Dogging Steinbeck -- Sept. 23, 2010, my mad road trip begins
In 2010 I retraced the 10,000-mile route John Steinbeck took around the USA in 1960 for his road book 'Travels With Charley.' I had lots of fun - and proved 'TWC' was heavily fictionalized.
On the road, doglessly
Not long after dawn on Sept. 23, 2010, I left John Steineck’s former home in Sag Harbor, Long Island, and began to retrace the 10,000-mile route John Steinbeck took for his iconic road book ‘Travels with Charley’.
As faithfully as possible, as a journalist — and exactly 50 years after Steinbeck left on his trip — I followed his path for 11,276 miles. As I traveled doglessly and alone from Maine to Seattle to California and back on the Old Steinbeck Highway, I wrote a daily blog called ‘Travels without Charley’ for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
When I returned to Pittsburgh I expanded my road blog into the all-true book ‘Dogging Steinbeck.’ The story of my adventures on and off the road with John Steinbeck’s ghost, ‘Dogging Steinbeck’ chronicles both my own mad journey through Flyover Country and how I proved ‘Travels with Charley in Search of America’ was not the truthful work of nonfiction it had pretended to be for 50 years.
I proved that the great author’s beloved travel book was a heavily made-up and deliberately devious account of how he actually traveled, whom he really met and what he truly thought of 1960 America and its people.
Most Steinbeck scholars thought I merely proved the obvious and many Steinbeck lovers unfairly accused me of trashing their idol for personal glory and future movie contracts.
But The New York Times editorial page thought I did a good thing by exposing the truth about ‘Charley’ after half a century, and in 2012 ‘TWC’s’ own publisher had the book’s long introduction changed to warn readers that what they were about to read was heavily fictionalized and not to be taken literally.
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This article promoting and explaining my looming Steinbeck road trip appeared in the print version of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Sunday Travel section on Sept. 19, 2010.
Travels without Charley
A journalist sets out to retrace John Steinbeck's 1960 trek across America
By Bill Steigerwald
John Steinbeck
has a 50-year head start on me, so I don't ever expect to catch up with him or his ghost.
But on Thursday I begin my great and mad adventure -- retracing the 10,000-mile road trip around the United States that Steinbeck took in the fall of 1960 and turned into his best-seller "Travels With Charley."
Perhaps you've forgotten the details of Steinbeck's iconic American road book.
A mix of observations, musings and gently cranky criticism of a country and people he loved but had lost touch with, it stars the world-famous author of "The Grapes of Wrath," his lovable poodle companion Charley and "Rocinante," a 1960 GMC pickup truck/camper shell combo Steinbeck named after Don Quixote's horse.
Steinbeck's journey began on Sept. 23, 1960, when he and Charley left his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., took three ferries to Connecticut, drove to the top of Maine and then turned west.
Deliberately dodging big cities and major highways, the former California ranch hand, future Nobel Prize-winner and author of "Of Mice and Men" crossed the top of the country from Vermont to Chicago to Fargo, N.D., to Seattle.
Then he hugged the Pacific coast through redwood country to San Francisco and his native Monterey Peninsula (aka "Steinbeck Country"). Before sprinting home to New York in early December, he stopped in Texas for Thanksgiving and in New Orleans to observe an ugly racial scene at a recently integrated public school.
Steinbeck spent nearly 11 weeks on the road.
As the Pirates and Yankees slugged it out in the World Series and Kennedy and Nixon debated on TV to see who was tough enough to be the next boss of the Free World, he and Charley saw 34 states -- some only through their windshield at 50 mph.
With virtually no notes to work from, Steinbeck spent almost a year writing "Charley." Published by Viking Press in July 1962, it became an instant best-seller and got generally favorable reviews. It still sells well and has become a fixture on high school reading lists and in our culture.
My trip and Steinbeck's will be similar only in geography and season of the year. I won't have a dog with me to talk to or provide comic relief -- I checked the rescue homes but couldn't find one that could read maps or drive and post to Twitter at the same time.
