California by John Steinbeck and Me

"If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an' maybe he's disappointed that nothin' he can do 'll make him feel rich." 

 "All of California quickens with produce, and the fruit grows heavy." 

 "She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously." 

  "So you're lookin' for work. What ya think ever'body else is lookin' for? Di'monds? What you think I wore my ass down to a nub lookin' for?

"We're Joads. We don't look up to nobody...We was farm people till the debt. And then - them people. They done sompin' to us. Ever' time they come seemed like they was a-whippin' me - all of us...Made me feel ashamed. An' now I ain't ashamed. These folks is our folks."

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John Steinbeck and I have a couple of things in common. We were both born in California and we both love to write. But that is where the similarity ends.  Steinbeck wrote twenty-seven books, winning a Pulitzer Prize for three of them; Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and Of Mice and Men. In 1962 he won Nobel Prize for Literature. Not a bad career for a kid from Salinas, California.

I always loved reading a Steinbeck novel, probably for a couple of reasons. When I was just learning to read it was The Wayward Bus that my grandma would pull off the bookshelf to have me read from. Later when I could choose my own books to read I would return to Steinbeck where I would feel comfortable in a surroundings I knew well, California. His stories seemed so real, he would weave a tale of the struggles of  man against his environment, his characters never wanting to give in to whatever force was against them, fighting always to the end for justice and for the individual.

I leave you with some poignant quotes from John Steinbeck himself:

“It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.”

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“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”

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“This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.”

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All Photos are from an old Guess Family album circa early 1900's.