Latest news with #JohnSteinbeck
Chicago Tribune
3 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
One Century, One Road
It was created to connect us, a fused chain of existing roadways many unpaved that stretched 2,448 miles across eight states and three time zones, starting steps from Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago and ending near the Pacific Ocean and Santa Monica's famed fishing pier. Route 66, 'The Main Street of America.' There is perhaps no better-known highway anywhere in the world. In its 100-year history, it has offered safe passage to Dust Bowl refugees, World War II transports and vacationing families. John Steinbeck called it 'the mother road, the road of flight.' Nat King Cole crooned about its kicks in a 1946 hit song. Disney and Pixar took inspiration from it for a 2006 blockbuster. The famed highway conjured images of quirky roadside attractions, mom-and-pop diners, neon-signed motels and art deco service stations. Each mile promised freedom, escape, adventure, exploration. It introduced countless Americans to their country, to vast lands that previously existed only in the collective imagination. Despite being decommissioned in 1985 in favor of a faster and wider interstate highway system, Route 66 continues to capture our imaginations in the remnants of its past glory that remain today. Now, Route 66 boosters in all eight states (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California) are gearing up to celebrate the iconic route on its centennial in 2026. Ahead of next year's anniversary, the Chicago Tribune will set out across Route 66 to introduce readers to the people and places it was designed to connect the entertaining characters and roadside oddities, the business owners trying to revitalize their pieces of history and the voices that had been previously obscured in the roadway's lore. In pursuit of the unknown, we're starting our journey at the farthest point from home, in Santa Monica, and working our way back to Chicago. Along the way, we'll explore whether the highway still has the power to unite a deeply divided country and learn what it has to tell us about the current state of our nation. Share your connection to Route 66 using the form below. Your responses may be published in a future Δ
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
The legend of rural California's ancient buttonwillow tree
BUTTONWILLOW, Calif. — Honestly, I stopped for the dateline. In newspaper and wire service parlance, a dateline is the name of a place, typically written in capital letters and followed by an em dash, at the beginning of an article. It signifies a journalist's physical location while reporting or writing a story. As a state reporter who often writes about rural communities, I pride myself on getting obscure datelines from far-flung towns and census-designated places here in the Golden State. Until this week, I had never been to Buttonwillow, an unincorporated farm town of about 1,200 people in Kern County. While plotting a drive north on the 5 Freeway for another story — I can't give that one away just yet — I was drawn to a location marker on Google Maps that read: 'Buttonwillow Tree-Kern CHL #492.' It stands for California Historical Landmark 492: An ancient buttonwillow tree for which the town is named. I pulled off the freeway early Tuesday morning and onto a small, dusty clearing in front of the bushlike tree, which is surrounded by a short concrete wall. The buttonwillow grows next to a drainage ditch. In front of it is an unadorned rock bench, a utility pole, and, on this morning, a discarded plastic jug on the ground. It might not look like much. But the tree has a fascinating history. According to the bronze historical marker placed in front of the tree by the Kern County Historical Society in February 1952, the tree was an 'ancient Yokuts Indian meeting place' along a trail that cut across the Central Valley. 'The tree stood all alone and clearly visible for many miles almost in the center of a vast plain,' the Reedley Exponent newspaper reported in October 1952, noting that Indigenous people in the region met at the buttonwillow for 'every social or tribal event of importance,' including dances. Later, the newspaper reported, white cattle drivers turned the tree into a makeshift post office, affixing letters to it for those who followed. They also held rodeos at the site. It was hard to believe this tree — currently boasting ball-shaped white flowers that look like little pincushions — has survived so much: drought, extensive groundwater pumping, the transformation of the arid plain around it into farmland. I was glad I made the stop. Here are a few of my other favorite datelines from across this endlessly fascinating state. — Volcano: A town of about 100 people in Amador County that sits in a bowl-shaped valley Gold Rush miners thought might be the crater of a dormant volcano. It is home to a thriving, all-volunteer theater company. — Weedpatch: In Kern County, this was home to the former Weedpatch Camp, the federally run camp for migrant laborers — many of them Okies — immortalized in John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath.' — Blackwell's Corner: James Dean made his last stop at this gas station — and census-designated place, hence the dateline — in rural Kern County. The convenience store has become a roadside shrine to the 'Rebel Without a Cause' actor, who died in a car crash 26 miles west of there. — Cool: In early 2020, I reported from this tiny town in El Dorado County where residents tried to fight a planned Dollar General store, fearing it would gentrify the place. That was just before pandemic lockdowns began. The store eventually was built. — Peanut: This speck on a map in Trinity County is said to have been named by a postmaster who was snacking on a bag of goobers when he proposed the moniker for the Peanut post office, which became the town name. Cynthia says: 'Pismo Beach.'Terri says: 'Morro Bay.' Email us at essentialcalifornia@ and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. On May 29, 1973, Tom Bradley became the first Black mayor of Los Angeles as well as the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city. He went on to serve an unprecedented five terms from 1973 to 1993. Hailey Branson-Potts, staff reporterKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, Sunday writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