I plan to follow Steinbeck's trail as faithfully as possible, but I'll do it faster, cheaper and less comfortably.
I figure to drive my 10,000 miles in six weeks or less, mainly because, unlike Steinbeck, I won't be able to spend almost five weeks rest-stopping at expensive big-city hotels or celebrating Thanksgiving at a fancy cattle ranch in Texas.
Steinbeck camped out under the stars a bunch of times. I won't.
He drove a clunky uncomfortable truck with a Spartan camper shell on its back. I'll stay at pre-1960 motels when I can and drive a 2010 Rav4 I can sleep in when I must.
When Steinbeck was on the road he had only an AM radio and pay phones to keep him tethered to the world. I'll have enough communication gear for a trip to the Moon.
The book "Travels With Charley" will be my map/guide/timeline to the places Steinbeck went and the things he mused, complained or fretted about.
Unfortunately, "Charley" is not a travelogue and wasn't meant to be. It's often vague and confusing about where Steinbeck actually was on any given date, and Steinbeck, who died in 1968, left no notes, no journal, no expense records.
To accurately chart his real journey around America, I've had to become part history-detective, part cartographer, part travel writer, part library researcher, part Steinbeck expert.
But don't ask me about Steinbeck's alleged weakness for practicing "sentimentalism" in his writing, whatever that is. Ask me what motel he stayed in on Oct. 12, 1960, or where he slept in Seattle.
So that's my mad plan.
No one needs to tell me I'm about to start on an interesting and amazing all-American adventure. Whenever I tell anyone my plan -- especially aging boomers chained to their desks and mortgages -- their faces light up with envy until reality slaps them to their senses.
As Steinbeck knew, the idea of hitting the highway to somewhere/anywhere else but where we are is embedded in our national DNA.
My initial innocent idea to follow Steinbeck's tire tracks 50 years later as a professional drive-by journalist has become my destiny, my obsession. There's no turning around. I was mentally and financially all-in months ago.
I know I'll get my kicks. But I am also committing a serious act of entrepreneurial journalism. I hope to use my "Charley" as the frame for a book that compares simple, poor, square 1960 America with 2010 America.
Obviously, I don't know what twists and turns I'll find on the road or how my trip will unfold or end. I do know I'll be doing a lot of driving, a lot of interviewing, a lot of observing and a lot of opining until at least Election Day.
As Steinbeck would know because he said it first, my trip really started months ago, and I'm not taking it. It's taking me.
It's already been a lot of work and fun and I haven't driven a mile yet. So far I haven't heard anything from the Department of Homeland Security that my trip would be a threat to national security.
So starting Thursday, Sept. 23, I'll hit the Old Steinbeck Highway and see what happens.
Steinbeck's Little Land Ship
Tuesday, 21 September, 2010
EIGHTY FOUR, PA. -- Home
John Steinbeck
carefully planned his trip for months. He studied maps to choose routes that dodged big cities but circled the edge of the country from Maine to Seattle and back.
He also packed his Spartan camper shell Rocinante with everything he thought he’d ever need.
He had a pile of books like William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” that he hoped to read but never did. He had tools, spare truck parts and several rifles.
He also had a propane stove, a table that converted to a bed, closets and a toilet, as you can see if you use a camera to light up the interior of his camper at its eternal parking place in the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Ca.
It was Steinbeck's idea to carry his little house around with him so he could invite people he met in for a friendly drink.
His truck cab was nothing like the luxuriously appointed pickups today. He had no AC and only an AM radio -- not even push-button.
No wonder he was always talking to Charley.
Meanwhile, I'm packing and getting my red RAV4 set up so if I need to crash somewhere -- not literally -- I can sleep in it at campgrounds, rest stops, truck stops or Walmart parking lots.
It's not as homey as Rocinante, Steinbeck's truck/camper, but it'll be a much smoother ride on the road.
