Box on Wheels

Box on Wheels

John Steinbeck, back in the postwar boom of the 60’s, wrote a book about his journey across America. It was called “Travels with Charlie”. Charlie was his big ol’ standard French Poodle and Steinbeck and his dog took a trip across the country to find and report on the soul of America. The people they met and the places they visited became the subject of his very popular book and, along with other travelogues like “On the Road” by Kerouac, became a basic guide for other shifting souls who longed to travel and explore America. The urge to “up and go”, footloose and free became a “thing to do”. Steinbeck used a pickup truck with a camper built on top as his vehicle for that trip. The truck sparked the imagination of each person who he met on his trip and it helped fuel a restless penchant for self-contained travel that endures to this day. In a very “American” way the market saw an opportunity and an industry grew up around people’s desire for travel and self-sufficiency. Steinbeck’s truck was a derivation of the Connestoga Wagon-also called the ‘prairie schooner’-and today we have the travel trailer, the RV, and all sorts of manufactured and homemade vehicles. The purpose of all of these is, simply, to get one out on the open road to experience varying degrees of self-sufficiency.  

In Europe the Gypsies did the same thing Steinbeck did. They traveled rootlessly and made a living out of their travels. I will not comment on the reputation of Gypsy travel or legality of their commerce but I am sure people did not look out of their windows as the Gypsy troop passed by and long for the “freedom” that Gypsies had. The social and economic structure of Europe was built around the insular structure of the community and the security of belonging to a village, city or state. Gypsies were looked down upon and distrusted. But there is a little bit of Gypsy in all Americans and Steinbeck’s book hit a nerve that triggered a Gypsy-like reaction in the people of America. Like many other phenomena America has a way of blowing things way out of proportion. In America a road became an Interstate Highway System. In America an inn became a chain of Motel 6’s, Holiday Inn’s, and Marriott’s. Steinbeck’s truck evolved into shinning space ship sized Airstream Trailers and motor homes with full kitchens, showers, whirlpool tubs and bump-out spaces that turn a bus sized RV into a house. Mr. Steinbeck and Charlie camped in orchards and fields. They got permission from farmers to be there. They spent a night under the stars and moved on to the next small town. They would be arrested today if they did that. They now have a complex of private ‘campgrounds’ to choose from each repleat with shower rooms and flush toilets, bar-b-que pits and swimming pools. Electricity is provided at each campsite. There is a place to ‘dump’ ones trash and and a tank to drain ones self-contained toilet/shower/kitchen/Jacuzzi waste. At night cords of wood are burned in fire pits for no other reason than to perpetuate the illusion of “camping”. Electric lights throughout the campground keep nature safely at arm’s length and irrelevant and the stars un-seeable. At 10:00 pm everyone not already inside watching the flat screen TV goes inside to sleep between sheets and blankets in the air conditioning in their stylishly decorated box-on-wheels.

Traveling with Charlie way back when, Steinbeck marveled at the concept of “manufactured homes”. The factory built house (“trailers” and “double wides”)he thought were the wave of the future. He was not wrong but he was not exactly correct either. Perhaps Pete Seeger’s song “Little Boxes” was closer to the mark. The “double wide” enabled the process of the slumming of the countryside. Boxes of tin deteriorating on the hillsides of America. The actuality of the democratization in American housing as Steinbeck saw it has been manifested in the decaying slums of the city and the rusting trailer along with the dead, rotten automobiles in the carport. Similarly RV’s have become the home of the retiree. Millions of manufactured, 21^st century covered wagons parked in millions of gravel covered parking lots (read: “campgrounds”) filled with gray haired people living on social security and savings. This is not exactly where Steinbeck thought the future was going.

As the population ages more and more it has become the dream of individuals to hit the open road. To see America from the captain’s chair behind the steering wheel. To live a life “on the road”. It is fun. It is liberating. But it is work. It can be much more expensive than imagined. It also, I think, loosens the weave in the fabric of society. Friendship, sense of place and “home” diminishes. And unlike the old homestead RV’s quickly deteriorate and depreciate. It has become true that some campgrounds will not allow older RV’s in as they are sometimes abandoned by their owners. While some people might abandon their land-based home the house retains a certain value and can be rejuvenated. An old, decrepit RV becomes, in good part, landfill. I am pretty sure Steinbeck’s old truck is long gone, crushed and recycled * but I’m also pretty sure his real home is still there. Still valuable.

This is a point I think he missed in 1962 when he published Travels With Charlie. The people and the road are still there Mr. Steinbeck but they are very much changed. In ways you did not see coming.

*Please see NY Times photo of the (supposed) truck used by Mr. Steinbeck-I assume it is, in fact, still extant.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/books/steinbecks-travels-with-charley-gets-a-fact-checking.html