Steinbeck (83 page)

I know you think just because I'm away from you and you can't check on me, that I make up things. I'll just have to ask you to believe there is Swiss cheese candy. No, I didn't taste it, I just saw the sign. Also that the largest collection of Sea Shells in the world is on Route 12 in Wisconsin. Who could make up things like that? Who would want to?

I know E.O. wouldn't approve of the speed with which I am covering ground but I'm sure seeing lots and hearing lots. People don't talk about issues. They talk about how you bake a doughnut and it will float. There's lots of local politics talked but I can't see much interest in the national. But plenty in the U.N. Washington is so far away. A man today looked at my license plates and said, “Clear from New York.” But mostly it's hunting and stories about hunting. The bombardment against ducks starts at dawn.

I went from maple country which is flame red to birch which is flame yellow. You would have oohed quite a lot, aahed some. I stopped at a sign that said “home made sausages,” and bought some. I'm cooking it now and it smells really wonderful. And at another place I got apples that just explode with juice when you bite them. There's no doubt that frost does something to them. But it's stopping like this that gets talk going. Everyone wants to see the inside of the truck. I even do the floors with Lestoil and I keep the stove shined. When they see the guns they say, “Oh, going hunting!” and never ask another question. Because of the cap and beard they usually take me for a retired sailor and make jokes about do I get car sick. I say I sure do. On the Duluth and Minneapolis radio there is a great block of advertising for Florida real estate. I listened carefully and all it promises is that it is in Florida.

I'll go through Fargo tomorrow morning and by the time I call you tomorrow night I'll be deep in North Dakota. From now on there will be long stretches less populated. In two days I'll be climbing toward the Rockies

 

Well, I had the sausage and it was just as good as it smelled. And I didn't even splash grease on this letter.

They're loading cattle outside with floodlights. Must get out to see that. The truckers are a set-apart bunch of men. The long distance ones are exactly like sailors. I suppose they have homes but they live on the road and stop to sleep.

 

Well, I watched. Two truckloads of yearlings. Going south to be fed—but bull calves. The beefers are kept for milk. There is too Swiss cheese candy.

I miss you already. Time gets all out of kilter.

Good night my love.

Tobit

Beach, North Dakota,
but why Beach?
Columbus Day [1960]

Honey:

I was so glad to hear you tonight.

I should write to you in the mornings. I get a little tired, particularly tonight. The roads were very rough and the wind high. The Badlands are moody things—really as though someone were being bad. But I can see how it would be possible to fall in love with them.

I listened to the game. When the Pirates lose they sure lose big, don't they?

I'm staying in a motel called the Dairy Queen. Reason? The only public telephone in forty miles.

The Dairy Queen has a large, beautiful tub and I'm going to get into it almost at once. Beach has a bar. I went in and there was nothing talked but deer hunting. I've seen about six go by on car fenders today.

I think I'll get in the tub and then wash shirts and sox. Maybe that will freshen me. I started out at 6 this morning. North Dakota is like the great plains anywhere, and then—Wham! the Missouri River, and instantly it becomes the West, brown hills and then the moon country of the Badlands. And what they call painted canyons—all blue and red. It was rainy at first and then the sun burst out and whopped it up. Charley has had his dinner now and peed a Badland. And I feel a little peaked and tired. So I'll have the bath and see what it does.

 

That was yesterday. I went to sleep like a shot. So pooped I guess. So much to tell you. I crossed into Montana today. Where the Badlands are naughty—Montana is grand. What grandeur! It's like coming out into the north of England—huge and largely impractical. Lots of sugar beets. Lots of small bars in the towns. I stopped in about six. Little square, burnt-up men with little speech, all bent and warped with riding and sun and also cold, faces very red. I know the price a steer will bring and it's pretty good if it's local.

And it, the road I mean, looks level, but it isn't, you're climbing all the time, and you just think your car isn't doing very well. Been snow in the Rockies and more predicted so I came on over. I'm outside of Bozeman now and it's the coldest it's going to be. Tonight I wear the red pyjamas. There's a great snowy mountain beside me and the slender fir trees all look like what we try to do with soap at Christmas. I'm in a trailer park and I've talked with the people and they like the trailers because they are warmer and more comfortable.

