California State. San Francisco city. Monterey, a city. John Steinbeck, author. For this fan of Steinbeck, San Francisco is very close to heaven. From San Francisco it is easy to get to the peninsula to Santa Cruz and to the territory of Steinbeck.
I'm flying to San Francisco airport late afternoon. Signs are immediate America. No Ped Xing & # 39; & quot; Compress right & # 39; Occupation more than 132 people, illegal & # 39; From Rent-a-Wreck, I collect Chevrolet in two colors - cat's green and vile yellow. This pimpmobile. And wasn't it in such a car that I moved to San Francisco for 1967 Summer of Love to follow Timothy Leary's instructions to turn on, tune in and throw out?
It was. And was it not in the same car that I parked outside the City Lights bookstore, and got in and listened to Ginsberg, repeating “Howl & made Jack Kerouac sign my copy of Dharma Bums” It was. This antediluvian American monster is the car of my youth. Damage today's asymmetrical compacts. (It’s a sad reflection on the progress that the Rent-a-Wreck franchise is now renting modern CDs.)
Now I drive on Route 92 and its lures, leading in San Jose along Camino Real - the Royal Route. (Yes, I know the way to San Jose and to the sterile, dull city.)
Shaking on Highway 1, America is a very Pacific highway that leads me along the peninsula and along the coast, a solid rocky shore on the right, the remains of cypress forests on the left — and passes through Santa Cruz to Monterey. Returning, I will use Highway 9, which is backward, despite its grandiose name, and follow the San Lorenzo River up to the Santa Cruz Mountains, and then through the splendor of California reddish trees in the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.
If I have enough time, on the way back I will stop at Felton on Highway 9 and ride a steam train for an hour with nostalgia on the wonderfully named railway route Roaring Camp and Big Trees. No railway of my youth has ever made its way through the stands of red trees; it is true that only God could make these trees, one of which is within the height of a hundred meters high.
No train in the darkness of the Rhondad valley in Wales puffed like the “Little Red Engine”. - I think I can, I think I can - one of the coolest railway gradients in the world to Bear Mountain.
But it is the next day. Today for blessed monterey. Robert Louis Stevenson in travel mode wrote about Monterey in resemblance to a fish hook, as it was seated next to a barb. (At that time, Stevenson was in a hurry with Monterey, waiting for the divorce of his life, Fanny Osborne.) Much earlier than Stevenson, Gaspar de Portola and the fearless explorer of God, Father Unipero Serra, claimed that Monterey for Spain and the Holy Catholic Church had established a fort and mission in 1777. Now I claim it again and again for myself.
The sea, when I drive along the coastal road, is white with rage and foam. Hurricane creates chaos in the sea and in Mexico. This is the dying fringe of the storm. Waves slapping rocky shores and exploding white flags to mark the route ahead. I do not see sea lions or seals like last year. Perhaps the sea is too rough. Perhaps they have a shelter where they hide from big waves. May be.
I stay at the Monterey Bay Inn simply because of its address, 242 Cannery Row. From here last night I passed by the terrifying tourist mockery that is “Fisherman’s Wharf” - what sins are committed for the tourist dollar - and on the municipal pier at the end of Figuero street. This is where the real fishing fleet moored; where the buildings are meant to work, not for tourists, and pelicans pursue fish-smelling docks and landings. Pure Steinbeck.
Last night I dreamed that I was Doc Rickett, and that I was still working in my laboratory among the beautiful and desperate Cannery Road. This morning, at breakfast, I regret the strong moral purpose that ran through the whole of John Steinbeck. novels. He was concerned that large canning companies, thanks to financial muscles, intimidate their way into the property or control all agricultural land in the area. Steinbeck was right to worry. For this is what happened.
It is also sad to realize that for the year in a row, the Kannar Series was published in 1945, which was the year of the Monterey Sardinian fishing industry. Later, Steinbeck said: "They are now fishing for tourists." During the heyday of Monterey, there were eighteen horses, more than 100 fishing boats, 4,000 workers, three tasteless broths and the terrible smell of dead fish. Now almost everything is gone.
(Formerly Monterey and nearby Salinas, where he was born, were angry and ashamed of John Steinbeck.) In 1944, after the success of “Grapes of Wrath,” Steinbeck bought a house in Monterey; no one could rent him an office for writing. He was pursued, trying to get fuel and wood from local wartime rations. my country is bigger. And it will not be until I die. I am very sad. He later wrote: After I wrote The Grapes of Wrath ... the librarians at the Salinas Public Library, who knew my people, noticed that I was lucky that my parents were dead, so they didn't have to suffer shame. & # 39;
In truth, the entire American literary establishment must fry in hell to appeal to this author. When Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, he was insulted in newspapers with false praise. "The New York Times" in particular, should ruin the head.)
Now in Salinas is the National Steinbeck Center, about 25 km from Monterey. This is not for me. I am not from a school that thinks that these things can be packed, tied up, presented. The center itself says: “Discover Steinbek’s work and philosophy through interactive, multi-touch artifacts for all ages and backgrounds, priceless artifacts, entertainment shows, educational programs and research archives. Seven thematic theaters "East of Eden", "Cannery Row", "Of Mice and Men", "The Grapes of Wrath" and much more. & # 39; This is not my scene.
However, we can still see the old Cannery Row if we look carefully.
This morning I am heading to Pena Street, where the real Cannery Row begins. I stood silently in the stone dumps of a deserted loading dock. Pleasant melancholy. It would be better if I delayed my visit for a couple of months. Because it is the end of summer, and the weather is still too warm, too pleasant for my mood. Cannery Row needs cold, cold air for true dark authenticity. And it's wrong that I should be here on Saturday. Thursday, Sweet Thursday is definitely the only day to visit Monterey. But how can we change the business route for literary requirements?
Much in Monterey remains the same, much has changed. La Ida Cafe is a blessed memory now Kalisa, from my hotel at 851 Cannery Row. The Wing Chong Market, in 835, was transformed into the Old General Store, and the building that once conducted the Doc Rickett Marine Laboratory still occupies 800 Cannery Row. The last time I was here, it was a private club, and I managed to smooth out my thoughts. This morning it is sadly rejected, and I am told that it belongs to the city of Monterey, and the public is not welcome.
Do not confuse this genuine article with the Doc Rickett laboratory, which is a restaurant on Franklin Franklin Street on EF 180, and this is not the place Doc Rickett would have had dinner, but did not.
When I finish writing, I will go to Sancho Panza for lunch. This restaurant is located in a cob building built in 1841 on Calle Main Street. There, in a crowded room with a low ceiling, I will drink Mexican “Crown” beer with lime and eat chili con conne frijoles and remember John Steinbeck, the writer who gave me the smell, feeling, reality of Monterey when Wales
