Ed Ricketts
<p>Joseph Campbell had a fling with Steinbeck’s first wife, Carol. It led to a divorce and canceling of a planed boat trip to Alaska with the young Joseph Campbell and Ed Ricketts. A second boat trip. You might have heard of the first one, it became a book called Log From the Sea of Cortez. They sailed from Monterey down to Baja California (John, Carol and Ed Ricketts). John Steinbeck evidently had important connections in Mexico, Hollywood and New York.</p>
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<p>To make it short, Ed Ricketts was a marine biologist and Steinbeck’s closest friend. He had his famous laboratory on Cannery Row that you can visit today. He died in a accident when his car stalled on the train crossing at the end of Cannery Row. There’s a statue to him there. Steinbeck had by then recently divorced, remarried and moved to Long Island, NY. Steinbeck never returned to live in Calif.</p>
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<p>Ed Ricketts was a renessance man, highly looked up to, almost a cult figure. But then, he was working for Stanford and he was leader for a tight knit group of artists and bohemians meeting at his lab…</p>