Plenty of the customers of The Peninsula Bookman will remember and ask about my dog Chloe when they are in the store. When we were in our original location, Chloe came to work with me nearly every day. She even once came to work with me only two days after being sprayed by a skunk…that was poorly thought out. Fortunately one of the neighbors sold scented candles, so for days the store exuded the heady perfume of artificial cherry with merely a musky skunk afternote lingering in the background. When we moved the store to its current location, Chloe came to work a bit less often, but she could be found here lots of days. Being that she was a golden retriever, she was a gentle and personable dog who genuinely loved to meet people, and lots of those people remember her.
Now for more than a year I have been living without a dog. On quiet off-season days especially, it was nice to have the company in the store. On days like today, I miss having the dog around. Looking forward to winter travels again, I remember how much that dog loved riding in the truck, and how pleasant it was to have her along for the ride. Should I head west again this winter, it would be nice to have a traveling companion.
In 1960 John Steinbeck undertook a trip to reacquaint himself with America and the Americans who populated his novels. He was under the impression that he was losing touch with the people of the heart of the country, and was, as he put it, “working from memory.” He decided that he would drive through the country, out to his native Salinas and coastal California and back again to his home at Sag Harbor, making a great lap around America. He special ordered a pick-up truck with a cabin mounted on its back – a common enough sight today, but an unusual contraption at the time – and he named it Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse. Into the rig he installed some basic creature comforts, provisions, writing supplies, and his standard poodle Charley.
Steinbeck drove off in hopes of rebuilding his relationship with the landscape and with the cultures of the regular people, as varied as they were, all across the nation. It was a great irony, and it very much struck him that the distinctive regional ways of life were vanishing just at that time. In some ways he was chasing a ghost. When he and Charley set off, the interstate highway system was quite new and expanding rapidly. The new mode of travel not only changed the speed and style of travel, it reshaped cities and restructured towns, sometimes killing them altogether. This was the beginning of the strip mall, and the beginning of the end of Main Street. At the same time, a nationwide mass media of television and radio were homogenizing American culture so much so that Steinbeck noticed that regional accents and dialects were disappearing among the younger generation.
Travels with Charley is Steinbeck’s account of his experience of this trip through America. It is a journal and a commentary, at times it is a sociology and at others it is a meditation. There is a scene he recounts in the Mojave desert where he happened to stop to pour some water for Charley. Looking up from what he is doing, he sees two coyotes off in the near distance. He slowly reaches for a newly purchased rifle, takes aim and turns off the safety. He was trained to think of these animals as destructive vermin, and to think that killing them a public service. It is at the moment that one of the coyotes sits on it hauches and scratches as a dog would, that the tone of the account shifts. He blames it on his age, but he abruptly sees no point in taking the life of the animal. He writes that there would be little justification because there were no chickens to steal anywhere near there, nor was it quail country. I think it was because he looked at the coyote, and recognized a dog.
Of course, Charley influenced the way that Steinbeck experienced his trip in other ways too. He served as a conversation starter and an introduction to strangers – Steinbeck referred to him as his “ambassador.” When he fell sick, Steinbeck used Charley’s eyes to examine an unsteady veterinarian. Charley serves as a mute foil, and a good reason to walk and wander away from the roadway. A dog will force you to slow down, to linger outside a bit.
I have taken Travels with Charley along with me on several long driving trips. The first time I traveled with the book I had it on cassette while driving an old pick-up truck down to Texas. A good memory. While I am generally reluctant to talk about “favorite” books as I am often asked to, in this case I can unequivocally say that Travels with Charley is my favorite travel account. It is a book I have gone back to again and again, and I have not yet been through it for the last time.
A little more than a month ago I decided it was time to start looking for a dog again. For a very brief time I was once involved with rescue animals, and have come to feel that rescue is the best first place to look for my next dog. I have decided to try to find a flat-coated retriever. They are much like the golden, but black, a bit slighter, and less prone to hip and knee issues. The personality is similar, though I have read that the flat-coat needs even more contact and attention, and that is fine, she will come to work with me everyday. I have put in an application with the rescue groups, and have been watching the shelters.
When the long winter trips come, I hope that I will have found a traveling companion, though I probably won’t name her Charley.