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The book “Travels With Charley” is my main map, timeline and guide to where John Steinbeck was, when he was there and what he was thinking about during his spin around America in the fall of 1960.
But since Steinbeck's book is often so vague and confusing about time and place, I have had to rely on other sources to follow his cold trail.
I’ve used clues from letters he sent from the road, newspaper articles written in 1960 (and later) and TV-detective logic to make the best guesses I can.
I am going everywhere Steinbeck actually went on his 10,000-mile trip across 34 states, I think. I’m taking the same two-lane U.S. highways he took – except where they’ve been buried under interstates.
I'm leaving from Sag Harbor, Long Island, on Thursday, Sept. 23 -- 50 years to the morning after Steinbeck and Charley set out in their overloaded pickup-truck/camper hybrid.
I won’t take nearly three months to circumnavigate the country, as he did, however, because I won't be spending nearly five weeks off-road staying at posh hotels or visiting friends and family -- as he did.
I'll be moving quickly in my red Toyota RAV4, practicing drive-by journalism at its finest or worst. I’ll report and opine on what I see along the Old Steinbeck Highway in 2010 and try to discover, document -- or imagine -- what Steinbeck saw on his journey in 1960.
I'll also try to find out how the simpler, less prosperous and less lovely America that he observed, critiqued and worried about has changed or not changed in half a century. And whether those changes have turned out for the better or the worse.
My first stop — after a journey from Pittsburgh to New Jersey through Manhattan and out toward the European tip of Long Island — will be upscale Sag Harbor, where Steinbeck loafed when he wasn't living in his Manhattan brownstone and where his backyard ended at the ocean's edge.
Just Me and Steinbeck’s Ghost
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
SAG HARBOR, N.Y. -- Steinbeck's House
Before the sun set on the last day of summer, and before the harvest moon rose, I drove out to Steinbeck's seashore house on Bluff Point Lane. The GPS Girl had no trouble finding it, but the house hides at the end of a narrow private gravel road.
I didn't pull in the driveway because John Stefanik's car was there. He's been taking care of the house for 28 years -- when widow Elaine hired him to do the job.
The wood-sided house and its outer buildings and thick shaggy grass were looking pretty good beneath the heavy shade of the lot's tall and muscular oak trees.
The oaks are much bigger than they were when Steinbeck lived there, of course, and the house and other structures -- dark green 50 years ago -- have been painted slate-gray. But Steinbeck would have recognized it in its preserved state.
Stefanik said on Monday a New York Times reporter and photographer went with him to the house to do a story about the 50th anniversary of Steinbeck's "Charley" trip.
Though he usually asks for appointments from pushy media-types like me, as soon as I explained why I was there he let me wander around and take pictures as the sun set over the waters of Morris Cove.
Stefanik couldn't have been nicer. While he and his son ran noisy garden gadgets and did yard work, I did my best impression of a real photojournalist and tried to document the scene in the failing orange-red light.
When the Stefaniks drove off they left me in the driveway with my cameras and, I guess, Steinbeck's ghost.
Hitting the Steinbeck Highway for real
Thursday, 23 September 2010
SAG HARBOR, N.Y. -- Steinbeck's Driveway -- Miles Zero
Goodbye, Sag Harbor.
It's 7 a.m. My RAV4 is in Steinbeck's driveway, ready for launching.
I'm sure he wouldn't mind my trespassing. The ferry to New London, Conn. -- back to the continent -- embarks at 10…
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To see how my 11,276-mile adventure chasing Steinbeck’s ghost turned out, you’ll have to go the Amazon to buy my books. For videos I took on my trip, go here.
Dogging Steinbeck is the full story of my trip, what I learned about Steinbeck’s book and its flaws, and the reaction to what I learned from Steinbeck scholars and fans. Chasing Steinbeck’s Ghost is a timeline of Steinbeck’s actual trip — as best I could assemble it.