Fox News
24-05-2025
- Automotive
- Fox News
President Trump is making summer vacations great again
"I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation—a burning desire to go, to move, to get underway…" —John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley: In Search of America" It was 65 years ago that John Steinbeck loaded up a GMC pickup with a new-fangled camper shell on top and hit the road to reconnect with America. The book that came out of that trip was the bestselling "Travels with Charley: In Search of America." As Steinbeck noted, "Nearly every American hungers to move." And now, America is back on the move again, in part due to the Trump economy and a more hopeful outlook on the future. Memorial Day travel by Americans could break a 20-year record this year. AAA expects an estimated 45.1 million people to travel at least 50 miles from home between May 22 and May 26. "We're projecting an additional one million travelers this holiday weekend compared to 2019, which not only means we're exceeding pre-pandemic levels but also signals a very busy summer travel season ahead," notes Paula Twidale, Senior Vice President of AAA Travel. And in their travels, Americans are celebrating the Trump economy—and their freedom. Lower gas prices are just the start. "The average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline hovered around $3.13 nationwide, according to AAA, down from $3.59 a gallon on Memorial Day in 2024," Fox News reports. Had either the Biden or Harris tickets prevailed last November, those numbers could look quite different. The Biden administration's war on domestic energy, including the former president's ham-fisted approach to gas prices, only led to energy prices. And that was the point—the Democratic agenda includes driving up energy prices to force Americans into electric vehicles and into the kind of "low-carbon" lifestyle they never seem to adopt themselves. Americans made their feelings clear on the Democrats' "expect less" agenda last November—by returning President Donald Trump to the White House in what amounts to a modern landslide. And it's not just energy prices. On Tuesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the April inflation numbers, and the Trump economy beat expectations—delivering the lowest inflation rate since Joe Biden's first month in office. Leading up to the 2024 election, egg prices gained attention, following an outbreak of avian flu. Prices rose so high that they became a campaign issue. When prices remained high after the election, Democrats sought to blame Trump. Now, however, the price of eggs really is falling. In April, they came down an average of 12.4%, the most since 1984. So, more Americans will enjoy an omelet on their summer trip as they celebrate their feelings of being more hopeful about the future, despite the incessant media narrative. In 2024, conducted a poll that showed how the Biden economy was impacting family travel: "High cost-of-living is the leading dampener on travel plans for nearly three in five Americans (59%) saying it made them cut back. Similar proportions of Americans say they simply can no longer afford travelling (38%) or their circumstances have changed (37%)," the research group reported. But Americans are back on the road and their outlook is positive. For his part, Steinbeck knew what the open road meant to Americans. "A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us," he wrote. Americans are getting back on the road—where they know, deep down, they belong.
Irish Examiner
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Colin Sheridan: A process lies behind every perfection, it's why we jump through hoops
"For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun." — John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel, The East of Eden Letters. I have seen the band Bon Iver many, many times. So many times, you could say I discovered them long before they became de rigueur for deep-thinking empaths with a penchant for lumberjack shirts. Yeah, I was there when Justin Vernon — the band's creative north-star — lived above an Eircom store off Eyre Square in Galway way back in 2001. He does not know it, but I'm pretty sure we chased the same girls, and certainly locked eyes more than once over a Taco fries in the wee hours outside Abrakebabra. I might even have been in Taaffe's the night he met Emma, the girl who broke his heart so bad he disappeared to the woods to write one of the greatest break-up albums of all time, For Emma, Forever Ago. Bottom line, I was there from the start — from before the start — so when Vernon and his band come to town, I'm there, the guy at the back who catches his eye during the encore and raises a glass to his tortured genius. I quietly sneer at his new fans — hipster dilettantes, all — and head for the exit early, content that I've kept up my end of a non-existent relationship. 