REFLECTIONS

Driving along the “Mother Road,” Old Route 66, through the Mojave Desert put me in mind of Steinbeck’s 1939 epic novel, “Grapes of Wrath.“ His people suffered great loss from the economy and the ensuing land-eating dust-bowl;  Then they were humiliated with hatred and hunger upon arriving at their destination, the land of plenty, California. 

I travel across this bleak, thirsted country in air conditioned,  casual comfort and can only imagine the total discomfort and deprivation the people of the Midwest survived during their exodus.

Steinbeck~"And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."  Stay strong Wisconsin unions.

Needles CA sits on the Colorado River, where we sit now, not much of a town as commerce goes, dying in fact, but with the aid of we snowbirds it stays barely above the high water mark with just enough cash infusion from our Northern winter dollars to hold the repossession-banks at bay.

An RV park ain’t pretty, the way I see it, no matter which way you look at it. For many though, it’s life in all its comfy glory, security and comradery.