Letter to the Editor

[ambitious_wench]

The following is the letter I wrote to the Editor of the Salinas Californian.

Dear Editor;

I live in Rhode Island, but I grew up in Salinas. I lived at 50 Villa street, with a view of Central Park, and those other-worldly eucalyptus trees. I played on that Locomotive, and paddled on my belly in the wading pool on hot summer days. I collected owl pellets from beneath the sickle-shaped leaves of those trees, and to this day the smell of eucalyptus reminds me of Salinas.

I remember the parrot that escaped and made a home in the park. I remember hearing it calling "Go home! Go Home!".

I walked in the rose garden with my first boyfriend, swam at the municipal swimming pool in Sherwood Park.

And I spent long summer days in the cool comfort of the John Steinbeck Library, before it was renamed in his honor, and that hideous statue of him was erected.

I haven't been back to Salinas in over twenty years.

But now, I worry, and worry deeply about my home town. I heard on NPR this morning that Salinas is closing its libraries and recreation centers.

It is the first town in America to do so.

Are there no lettuce barons to give grants to the library? Has Salinas truly fallen prey to the false rhetoric of the far right, that the left just wants to spend your hard earned money on frivolous trivialities like books and public recreation centers?

And what are the good folk of The Salinas Californian saying about this? I should hope that it's being covered, and well, in the print edition. After all, newspapers rely on literacy. And where better to encourage literacy than a public library?

This is stunning. I'm gasping like a fish out of water over this.

Yes, I know I'm not a resident any more. But I am who I am because of my childhood in Salinas. And I worry about the children of Salinas today.

We have a budget of over $140,000,000,000.00 to wage war in Iraq. It seems we have lost sight of our own children, our own literacy, our own summer afternoons by the pool. And that breaks my heart.

God save you from yourselves, Salinas.

Sincerely,
E. Howe