The Sun, Rise you Rascal, Rise Above that Southern Horizon

Sunday, January 26, 2014

My old Air Force buddy Steve Leyden suggested my summer plans of running off with my dog Tess and roaming the American landscape for a few months reminded him of his favorite author, John Steinbeck and "Travels With Charley - In Search of America".  I could not disagree with Steve when I think about my plan to just load up and go bumming around the West.  So, I went out and bought a copy of Steinbeck's book and started to read it.  First, I noticed Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition is the 50th Anniversary Edition of Steinbeck's journey with his poodle Charley.  I had to look at the original copyright date.  Yup, 1961, 1962.  Let's think about that.  I was leaving St. Mary's of the Lake Catholic School that year so I was 1962-1948 = 14 years old.  To my recollection, Mike Buesseler. suggested I read the book when we were either in St. Cloud State classes (1966-68) (or cutting classes) or he was in the Navy and I was in the Air Force (1970-72).  I know we both loved it when we read it.  We were so juiced to hit the road after reading it we made Jack Kerouac seem like a Clam on the Road.   So, in either case within 6 or 8 years of it's publication I read "Travels...".   I ought to be more bothered that I was alive when it was first published and I persist beyond it's 50th Anniversary Edition.  It seems like yesterday I wanted to go out with Mary H. in first grade.  Now, I'm a homeless, widowed orphan and couldn't get a date with a shopping cart bag lady if I bought her dinner.  Where in the hell does Time think it's taking us, anyway?

I started reading the book as soon as I got it home as you might have suspected by now.  Wonderful and relevant still--Ol' Steiny's travelogue.  I have to admit I'm only up to Part II of the book, but I'm not about to put it down until it's realigned all the pathways it once set up in my more robust brain back in the late 60s.  I have to point out that Steiny saw America being ravaged in a way back in say 1960 that we are still engaged in violating now,  more than 50 years later.  My point of course, is that if we have made an effort to overcome some of the concerns he saw in the conversion of America from a workforce to a couch force, the building of rows of houses that looked to him to be relatives of an inbred clan, and the early signs of the rusting of America, I wonder what Steiny would editorialize about our cultural state of affairs today.  I suggest we don't exhume him and take him of a 'roadtrip' and ask him what he thinks.

I believe our problem is bigger than what Steiny has to say about things today.  His journal is a mirror of the past for us to look into and see what it reflects from behind us and then compare differences.  He was even talking about "conservation" back then.  Hell's bells our conservation record seems miserable compared to what was left to conserve in 1960.  We have made some progress on some fronts, no question about it, but like we used to say in the wildlife business I worked in for many years, "we're just documenting the demise, we scientists".  He didn't like the looks of city water and sewage and garbage heaps, either back then.  Say what?  Hell, he becomes like the father of modern environmentalism given his observations in "Travels...". 

I do know there is much waiting for me in rereading this book and I hope I get a few hits on this blog and can influence others to read this one again.  It's not like "ancient history" you know.  It's like yesterday to those of us older than 50 and for those of you who read this and can't imagine becoming 50 yet, I suggest you read this edition.  When the 100 Anniversary Edition comes out in your time, I hope to hell, for your sake, you can say you've cleaned up the mess previous Industrial generations left for you.  However, I know from recently reading enough of Norman Maclean's works that his papa, being the Presbyterian minister and dedicated Bible affection ado he was, would be quick to remind us that; 'man has been a mess' for a long time.  I think he was referring to Adam and Eve getting thrown out of the Garden of Eden with that fundamental statement, but Norman would be quick to retort 'man has continued to be a mess since the Garden of Eden'.

I can't encourage my few readers with anything more hopeful than Norman's update on man's condition.  I left Montana in 2006 and returned in October 2013.  I have to say, it appears there was "progress" here in Montana since I left.  Yes, roads are wider, some buildings are higher, some trailers look a bit closer to needed remodeling on at least three sides out of four and it appears that man is still a 'mess'.  You find the progress in that sentence, OK?  Like me for instance sitting here at the keyboard typing away while the Bitterroot River slides past me nary a mile away just begging for someone to come admire it.  Yup.  Guilty.  Yessiree, I'm a mess.  And 50 years ago, almost, when I read Steiny's and Charley's account of making the big loop around America I was out there chanting in the streets about Vietnam.  I was all for Blacks getting to do whatever everyone else was doing (the fact that blacks didn't have equality yet in 1960 really bugged Steiny).   I was singing songs about all the "little boxes" being built in those days too.  A few laws are working on some of this, but some of the "improvements" to be noted are happenstance more than 'the world is a better place for man showing up'.  I'm glad for the Human Rights Laws, but when I read and watch the news it seems the advances are far overwhelmed by the slope of the curve toward poverty in America as compared to the slope of the middle class wealth curve in the 1950s and '60s.  You're right to ask, "What Middle Class?" at this point of my essay.

Not the best news to report I guess, but I have to make a point out of this or Mr. Steinbeck's mass of cannonizable literature fell on deaf ears.  I'm certain that Steiny wouldn't be spouting off a list of solutions to aid us in our quandary laden world, but I would imagine at the age, now, of about 112 years he would be one boisterous old curmudgeon making dialog about the condition of his favorite places.  Certainly he'd have something to say about the way we talk--all computer geeky, slangy and truncated in an English he'd not be able to do well with in a new version of "East of Eden."  A version he might have to retitle, "Who Shat on Eden?" 

I may have hit on the answer to the age old question of why people don't live to be 112 years old very often.  Some do, but you can bet your Adam's Apple they are not able to write a sentence or paragraph or travelogue the way Steiny did with "Travels with Charley".  If they could write we'd see stories that would put "Blade Runner" in the Romance or Drama category instead of Science Fiction.  Now, it's back to "Travels..." for me.