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Show THE Vtd mefeyrtylis SUMMER CHRONICLE UTAH (mceptm ris: Steifihcrks Ftfried CA .;,.-,.rv- - -. ; . . - -- - - ... "" f r ; . m - the bustling commercial world of Cannery Row, John Steinbeck's statue stands in what used to be the epicenter of California's canning industry. Overlooking extremes with scenic natural vistas on the one e hand and trash and human squalor other. the on But I still couldn't help thinking about what the book's author would think. Sitting as gateSteinbeck's keeper to a statue had looked absolutely mortified, his eyes glazed over, looking straight ahead toward the old cannery, as if, by avoiding eye contact with the new, he could stop the tides of time from crashing into Cannery Row. But the tides came. row sits the At the end of the present-da- y Monterey Aquarium, an impressivefy large cement structure containing every sea creature imaginable that is, until you talk to the museum's researchers. They will give you the true scoop that at the bottom of Monterey's coast, the floor of the kelp forest, researchers are finding new creatures on a regular basis. The best (I think) is a thumb-size- d jellyfish, whose translucent appendages are lined with reflective tissue that pulsates rainbow colors like a string of Christmas motion lights. But if you really want to go back in Monterey time before the aquarium and before trie resort mentality there is a way. It only takes a bike and an affinity for breezy conditions. If you trav man-mad- Enclaves from Steinbeck's era still exist along the California coast, where visitors can wade in the tidepools and traverse the rocky shore on bicycles. Photo &: Story by Laura B. Weiss Chronicle Editor in Chief "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." -- Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, 1945 All I want to do is give John Steinbeck a hug. I want to embrace his cold, bronzed face and tell him everything will be OK. But I'm afraid to. Standing in what was the epicenter of Steinbeck's world, Monterey, Calif., I find that there arc too many people around kids eating bags of Chcctos, parents with shopping bags and more trinket stores than you can shake a stick at. But instead of consoling his museum-calibe- r bust, I walk past the chiseled visage and stand on the dock overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Below, a father and daughter jump tentatively from giant rock to giant rock. I can almost see Steinbeck's most memorable Cannery Row character, Doc, doing the same thing, wading among the tide pools in passionate pursuit of biological specimens bright orange star fish, barnacles, sea crabs and urchins to sell to college laboratories around the country. I close my eyes, attempting to imagine what it was really like in the 1930s, a wild scratch of land, where boats departed from the dock before sunrise and came back 10 hours later with their sardines. planks covered in 10 to But in the 1940s, with serious supply and withering demand, the canneries that lined the fish into coast were grinding the finger-si7.e- d had of them. In animal feed enough the 1950s, due to u,c fisherman's perception that the sea was a limitless resource, sardines virtually disappeared from California's coastline. Now, in 2002, the father, with digital camera in hand, retreats to the sand, the daughter still huns taking a few steps farther into the rocky surf. He climbs the wooden stairs and yells back to her to come out of the water. It's time to go shopping. This is where the nostalgic time warp ends and Cannery Row's current reality begins. The area of sand and rock that the two were exploring appears to be Cannery Row's singular Stcinbcckian enclave. Fifteen yards to the right is Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company. Fifteen yards to the left is Christmas By The Bay, which, coincidcntally, is located in Steinbeck Plaza next to Ghirardelli Chocolates and The Ansel Adams Gallery. As an English student, and lover of Steinbeck's beautifully natural and meaningful writing, I have idealized Cannery Row since reading his classic novel. I was swept away by the images of a rugged coast and a rugged way of life. The characters of Cannery Row formed a tightly knit community that, as the book states, "unabashedly put the highest value on the intangibleshuman warmth, camaraderie and love." I was now spending the evening dodging the tangibles specifically, BMWs and Mercedes e Bcnz that screamed down the book's famed stretch of land. The cover of the book couldn't help but facilitate the Cannery Row idealization in my head a richly colored illustration, where tall grass surrounded a few men soaking in a California sunset from a grassy hill overlooking a boat dock. On second examination, the term "idealization" probably isn't the right word to use. After all, the beginning quote from the novel continues with, "Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries and laboratories and flop houses." So maybe I should just blame myself for my expectations. After all, the book had warned me about the world of Cannery Row. It was a place of CHRONICLE FEATURE EDITOR el five miles south of Monterey, you'll run into drive a stretch of what's called the almost untouched land that snakes along the cliffs above the textured, blue surf. Though there is an entrance fee for cars (it costs nothing if you traverse the stretch on a bike), the drive still appears to be a hidden treasure. It's a surreal experience, a ride where you can hear the surf crashing against the rocks, and if you stop long enough, you can watch giant pelicans swoop down into the water and sea otters float like furry ocean buoys. Riding a rental bike along this stretch (despite having defective brakes), I got the feeling that it would all be OK. When people cared like stretch those citizens who bought up the of coast to keep resorts out change would be 17-m- ile 17-m- 17-m- fine. In the introduction to Cannery Row, Steinbeck explains life in sea metaphors. Referring to flat worms that you "must let ooze and crawl of their own will," he said, "perhaps that might be the way to write this book to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves." The same, I say, goes for Cannery Row, and what promises to be its constantly evolving presence on the California coast. lweisschronicle.utah.edu i i x- ' ,'A ' - . , ' v half-mil- "i f ' 1 I .;. i ' V """ t A . :r Monterey and the surrounding area is saturated with Steinbeck features, including maps of Cannery Row's famous locales, and the Steinbeck Wax Museum as featured aove. WYNNE PARRY WPARRYCHRONICLE.UTAH.EDU 581-704- 1 |