A Meeting of Minds: John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts at the Lab in Monterey

by Victor A. Walsh

In the gray light of early morning, the weathered, batten board building stands like a phantom from an earlier time when Monterey's Cannery Row was a vast, sprawling complex of sardine factories and warehouses. It is quiet now before the tourists descend on the upscale boutiques, T-shirt stores, and restaurants that line the row. No cannery whistles or rivers of silvery fish pouring out of the boats or hollering men or clangor from the giant turbine pumps.

In the '30s and '40s, a bearded maverick marine biologist by the name of Edward F. Ricketts lived and worked here ...