Reconnecting with an old friend

 Many, many, many, and oh heck, one more many summers ago, my friend Steve sent me a rather ratty copy of John Steinbeck's East of Eden, complete with duct tape holding the cover together. I didn't question, which is good because no explanation was offered, but if someone like Steve was sending me a book, damn sure I was going to read it. I liked it. I liked it a lot. I'd say it's biblical, and it put me on a path of reading all of Steinbeck, which is how I tend to read: everything by one author, all at once.

Steinbeck's fiction is popular and readily available from libraries, but his non fiction writings aren't stocked as well, so one of the last books to find it's way to me was a copy of Travels with Charley, a recounting of Steinbeck's travels around the United States in a truck with a camper top, and with a poodle named Charley. It was first mentioned to me by Steve's and my common friend (and former student of Steve's dad!) Sandy. For any bike people still reading, Sandy is also the creator of D2R2, and speaking of Deerfield, he'd mentioned Travels with Charley because, for Steinbeck's first night on the road, he'd slept just over the ridge from Sandy's old house, near Eaglebrook School.

When I did eventually connect with a copy, it was in a used book store while visiting my mother and sister in Seattle, so sold! It meant I had good company for the bus ride back east, and even cooler, Steinbeck had travelled east to west, so while I read on the bus trip home, our paths crossed! Well, trust me me, it was a kind of cool, and I later coopted Steinbeck's title for Travels with Karlee when I blogged my own wandering. Also cool, I recently found a well taped copy in a Little Library, so it come home with me for a future road companion.

Today is now the future, and also a truly pleasant day to exist outside, but in a concerted effort to not overdo use of my recovering leg, I've packed the book and some bug spray and will head to a lovely sandy beach on the Mill River to sit and read. And bonus, the library near there has a copy of America and Americans that the liner notes mentioned!