Worth another visit...or two.

Most certainly, Monterey and Cannery Row is worth another visit...or two, or three. We recently spent the day and night there and were immediately caught up once again in the ambience and history of this interesting area.

But more than just the present incarnation of this old seaside fishing village is the draw of some popular literature born of Monterey. One of the most remembered is the book, Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck.

It may not have been his most read novel, but it is one of his most noteable, being that one can still walk in his footsteps where all those exquisite words were conceived. A person can stand on Seaside Ave, or Wave Street, or Foam Street...and gaze down onto the "Row" where many of same buildings reside from whence John Steineck looked upon them and wrote his little book. Much of it is still here:"...the smell of kelp and barnacles when the tide is out and the smell of salt and spray when the tide is in". Many of the old rusty tanks and pipes and railroad artifacts, some which sit where they fell sixty or more years ago, are part of the scenery of Cannery Row to this day. John Steinbeck's Cannery Row was written and published in 1945...it holds up marvelously well today.

I pledged to buy a copy and read it after I left Monterey two weeks ago...I held true to that pledge. And even though I have only been reading it for two days, I have become fully engulfed in the Monterey of that era. It is a fictional novel, bringing us characters like Lee Chong the grocer, Doc, Dora the madame, and Horace and Mack. Taking us to places like the grocery store, Dora's stately whore house The Bear Flag Restaurant, Doc's Western Biological...the docks, the tidepools, the flophouses and bars. Having read it the first time in Junior High or High School, it's all new for me again. The thing that impressed me most 40 years ago? The fact that it is less than 200 pages long! Cannery Row is a quick read, but packed with a witcism and jounalistic sense that set Stenbeck apart from some of his contemporaries.

Just a reminder...other John Steinbeck books? You may recall The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat. He was born in Salinas, just a short spin through the canyon inland from Monterey.

Revisit some of his works if you get a chance. Cannery Row can be read in a day without any outside interruptions. For anyone getting a chance to visit the west coast, don't miss a day or two in Monterey...and Cannery Row. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the highlights now, many great seafood restaurants, and, of course, the coastline and Monterey Bay itself.

But when you do go there...at sunset, breath deep a sample of fresh, California sea air...Steinbeck did, a lot...then wrote about it, "Cannery Row in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream...". I did. And I'll be back again with my camera...and write about it. Maybe not all of it will be the truth, but I'll write about it. Afterall, Cannery Row, the book, is fiction...right?