john steinbeck's childhood home

Over the weekend, I spent an entire day stalking John Steinbeck. I visited the house where he was born and raised in Salinas. I stopped by the National Steinbeck Center a few blocks away from his childhood home. I also took a stroll around Cannery Row, the setting where some of his novels took place.

1) As a child, Steinbeck became obsessed with Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. He and his sister Mary would often wander along the eroded sandstone in the Pastures of Heaven, pretending the stone columns were the towers of Camelot.

The headboard and footboard of the bed Steinbeck was born in.

2) Steinbeck favored Blackwing pencils and couldn't stand a dull point of lead. Everyday, he would sharpen 24 pencils and load them point up in a wood box. Then he would take a pencil and write until the pencil was no longer sharp, usually around 4 or 5 lines later, before putting it point down into a second wood box and grabbing a new pencil. Some days, he would use over 100 pencils.

3) Steinbeck held a series of odd jobs, working as a farmhand along with migrant workers and in the laboratory of Spreckels Sugar Beet Farms. He attended Stanford sporadically and dropped out after six years without earning a degree.

4) The Grapes of Wrath earned Steinbeck the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize. This novel also earned him a lot of public scorn. The book was banned and burned for misrepresenting attitudes towards migrant workers and for being profane and obscene. He received death threats and was even put under surveillance by the FBI.

5) In 1947, Steinbeck made the first of several trips to Russia with photographer Robert Capa. They were among the first Americans allowed to visit many parts of the USSR since the communist revolution. He was allowed into Russia because they felt that The Grapes of Wrath depicted the plight of the poor under capitalism.

6) Steinbeck served as a was correspondent during WWII. He earned the respect of the troops he observed by ripping off his correspondent badge and joining in on raids and invasions.

7) In 1960, Steinbeck embarked on a road trip across the United States in order to rediscover the people of America. He traveled over 10,000 miles in a camper. His only permanent companion was his standard poodle, Charley. 

8) John Steinbeck became great friends with a marine biologist named Ed Ricketts. Ricketts' laboratory was in Cannery Row. Once, the laboratory set on fire and was destroyed. After the ashes cooled, they found Ricketts' safe. When it was opened, they found half a pineapple pie, a quarter of a pound of Gorgonzola cheese, and an open can of sardines. 

Steinbeck and the boys of Cannery Row.

9) Steinbeck always hoped to adapt his novel Sweet Thursday into a musical. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the musics and lyrics for Pipe Dreams. Steinbeck was enthusiastic about the project in the initial rehearsals, but the script was routinely edited to make the story of a prostitute in a bordello more family-friendly. The resulting musical was a commercial failure and it ended Steinbeck's dreams of writing for the theater. 

There is no way this place isn't haunted.

10)  And most importantly of all, it served as the inspiration for Steinbeck's Spirit of Monterey Wax Museum, the "family-friendly" wax museum that goes over the history of the area, focusing mainly on torture, murder, and the local bordello. Steinbeck only appears once at the very beginning and then an actor portraying him does a voice-over in the last room. It also inexplicably ends with a wax Elvis and a sardine can photo opportunity.

"I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession." --John Steinbeck

much love,
hedgie