Memories of Growing Up With Merle Haggard

Gerald Haslam met Merle Haggard in elementary school. They both grew up in the tiny Kern County town of Oildale,  which was mostly settled by Dust Bowl migrants.

“By the time we got to fourth or fifth grade, he was just one of those kids who seemed to be a little bit different, a little more assertive, a little more creative," recalls Haslam. "Sort of an adventurer. A Huckleberry Finn type.”

Haslam has authored some 20 books about California, including "Working Man Blues: Country Music in California." I asked him to share some of his childhood memories of Haggard, who died April 6, on his 79th birthday.

Because their school was funded by oil companies, Haslam says, they were offered music and art classes, unlike kids at other nearby public schools. But Haslam says Merle Haggard never really stood out as a kid who was a particularly good singer or musician at school. By sixth grade, though, Haslam remembers Haggard playing a borrowed guitar.

“The neighborhood we lived in was full of people from the Southwest, and it was not uncommon for people to have guitars and fiddles. And on long summer evenings, no air-conditioning, of course, people would sit out on their porches and play music and sing,” Haslam recalls. “He was one of the young fellows who could do that kind of thing."

Haggard grew up in a converted boxcar, which Gerald Haslam later raised money to help preserve as a historical site.

“It was actually one of the nicer houses in the neighborhood,” explained Haslam, who grew up four blocks away. “His dad was a carpenter for the railroad, and somehow Mr. Haggard obtained the boxcar, and he converted it. He did a very nice job.”

When Haslam and other friends of Haggard's arranged to move the boxcar to a museum last year, they found a family still living in it, explains Haslam. “It stood up after all these years.”

I ask Haslam what he thinks some of Merle Haggard’s fans might find most surprising about the man who released more than three dozen hit songs over a long and illustrious career.

“People who know him only through his commercial successes don’t understand what an open-minded man he was," says Haslam. "He was a real free thinker. A song like 'Okie from Muskogee' might make someone think he was a reactionary. Quite the opposite. He and I could talk about politics. I’m on the left, and we would be right on the money with one another."

Haggard, in fact, was vehemently against the Iraq War, a sentiment he put to music with his song “America First.”

"Why don’t we liberate these United States. We’re the ones who need it the worst,” he crooned. “Let’s get out of Iraq, get back on track, and rebuild America first…”

“He was also open-minded musically, so it shouldn’t have been surprising,” says Haslam. “He would perform Dixieland, or Norteño, or just plain West Coast jazz, along with more conventional forms of country music.”

But for all Haggard's creativity and originality, Haslam laments that he didn’t have more of an impact on how people look at the Central Valley.

“Unfortunately, I think there are still people who think of the valley as being something between uncivilized and primitive," he says. "Merle is a good example of the open-mindedness and sophistication that’s possible, and that manifests itself there. He also illustrates the complexity of politics and philosophy. He wasn’t just a left-winger or a right-winger.

“I hope more people will understand that he wasn’t just a country singer, he was a singer. He wasn’t just a country songwriter, he was a songwriter. His musicality came to us at a very high level indeed.”