It was said that my New York license plates would arouse interest and perhaps questions, since they were the only outward identi
fying marks I had. And so they did – perhaps twenty or thirty times in the whole trip. But such contacts followed an invariable pattern, somewhat as follows: Local man: "New York, huh?" Me: "Yep." Local man: "I was there in nineteen thirty-eight – or was it thirty-nine? Alice, was it thirty-eight or thirty-nine we went to New York?" Alice: "It was thirty-six. I remember because it was the year Alfred died." Local man: "Anyway, I hated it. Wouldn't live there if you paid me." What does this conversation show about the people whom the author meets? People treat others differently when they come from big cities. People’s curiosity about where Steinbeck is from does not last very long. People in the United States are very curious about where others live. People are very suspicious of visitors from New York.
