Travels with Charley

When I first saw I would be reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, I thought it would be another novel with picturesque backgrounds, complicated characters, and some major twists in the story development.  What I got instead was a major surprise, a “travelogue” as it is commonly labeled.  So what is a travelogue? Well, Steinbeck decided to search for America, really the people of America.   He and his French poodle went from Long Island to California and back (the southern route).  Set in the 1960s, Steinbeck searches to find the culture of each part of the states and to address his restless heart.  Isn’t it funny how all of us think there is another place that is so much better than where we currently reside.  We are such a restless people.  During his search, Steinbeck finds over and over again, people who ask him, “Where are you going?” and “Lord, I wish I could go” and he declares, “you don’t even know where I am going,”  and what he hears over and over again, “I don’t care.  I’d like to go anywhere….”  And so it goes.  We are all looking for something better, but will we ever get there?  We are so busy looking for a better place, that we just miss the present – a place that in fact may possibly be the best place we could ever be.  I often meet with RAs and ask them about their dreams.  Most mention traveling to a specific exotic city or even a place they have heard from others as “the place to be."  A few times I will hear, “I kinda like where I am now and don’t think of a better place” (or something like that).  In those moments I sit in awe, wow, this person is so self-aware and really enjoying life.  How I wish I could be there.  Really it isn’t a location, it’s a state of mind that one has in determining that place in this journey of life that we realize what we have.  I hope that all of you reading this can realize where you are today is where you should be.  Once we open our minds to that, our journeys are much more rich.  Steinbeck’s books take me places.  I really wasn’t expecting this book to have me think so deeply.  Maybe it’s my own journey with a dog, not a French poodle.  When I walk him from here on out, I’ll often think of what he is thinking, similar to Steinbeck’s Charley. 

How the US cultures differ, from North to South and East to West.  While Steinbeck’s descriptions match stereotypes I have often heard, it does make one think how different we are as a country, yet bound together by our forefathers.  Wish he spent a bit more time discussing our brothers from the Northeast. 

A very good read, highly recommend.  I’m on a roll with some class A books!  Thanks RAs.