In 1960 author John Steinbeck traveled across country in a customized camper with his poodle Charley.
He wanted to meet people and get a sense of the country, which he put in his book "Travels With Charley, in search of America."
I am still haunted by his stop in New Orleans.
He wanted to see the women called "the Cheerleaders" who gathered every day to scream curses at Black children escorted into school by U.S. marshals.
One local told him, "Man, oh man, you never heard nothing like it when they get going."
And ... that was true.
Steinbeck said he heard words that were "bestial and filthy and degenerate."
What bothered him also was the theater.
"These speeches were not spontaneous," he said. "They were tried and memorized and carefully rehearsed.
"The crowd, no doubt, rushed home to see themselves on television, and what they saw went out all over the world."
After reading his words I thought about the attack on our Capitol on Jan. 6.
I, too, saw the love of the camera in the painted man wearing the horns. I heard ugly and terrifying words. I also witnessed history and was stunned, wondering about our future.
Steinbeck was wondering 60 years ago so ... how far have we come?
I see more than rage. It's a Molotav cocktail mixed with personal history, fear, frustration, desire, and knowledge blunted by emotion. And more.
All waiting for a crowd to gather ... a voice to follow ... some kind of flame.
“I know that the solution when it arrives will not be easy or simple,” Steinbeck concluded, adding, “The end is not in question. It’s the means — the dreadful uncertainty of the means.”
I’m Lonny Cain… and that’s my Perspective.
