Rare John Steinbeck column probes strength of US democracy

[Just A Box Of Rain]

1. John Steinbeck is now a heroic "native son" in Salinas, CA (and in nearby Monterey)

but in the 1930s he joined radicals like Ella Winter and her husband Lincoln Steffens in supporting a farm workers strike in Salinas that the growers put down with armed force.

Steinbeck had to flee the area under threats of death. That part of his story isn't highlighted today, but...

Should any DUers happen to visit Carmel, the workshop of the blacksmith Francis Whittaker, who as another radical in this circle (and the head of Carmel's John Reed Club) is a charming restaurant called The Forge In The Forest, that preserves much of Whittaker's original forge.