Since the blog also serves as a personal journal, I wanted to post a few quotes from the book I've been reading, Travels with Charley, In Search of America, by John Steinbeck.
In it, Steinbeck describes his travels through the country in a modified travel trailer and his dog Charley.
...I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. ... My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby
I remember an old Arab in North Africa, a man whose hands had never felt water. He gave me mint tea in a glass so coated with use that it was opaque, but he handed me companionship, and the tea was wonderful because of it. And without any protection my teeth didn't fall out, nor did running sores develop. I began to formulate a new law describing the relationship of protection to despondency. A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.
It occurs to me that, just as the Carthaginians hired mercenaries to do their fighting for them, we Americans bring in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.
Three things haunted me about Lonesome Harry. First, I don't think had had any fun; second, I think he was really lonesome, maybe in a chronic state; and third, he didn't do a single thing that couldn't be predicted--didn't break a glass or a mirror, committed no outrages, left no physical evidence of joy.
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