As I read this great book of Americana, taking the trip with John Steinbeck and his best friend Charlie across America in 1960. I realized that as much progress has propelled us forward in 55 years, in many ways we are still very much stuck in 1960.
Steinbeck is observant, honest and compassionate... you find out YOU want to be friends with him too, is there any room in that truck for me?
Turning the last page and closing the cover of the book, here is what I thought.
I want to get into my car with my little French Bull dog ‘Stitch’ by my side and begin across this fabulous patchwork of states we call America. I am in my late fifties as well, I have seen all this land before and its beautiful people... but it’s been awhile. It’s time to get reacquainted with all of the shapes, colors and sounds we now call America.
‘Traveling With Charlie’ is in my top 25 books of all time ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I read this book back in high school, which means 1968 or 1969, not very long after it was published in 1962. It has been a memorable book for me, not for any particular scene, but because of the image it left with me of the man traveling across the country accompanied only by his dog. The man was John Steinbeck ( 1902-1968) and this was the last book he wrote. The dog was a poodle, the "Charley" of the title. They traveled in a pickup truck (with a camper shell added) named Rocinante, for Don Quixote's steed. And they traveled across the 48 states, making a rough circle starting and ending in New York, in 1960, the last year of the Eisenhower administration. Having said I was impressed by Steinbeck's journey, I must admit that I never attempted the same thing. I have traveled around the USA but not in a pickup truck and not with a dog! But it's never too late, although my dog is a Maltese, not a poodle.
Reading the book again, after more than 50 years, and older now than Steinbeck was when he took his trip (he was 58), it's interesting to me what I remembered of the story. From Long Island, he travels east first, not only going to Maine but going north in Maine, to Aroostook County. That part of his trip left the strongest impression on me for some reason, perhaps because I'm a Midwesterner, from Illinois, and I had not been to the East Coast. To me, Maine was a seashore, where lobsters come from! But Steinbeck described going through deep dark forests, very isolated country. That image stuck with me! I forgot the part of the story in which he invited French Canadian potato harvesters to visit him and shared dinner and a bottle of Charente wine with them. It's a great scene and, with all the drinking, very Hemingwayesque. I don't know why I never made it to Maine, although I have visited all the other New England states by now!
For some reason, I forgot most of the rest of the book. I forgot that the state that he fell in love with and was his favorite was--Montana. I wish he had gone into more depth about that! But, reading this book again, I realize he really didn't go to that many places or spend much time on most of the places he went to. After all, it is a short book, under 200 pages. I didn't remember the book as being so short! The heart of the book is in his encounters with the people he met along the way and the dialogues he had with them.
And for some reason, I completely forgot the great climax of the story, which is when he is in New Orleans. He witnesses a racist demonstration against integration of a school there, specifically against a little black girl who needs to be escorted into the school by armed federal marshals. I wondered why I forgot all about that scene, the most powerful of the book, and I think I know why. If I read the book in '68 or '69, I had already seen a lot about the civil rights movement on TV and also read a lot about it by then. What Steinbeck recounted was not so surprising to me! Steinbeck showed us the ugliness of racism but offered no solutions. I think that, by the end of the 60s, we were looking desperately for solutions... And now reading the book in 2021, we have Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate and we are still dealing with the problem of race, or rather, racism in America...
I know this hasn't been much of a review of this book, more a reflection on my feelings about a book I read as a teenager, now revisiting as a retired (and tired old) person well in his sixties. I'm giving it 4 stars, although I'm aware of the arguments out there that the book is more fiction than non-fiction. It's too bad if the dinner with the French Canadians in Maine never really happened, along with other incidents. But, as a snapshot of our country at a certain time (seeming so long ago now) and as a book that meant a lot to me and still does, I have to give it at least 4 stars. And because of Charlie, no less than 4! Wonder if my Maltese would like Maine?, Probably not those deep dark forests....

September 23, 1960, Steinbeck sets out from his home in Sag Harbor, New York with his friendly French poodle, Charley as his companion. He was only 58 years old, but had had a few health concerns that left his wife a bit worried about letting him go on his own. Steinbeck was intent on taking a journey across America and doing it all on his own. He had this need, according to his wife in the preface, to prove that he wasn’t an old man and that he was capable. This is certainly a concept that most, if not all of us come to contend with in our lives. He had finished his final novel in 1960, The Winter of our Discontent, and the tumultuousness of this decade was at the forefront of his mind since writing about America and its people was at the center of his craft.

So in an effort to get back the flavor of the United States that he felt he had lost and to gain what he called a reknowledge of my own country, of its speeches, it’s views, its attitudes and its changes, Steinbeck prepared for his 3 month journey very attentively bringing with him in his truck outfitted with a camper, everything he would need and more. His plan was to stay away from highways and cities and take the back roads and going at a pace that would allow him to actually see the country. From east coast to west, back to his home where he grew up in California, down through the southwest, Texas and Louisiana, Steinbeck observed and soaked up all that he could as he crossed the roads and by-ways of his country he wanted to become acquainted with once again.

I was right there with him as he travelled along and enjoyed the trip very much. It was enlightening and Steinbeck’s storytelling and descriptions of the beauty of the country was what made this a memorable read. This could have been boring and dull but it was quite the opposite. I wanted to keep reading to see what he would write about next. He left many little tidbits to think about along the way, bits of wisdom or thoughtfulness about something as simple as taking a trip. There are soooo many good quotes here that it’s hard to choose just a few.

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.

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 not take a trip; a trip takes us.

So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes, and surely our wearied evening eyes can report only a weary evening world.

I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.

I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully, it goes to pieces, whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction I get through with no trouble.

A dog...is a bond between strangers.

You can't go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory.

