Travels with Charley

I'm reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck and oh how I love it!  His thoughts about America are so akin to my own, though he also makes me wish in some ways that I could've traversed the country alone as I did in Europe - that way I'd be forced to meet and rely on  more strangers.  At the same time, having someone to map-read for me allowed more observations of the landscape than if I was constantly fiddling with and worrying about a map.  But that is neither here nor there - the point is, that in reading this delightful book, it has repeatedly struck me as sad that John is dead and I can therefore never do so much as write him a letter to tell the old man what a delight the book has given me.  One day in heaven, I do hope we will meet  - for I think despite a difference of many decades, we are kindred spirits.

He has made me very eager to go to New England and travel there as well as to see the dells and topography of Wisconsin.  Montana also made the kind of impression on dear old John that it made on me - an amazing spectacle that words cannot do justice.  He says it will remain forever as his favorite state in our great nation.  It is certainly a state about which I remember saying "I can't wait to come back here and just spend time."  Preferably something in the 2 to 3 week range.  I feel spending an expanse of time in a place like Montana would do the heart immense good.  It is so...wholesome.  The rolling hills with rocky cliffs and hidden caves beg to be explored.  Then there are the grasslands that extend for miles in gentle slopes and perhaps it was just me, but I so desperately wanted to mount a horse (bareback perhaps) and gallop across those fields to see where I ended up. 

Steinbeck also made a point about the redwoods.  That no painting, picture or description has ever done them justice.  And it is absolutely true.  In my blog I remember saying that nothing can prepare you for the immensity, the awe inspiring beauty and grandeur that are the redwoods.  John added to that and talked about the light among the redwoods.  Something I had observed, but not put words too.  The way the daylight is like the haziness of dawn until noon at which point it pours like rain through the canopy in yellow-green impressionist speckles to the forest floor.  The light all around you becomes infused with color and you feel trapped in a Seurat painting.  Then, shortly after noon, the light becomes that of dusk, and stays that way until nightfall. 

I remember drive through the forests around 6 p.m. and thinking that it sure was dark earlier than usual.  Once emerging from the trees, the light lasted another hour or so - while inside I'd felt certain blackness would descend at any minute. 

A last observation and lamentation made by Steinbeck concerned the American language.  He noticed (and this was in '62) how the varied American dialects were slowly going by the wayside due to the uniform speech infiltrating the country via radio and TV.  Being a "great lover of language and words" he said it saddened him to hear the distinctness of an area losing itself to the generality of the masses, even though his logical self knew that this was a product of greater education and communication. 

I too can understand his lamentations.  Even British accents have become less poignant than they were a hundred years ago.  The idea that our country's individuality is losing itself to a generality saddens me as well.  If Steinbeck noticed it 50 years ago, I cannot imagine how much worse it would seem to him today.  With globalization like it has never been before, it will only be a matter of time when nearly everyone speaks English with a bland, unoriginal accent.  And, I agree with Steinbeck - something will be lost.