Read Online America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction by John Steinbeck, Susan Shillinglaw - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Steinbeck, Susan Shillinglaw
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havenât the slightest idea.â
I liked him even more then. He didnât give me any bull.
The strange parade of the Thirties was drawing toward its close and time seemed to speed up. Imperceptibly the American nation and its people had changed, and undergone a real revolution, and we were only partly aware of it while it was happening.
Now war was coming. You didnât have to be an expert to know that. It was patent in every news report, in the clanging steps of goose-stepping Nazis. It had been in the cards since the first German put on his brown-shirted uniform. The practice warsâEthiopia, Spain, the Ruhr, the Czech borderâwe had watched with paralyzed attention. At any early moment it could have been stoppedâor could it? America knew it was coming even while we didnât believe it. We watched the approach of war as a bird helplessly watches an approaching rattlesnake. And when it came, we were surprised as we always are.
But the strange designlike quality of the Thirties continued to the end. It was as though history had put up markers, dramatic milestones at either end of the decade. It started with the collapse not only of financial structure, but of a whole way of thought and action. It ended with perhaps the last Great War.
Â
A few weeks ago I called on a friend in a great office building in midtown New York. On our way out to lunch he said, âI want to show you something.â
And he led me into a brokerâs office. One whole wall was a stock exchange trading board. Two young men moved back and forth swiftly filling in changes, rises, falls, buying, selling. Behind an oaken rail was a tight-packed, standing audience, clerks, stenographers, small businessmen. Most of them munched sandwiches as they spent their lunch hour watching the trading. Now and then they made notations on envelopes. And their eyes had the rapt, glazed look one sees around a roulette table.
Making of a New Yorker
NEW YORK IS the only city I have ever lived in. I have lived in the country, in the small town, and in New York. It is true I have had apartments in San Francisco, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Paris, and sometimes have stayed for months, but that is a very different thing. As far as homes go, there is only a small California town and New York. This is a matter of feeling.
The transition from small town to New York is a slow and rough process. I am writing it not because I think my experience was unique; quite the contrary. I suspect that the millions of New Yorkers who were not born here have had much the same experienceâat least parallel experiences. Perhaps my account may remind them of all the painful, wonderful times in their own lives.
When I came the first time to New York in 1925 I had never been to a city in my life. (From Stanford University I had made undergraduate trips to San Francisco and thought naturally that I knew all about it, particularly as related to sin in my income bracket. I was twenty-three years old and my bracket was low.) I arrived on a boat, tourist, one hundred dollars. It was November. Besides my one hundred dollars, I had when I sailed out of San Francisco another hundred dollars to see me started in New York. If I had been a little richer, or a little more experienced, I wouldnât have taken the pretty girl around Havana in a carriage, nor been charmed and worldly about the broad rum drinks like tubs of soaking fruit. I donât know what I thought I was going to do with that very pretty girl once I got to New Yorkâmarry her, I guess, and take her into my penthouse on Park Avenue, where my guest list had no names but those of the famous, the beautiful and the dissolute. Anyway, it didnât pan out, and in the process my hundred dollars for New York was reduced to three.
From a porthole, then, I saw the city, and it horrified me. There was something monstrous about itâthe tall buildings looming to the sky and the lights shining
I liked him even more then. He didnât give me any bull.
The strange parade of the Thirties was drawing toward its close and time seemed to speed up. Imperceptibly the American nation and its people had changed, and undergone a real revolution, and we were only partly aware of it while it was happening.
Now war was coming. You didnât have to be an expert to know that. It was patent in every news report, in the clanging steps of goose-stepping Nazis. It had been in the cards since the first German put on his brown-shirted uniform. The practice warsâEthiopia, Spain, the Ruhr, the Czech borderâwe had watched with paralyzed attention. At any early moment it could have been stoppedâor could it? America knew it was coming even while we didnât believe it. We watched the approach of war as a bird helplessly watches an approaching rattlesnake. And when it came, we were surprised as we always are.
But the strange designlike quality of the Thirties continued to the end. It was as though history had put up markers, dramatic milestones at either end of the decade. It started with the collapse not only of financial structure, but of a whole way of thought and action. It ended with perhaps the last Great War.
Â
A few weeks ago I called on a friend in a great office building in midtown New York. On our way out to lunch he said, âI want to show you something.â
And he led me into a brokerâs office. One whole wall was a stock exchange trading board. Two young men moved back and forth swiftly filling in changes, rises, falls, buying, selling. Behind an oaken rail was a tight-packed, standing audience, clerks, stenographers, small businessmen. Most of them munched sandwiches as they spent their lunch hour watching the trading. Now and then they made notations on envelopes. And their eyes had the rapt, glazed look one sees around a roulette table.
Making of a New Yorker
NEW YORK IS the only city I have ever lived in. I have lived in the country, in the small town, and in New York. It is true I have had apartments in San Francisco, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Paris, and sometimes have stayed for months, but that is a very different thing. As far as homes go, there is only a small California town and New York. This is a matter of feeling.
The transition from small town to New York is a slow and rough process. I am writing it not because I think my experience was unique; quite the contrary. I suspect that the millions of New Yorkers who were not born here have had much the same experienceâat least parallel experiences. Perhaps my account may remind them of all the painful, wonderful times in their own lives.
When I came the first time to New York in 1925 I had never been to a city in my life. (From Stanford University I had made undergraduate trips to San Francisco and thought naturally that I knew all about it, particularly as related to sin in my income bracket. I was twenty-three years old and my bracket was low.) I arrived on a boat, tourist, one hundred dollars. It was November. Besides my one hundred dollars, I had when I sailed out of San Francisco another hundred dollars to see me started in New York. If I had been a little richer, or a little more experienced, I wouldnât have taken the pretty girl around Havana in a carriage, nor been charmed and worldly about the broad rum drinks like tubs of soaking fruit. I donât know what I thought I was going to do with that very pretty girl once I got to New Yorkâmarry her, I guess, and take her into my penthouse on Park Avenue, where my guest list had no names but those of the famous, the beautiful and the dissolute. Anyway, it didnât pan out, and in the process my hundred dollars for New York was reduced to three.
From a porthole, then, I saw the city, and it horrified me. There was something monstrous about itâthe tall buildings looming to the sky and the lights shining
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