REALLY enjoyed this eventful journey thru 40 States with Mr. Steinbeck and his dog Charley. The adventure begins in September 1960 with Hurricane Donna before he even leaves home and ends with a historic snowstorm, but everything in the middle is pretty darn good too!

The story is written with humor, but with a profound sadness to it (perhaps due to Mr. Steinbeck's declining health) and whether the novel is truly fact or just fiction is unimportant to me as I found it an insightful and entertaining ride during a tumultuous time in America.

A favourite treat when I travel is to meet with locals; a favourite treat when at home is to play guide to tourists. I would’ve accepted John’s invitation to chat over a drink in his camper, Rosinante, for sure. I get what the man was after.

This was the insightful, friendly travel diary I was hoping for. After a couple of decades, I’m thinking I’ll soon circle back to Steinbeck’s fiction, too.

Sharing Anecdotes with Steinbeck

Steinbeck has been one of my favorite authors beginning in the 1970s, but even before that, because when I was a child I had read “The Red Pony.” I read most of “Travels with Charley
ie” years ago, but I left it on a table somewhere when I was traveling and didn’t pick it up again in order to finish it until now. And now there is some controversy about its being fiction or non-fiction. I don’t care one way or another except to say that he could have made up better dialogues than those he presented.

Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had a camper shell made for it. I suppose you couldn’t buy them back in the 60s. Then he got his dog Charley and put him in the seat next to him and headed out of New York City to parts unknown with the intention of driving across America. His dog was a poodle, so now I was stuck on his choice of a dog, so I decided that he was really his wife’s dog, because I can’t see Steinbeck as a poodle kind of guy. Yet, I couldn’t see him with my favorite breed of dog, an Australian shepherd. My mind drew a blank as to the type of dog I could see him owning. So, I asked my husband, who is also a Steinbeck fan:
“What kind of dog do you think that Steinbeck would have owned?”
“I don’t know.” He thought about it and finally said, “A mutt. An all-American unidentifiable mutt.”
“That sounds right,” I replied to my brilliant husband.
“Why? What kind did he own?”
“A poodle. I don’t see him with a poodle, well, not unless he never gave it a poodle cut.”
And then I saw the dog he would like in my mind’s eye. It was the Tramp dog in “Lady and the Tramp.” Yes!

I picked up the book again and began reading about his trip. He spent one night at a campground and let his mutt out of the truck so he could find some campers with whom he, Steinbeck, could get acquainted. He later went out to find him, and he was at someone’s camp site, “Is my dog bothering you?” he asked a camper. Bad idea. Never allow your dog to roam alone at a campground. When we were camping in California, a man left his dog tied up outside during the day, and two coyotes surrounded him. He was lucky that a neighbor saw this happening. You just don’t know what is out there. But for Steinbeck, it worked. He made friends, invited them to dinner, served them canned beans, and just enjoyed their company.

We were in another campground with our Aussie/border collie mix, and I had gone to the rest room. It was getting dark, and after I left the building, my husband saw me wandering around lost, so he sent our dog, Megan, out to get me. Megan found me, and I told her to go to him, and she did. We had taught her this years ago. But this just goes to show that you should never allow your wife to wander free in a campground either.

On another night, he parked on the side of a gravel road and tried to get to sleep when he heard crunching sounds on the gravel. He got up, grabbed a large flashlight and his gun and opened the door. Again, bad idea. It amazed me how a mundane story could become suspenseful, but I couldn’t imagine opening the door. I would have looked out the window or waited until the sound went away. He may have an advantage with his gun and flashlight if it had been a man, but what if it had been a bear? Of course, there may have been no bears where he had spent the night.

And now he had a cow horn on his pickup, so he drove near some moose and honked the cow horn. The moose came running to him, and he sped away. Hopefully, his truck was faster than a moose, and hopefully, he wouldn’t get stuck. I know this was fun because my stepdad had a cow horn on his pickup. One day he took a drive to Creston, CA with us kids. (Creston was a cow town with under 200 people living there. My husband and I had lived there in the late 80s.) Well, my dad knew every rancher in the area. On this day, he drove onto a rancher’s land, found his herd of cattle and blew his cow horn at them. They came running, but unlike the dangerous moose, cows are nothing to fear. If my dad got stuck, the cattle would have just stopped at the pickup and stared at us. A moose would charge, I believe. Anyway, we all thought that it was fun and began laughing. My dad just knew how to have fun, just as Steinbeck had.

Steinbeck saw Montana and believed it to be the most beautiful State in America. I agree, but so is Wyoming. He then made it to the Redwoods without saying much about the other pitstops he had visited. He was awe inspired by the tall redwood trees and became philosophical, almost religious at seeing them. It was now that I began to learn about him, and he was interesting, even a good person, I believe.

Then he headed to his hometown of Salinas. Still philosophizing, he lamented, “You can’t go home again.” Salinas had grown. It was not the same as when he was a child. Well, the same happened to my home of Paso Robles, a town just south of Salinas. And Creston, instead of cattle grazing in pastures, grape vineyards cover the land. Our house had been plowed under. I walked out to where our house once stood, dug a hole and came up with the lucky horseshoe that was once on the door entering our house. Lucky, it was not. (This part about the horseshoe was not true.)

The last part of his trip took him through the South, and he dreaded this part of his trip because the South is racist. He met a man who wasn’t a racist and who claimed that there were others like him. I know this to be true. Then he gave a black man a ride, and the man was so afraid of his questioning him that he wanted out of his truck. He gave a white man a lift, and he finally asked him to get out of his truck, just as I had asked some of my friends to get out of my life, racist comments.

Last of all, he hit me hard: He caused Charley to lose his mutthood by taking him to a groomer to get a poodle cut. Contrary to his belief, Charley wasn’t happy about this, he was humiliated. And contrary to the public’s belief, poodles are not dainty if they are not groomed.

4