Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.---Barry Switzer

California has had a program where everyone in the state was supposed to read The Grapes of Wrath. This was such a big project I'm surprised I could take the book out of the library. But so I did.

Now, I've read this book before, but it was about 40 years ago, so I didn't remember much about it. Also, as a teen I was reading it for the plot, whereas now motives, characters, and the background history are more interesting to me. There are a number of references which are cultural which I didn't understand... "IITYTWYBAD" comes to mind. "If I told you ? would you be a ?" is the closest I could come.

Anyway. It's ironic that the book starts with a drought and ends with a flood. I was interested in the Dust Bowl, in the roads, in the desert, in California, in the Government camp, in everything. It's apparent to me that Steinbeck was a Democrat, and for a reason. Those were the days when Democrats really were for the working person and Republicans really were for the business folk, as opposed to nowadays when Republicrats are only for themselves. The only reason my mother-in-law is a Democrat, for instance, is that she always has been one since her coal-mining family were Democrats (of course.) My other inlaws are decline-to-state. One really sounded Libertarian more than anything else.

Steinbeck was hated in his home town, and I certainly can see why. He told it like it was. Nowadays our poorest of the poor are nowhere like the Okies, who were similar to today's third world people. If they could have organized, with the rifles they all had, maybe things would have been different. I'm going to read on about Cesar Chavez and all now. I'm also going to read or reread more Steinbeck. We also need to check out the museum in Salinas, perhaps one day when we revisit the Pinnacles.

(Trips for early next year: Cambria (maybe that with Salinas), and Ft. Bragg. Elephant seals and whales!)

Democrats are suddenly the party of the old people and old ideas. What a flip-flop from my youth!