When You're Alone

Still waiting on finding a ticket. While there's plenty of time before the show, I'm growing increasingly nervous. Any extras?

The trip to the Steinbeck Center and Monterey Bay Aquarium was wonderful. The trip through the heartland of California's central coast brought back the memories of traveling to college. The rain made the hillsides a deep, rich green and the warm sunlight through the bus windows made for a relaxing trip. I had a dozen teenage girls in my charge and as we walked through the tourist shops of the downtown and along the waterfront, I told them that I wanted to ditch the trip and wander along the city streets towards the end of the streets in search of the ghosts of the characters that frequented Cannery Row. The ladies of the flophouse, Doc, the men who lived in the abandoned house. One could probably still find them if one looked hard enough.

That discussion was all the girls needed; they began discussing East of Eden and how great of an impact the book made on their lives. Their English 3 teacher assigned the novel last Spring; since, one of the girls was half-way through her fourth time reading it. The girls discussed Kate and relationship between the brothers. All the while, we were supposed to be thinking about sea life, we were champing at the bit to head to Salinas. When we finally did, we absorbed the exhibits in all their greatness. To walk into the barn from Eden, the bunkhouse from Of Mice and Men and the labor camp of Grapes made one grasp the humanity of the characters. That Steinbeck captured people in their most real - sad, drunk, hopeful, incurious, philosophical, educated and ignorant - more so than any American writer of his time is what makes the man's work so profound. The girls hit the bookstore and couldn't decide what to read for their book club that they decided to buy several titles, each girl with a different one in order to pass them around as they finished them. As a teacher and an adult, it was thrilling to see these young adults so excited about literature and the stories Steinbeck told. These young individuals were not blind to the myths and models that these stories told about their own lives. Neither was I.