John Steinbeck On Why ‘Camping Is For The Birds’
Steinbeck in the May 1967 issue of Popular Science:
The dream. Six people in one outfit no matter how shiny and new is too grisly to contemplate. The picture shows a sunny meadow littered with buttercups across which a lovely little stream rushes to find its home in a deep blue lake. A glowing wife is cooking something delicious just as the father brings a two-pound rainbow trout to the net. The children, little angels, wait patiently for their dinners after which they go immediately to serene beddy-bye dreams.
The actuality. Don’t believe it. It rains. The kids get to fighting. You are trapped in a small, smelly, miserable box, with a pride of horrible children and a husband-eating wife. The land beside the road is posted, the game warden is watching. You have looked for hours for some place where you are allowed to pull off the road and you finally settle for a camp city with an entrance fee of five dollars which has all the natural simplicity of a city slum. Right away your dog tangles with the dog next door, and next door is so next that you can’t get out of your car.
And:
Anyone who doesn’t prefer a good bed in a warm room to lumpy pine boughs and a sleeping bag that feels like a plaster cast is either insane or an abysmal liar.
This.
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