The Row

Look what they done to the Row, Doc.
Made her up into a fancy lady,
now she begs for the tourist's dollar
never mind about us, Doc.
They don't want us.

All done up in T-shirts and wind socks.
What's the point, Doc?
Just what is the point?

The Row, she was pretty
when she was our home. A real
family we had - now, ah
it's just so sad, Doc, just so sad.

Somebody went crazy with cement, Doc.
Poured it every whichway, turned the Row into
a parking lot. Poured all the character
right into parking lots. That's what the
Row is today, Doc. Sure glad you can't see
it looking like this. Poured cement and went away. Left big pillars sticking out of the ground.

Got an aquarium you'd probably like. You couldnt
afford a ticket in, but you'd probably like it if
you could.

The boys are gone, the girls drifted off.
No heart left on the Row, Doc, not without you.
Still...
sometimes a bubble of laughter floats down from a
balcony...and.....
Look what they done to the Row, Doc.

Cool eh? My mother wrote that when we lived in Monterey. She's talking about Cannery Row (made famous by John Steinbeck and known as home to Doc Ricketts, a marine biologist who lived on the Row until he was killed by a train.)

The Row had such a great history - old sardine factories, Doc's lab, a brothel, stuff like that. Really colourful. Now it's nothing but a tourist trap anchored by a really great but expensive as hell aquarium. The shops sell gaudy baubles and surf t-shirts, Doc Rickett's is now a raunchy bar and the view of the beautiful bay is obscured by ugly hotels and parking lots. It's sad. Doc's lab is still there but the whorehouse is now (well at the time we lived there anyway) an ice cream shop, a radio station (KNRY) and gift shop hell.

But enough of that. I was going through some of my mother's things yesterday - stuff I hadn't touched since she died - and I found a goldmine of folders with her writings in them. Short stories, story ideas and outlines, and her poetry. She was a romantic, my mum :) I'm so happy I found this stuff.