'You've done good, kid,' I say aloud to myself, to him, to nobody. And indeed, he has. His latest album, Sable, Fable recently dropped to universal acclaim. One track in particular — 'Speyside' — provided the soundtrack to what was an incredibly brutal few months at the back end of 2024, as the world seemed to implode from within. One lyric hung like the perfume of an ex on a sweater you never want to wash: - 'As I fill my book/what a waste of wood/nothing's really happened like I thought it would.' Yeah, there's pain and there's poetic pain and then there's Bon Iver's music. A whole different kind of pain, all the more beautiful for it. Obsession with process One thing I've come to learn to love from Vernon is devotion to process. At a concert a few years ago, my eye was drawn to the side of the stage before the main event, and a pair of screens depicting a rather unremarkable scene; a man — maybe Vernon, maybe not — shooting a basketball in a backyard. In the corner of the screen was the shot count. Filmed in real time, the footage was set against a backdrop of daylight fading to evening, before receding to nightfall, the shooter backlit against a streetlight. The scene continued for almost half an hour before Vernon took to the stage with his band, scored by nothing but the expectant din of the thousands present. Understanding Vernon's obsession with process, I understood this was not absentminded filler, but a fable all by itself. The shooter was one of us, clearly amateur and imperfect in his motion; but, watching him as the sun set was to bear silent witness to mundane beauty; a silhouetted man clearly passionate about his own process, sometimes missing, often scoring, perpetually striving to be better. All the while nobody in the arena paid any attention. Watching it was the perfect prelude to what was to follow. Vernon, like the anonymous man with the basketball shooting hoops, has always been one of us, just set apart by a God-given talent that has often threatened to suffocate him A friend recently gifted me a copy John Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel. Every working day for ten months in 1951, Steinbeck wrote a note to his friend and editor Pascal Covici to warm up. It was a way — he later said — to get his writing brain in shape 'to pitch a good game.' Well, it worked, as he got his best book out of it. While one wonders what a contemporary version of that journal might look like — 'Dear Pascal. Hit snooze button five times. Woke late. Scrolled X. Deleted X. Downloaded TikTok. Deleted TikTok. Bought dog toys on AliExpress. Don't have dog. Tried to buy dog online. Can't. Looked out window. No writing today. Best, JS' —the gift has proved the perfect accompaniment to my own doomed pursuit of perfection. If for no other reason, then to remind that we all want the same thing. Whether we write, read, or draft solicitors' letters for a living, each one of us engages in that thing we call 'process.' Artists — successful artists like Vernon — can often give the act a gravitas that makes it alien because, well, they're geniuses. But — and I think this is what I understood from the man with the basketball — regardless of talent or audience or ovations — most of our working life is spent underneath a streetlight shooting threes, over and over again. Maybe, 389 shots in, we discover something. And that is why we keep going.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Editorial: The day Chicago got a dusty taste of ‘The Grapes of Wrath'
'A gentle wind followed the rain clouds, driving them on northward, a wind that softly clashed the drying corn,' wrote John Steinbeck in Chapter 1 of 'The Grapes of Wrath,' his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel charting the stormy upheaval faced by those who toiled on the American prairie in the 1930s. 'Little by little,' he wrote, 'the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it away. The wind grew stronger. The rain crust broke and the dust lifted up out of the fields and drove gray plumes into the air like sluggish smoke.' We associate such images with the Oklahoma of Woody Guthrie ('I am made out of this dust and out of this fast wind'), but on Friday, Chicagoland had its own encounter with a dust storm. Clouds of the stuff — what stuff? — darkened our sky, obscured our view as walked our dogs, blew through our high school graduation ceremonies, halted plane departures at Midway Airport and made freeway travel even more difficult than usual thanks to the sensation of driving into a great wall of dust. Fans of Beyoncé, slated to play Saturday night at Solider Field, fretted that their visibility would be limited by more than the cowboy hats on their heads. Chicagoans headed out from their homes to find a Friday dust cloud coming at them with the intensity of the raging infected souls in the dystopian TV show 'The Last of Us.' Chicago, we should note, did not experience the Friday tornadoes that ravaged cities like St. Louis, where loss of life occurred. At least 14 people died in Kentucky and seven in Missouri. But Friday still was an extraordinary day, so much so that those of us who have been around these parts a while racked our brains as to when we previously had seen the like. Weather forecasters were doing the same. The National Weather Service said that this was first time it ever had issued a dust storm warning that included the city of Chicago. What happened? 'Thunderstorms in central Illinois produced a big push of wind (60 to 70 mph) that surged northward into our area,' the National Weather Service said. 'As the winds moved over dry farmlands, it collected and suspended dust into the air. The trajectory of the push of wind was oriented into the Chicago area. Hence, we got a dust storm.' But that didn't answer the question of why this hadn't happened since the notorious Dust Bowl of Steinbeck's writing. Some pointed to the exceptionally dry conditions in central Illinois this spring even as the fields had been recently tilled. Some noted the exceptional speed of the winds around Bloomington and Normal that pushed the dust to the north. Some fretted over agricultural practices that made such events more likely, issuing timely reminders that the problem of soil erosion in the Land of Lincoln did not disappear in Steinbeck's era. So noted. As in all such events, there were winners as well as losers. With Chicago vehicles coated in a thin film of earthy particles, Chicago's car washes had a banner Saturday. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
