October 17, 2018:
Kids behind their team of cows.
Newsboy caps, overalls. The Great Depression. They're in the Ozarks, rolling country, but they're only a couple of hundred miles from the Dust Bowl, where the great migration has already begun.
These people were born to farming families but none end their lives as farmers. One's a mechanic, another's a truck driver, another's a factory worker. They're all in industries, even the one who stays closest to the land, who ends his life owner of a heavily-mechanized wheat and cattle ranch 1500 miles from here.
Most of them go to California. Where the migration leads them. They're in El Cajon with their Arkie neighbors, or in Galt with the Okies. Either way they go west, with the great river of refugees fleeing poverty and dust.
It's ironic that the right-wing in our country likes to belittle and insult Californians. Because Californians are the people they claim to be. We're the American white working class. We're Tom Joad, motherfuckers. The right-wingers are Ivy Leaguers whose only personal migrations were from Goldwater to Ayn Rand.
This entire history is implied by the newsboy caps those kids are wearing.