I have two lamps on and my house is warm now. Also I had the good sense to buy a bottle of booze—namely Vodka, the first I've had since I left you and it comes in handy. It warms my feet. I've had two and I'm going to have another before I hit the bag. I'm having Jack Wagner's Pissoli tonight [A can of chile and a can of hominy].

It's been a wonderful day for looking and hearing. More historical markers. I shed a tear for Custer (the dumb bastard) at the field of Little Big Horn. And Charley peed a tear also.

I bought a hat today, an old-fashioned, narrow-brimmed stockman's hat. The naval cap causes too much attention this far from the sea. It was contrary to my purpose. The hat I bought is the one Sam Hamilton probably wore. Stetson called it a stockman's hat and it is not the movie version, just a plain hat. No one has looked at me since I bought it. Must remember this.

There are a few little air leaks—like behind the refrigerator but I've plugged them with Kleenices. I remember at Tahoe one time when a keyhole let in so much cold that I put a cork in it. The tropical plant is all curled and shivery. I don't know whether or not it will survive. It's got its leaves crossed like a lady in a wind tunnel.

From the smell, the pissoli is ready. I'll eat and then complete this and then have a shot of Vod and hit the blankets. Curfew shall not ring tonight.

I do miss you, you know.

Tomorrow I'll be moving toward Idaho but I don't know if I'll make it. Montana is very big to cross and so beautiful and grand that I drive slow for to look at it.

Love to my Mouse who has never been in a nose cone—so far.

Wonderful about Way's new job and Thom's A's and Cat's study hall.

Love from your true adorer.

 

I wish you were here, only your feet would be colder than mine and I couldn't take them.

New York
January 23, 1961

My dear Mr. President:

I thank you for inviting me to your inauguration. I was profoundly moved by this ceremony which I had never seen before and even more moved by your following speech which was not only nobly conceived and excellently written and delivered, but also had that magic undertone of truth which cannot be simulated.

Personally, of course, I am honored to have been invited, but much more sharply felt is my gratification that through me you have recognized the many good members of my profession as existing at all. A nation may be moved by its statesmen and defended by its military but it is usually remembered for its artists. It does seem to me that you, sir, have discovered or rather rediscovered this lost truth.

Again my thanks, my pledge and my passionate hope that your words may become history. And I believe they will!

Yours gratefully,
John Steinbeck

Sandy Lane Hotel
Barbados
February 15, 1961

Ambassador Adlai Stevenson:

Your Excellency, honey—Dear Adlai: I am at a loss about how to address you. In my country Hon. means you have been paid public money legitimately, while Honest—Honest John, Honest Jim—means you have stolen public money.

I had dinner with Marietta the Naughty [Marietta Tree, United States Representative to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations] two nights ago. I told her I had stopped Stevenson letters because of the sensitiveness of your present position and because I am by no means sure that I could be cleared as a guilty association. She said, “Bosh! Continue them because I want to read them too.” You must admit that's pretty flattering.

What a lovely place this is. The Fayre Elayne progresses from high yellow to octoroon. I simply slough skins like a snake.

No Stevenson letter is worth its ink without advice. I have a plan which is not as silly as it may seem. May I tell it to you? It seems very likely that Mr. K. [Khrushchev] will be coming to your club before long. What I propose is this. I know that all delegates carry attaché cases on the upper levels and briefcases on the lower. I suggest that your delegation and as many others as you can persuade, on the day Mr. K. takes his seat, have in each piece of diplomatic luggage a shoe. If you still have your famous shoe with the hole, it would be perfect. I suggest that when Mr. K. takes his seat each member should place a shoe on his desk. Probably no comment would be necessary but if it seems advisable, you or perhaps the representative of a small nation should announce that on a previous occasion we had been ignorant of Soviet parliamentary procedure, but that the democracies out of courtesy for Soviet conventions were determined to go along.

Now that is not a joke. In spite of all his jokes I think Mr. K. is a humorless man. I think if this could be done in a tense moment, and there is bound to be one, it would throw him sky high and deliver against him the most terrible weapon in the world, laughter.

We will be here until March 4th. I've been asked to go with Project Mohole—to take a core off the coast of Mexico at 12,000 feet. I have accepted with fantastic joy. I'll go March 15th for one month. The whole undisturbed history of the world in one core. I can't resist it. Besides, many of my old and abominable friends will be there—good men, good minds, good scientists.