to maybe my Auntie’s places.”

“Now Kendra’s like ‘Don’t forget sunblock!’ I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, who cares about sunblock?’ But you know, back when we were kids, we didn’t put sunblock on, we didn’t need to. It was different. But things changed. Now we have to wear all this stuff just to go out. It’s just sad.”

“We played a lot up in the hills. I don’t know what we played but we sure stayed up in the hills a lot. We never came home, we didn’t want to come home.”

“I know there’s a lot of plants that don’t grow anymore. Not like when I was a kid. There’s some things that aren’t there anymore, stuff like wild onions. There were wild onions everywhere when I was a kid, now you don’t see them. A lot of things changed. And it’s real hazy, it’s not clean anymore.”

“It’s not quiet anymore. When I was growing up it was very quiet. Very nice. Now it’s just really loud. Even the highway is loud now. When I was growing up it wasn’t 550, it was Highway 44. It was quiet then. Now it’s just too much noise. As far as family goes, with oil, there are a lot of families who are fighting over the land, or over money or stuff like that.”

“My mom lives right there, my sister lives there, her son lives there with his kids, and I have my kids down the road. It’s all family. We stay together. A lot of the families do… some anyway. My cousins nearby pretty much have their kids out and about. But they always come back to Twin Pines. It’s home for them.”

“People here are friendly. Don’t be scared of them. If you need help, ask them. I mean, you’re not going to get help if you don’t ask. That’s it. Everyone’s friendly where we live, you don’t have to be scared of someone. And welcome, you know, the place is mine, you’re at home. Don’t be scared, welcome!”