JOEL W. HEDGPETH & ED RICKETTS:
BETWEEN PACIFIC TIDES - 1956 PREFACE NOTE
Compiled by Robert Jan "Roy" van de Hoek
December 21, 2000, Revised May 31, 2014
Ballona Institute
Los Angeles, California
Preface Note by Joel W. Hedgpeth in Between Pacific Tides 1956 Printing
Things have changed, as Steinbeck would say - and has said so in Sweet Thursday, that somewhat unreal sequel to Cannery Row. Between Pacific Tides is beginning to show some signs of age, but in this 1956 reprinting we have been able only to correct a few obvious errors and replace some of the older references in the Bibliography with more recent counterparts. Since 1952 there has been a new development in marine biology in shallow waters all over the world, the use of the free diving apparatus. As often happens with a new tool, it is at first a plaything, and later a device for serious work by critical investigators. The free diving apparatus or aqua-lung, however, is a device that requires both a good physique and a good biologist to produce the best results, and such a combination is rare among us, I am afraid. Nevertheless we are learning that many of the statements in this book about the subtidal, or what was thought to be exclusively intertidal, occurrence of even very common animals are erroneous. We are also learning of interesting extensions in geographical range as well. Because of the warmer waters, where diving is less rigorous, most of this information has so far come from southern California. Perhaps by the time it is possible to make a thorough revision of this book, we will have similar information from colder waters, and diving biologists are herewith asked to send it to us.
Now that Ed has become the hero of a musical comedy, the myth seems to be growing like a large puffball on the decayed roots of reality. Yet there will be many whose first approach to the microcosm of Cannery Row will be via Between Pacific Tides rather than the parabolic path of Steinbeck's writing. I have said my piece on this matter in Pacific Discovery (January-February 1953), and think that further comments are best left to the cultural vultures, or whatever it was that George Borrow called the literary critics.
1956
Joel W. Hedgpeth
AFTERWORD
Robert Jan "Roy" van de Hoek
May 31, 2014
A few days ago, a very nice person very concerned with the conservation of pinnipeds at the mouth of the Russian River Estuary, in Sonoma County, California, contacted me by email with an interest in an article that Joel W. Hedgpeth wrote on seals over 50 years ago. She was not able to access the web page because the address changed from geocities.com to naturespeace.org, so I updated the web address.
In addition, as I looked at other web pages that I compiled about Joel W. Hedgpeth about 14 years ago in 2000, I noticed that I had some grammatical errors and spelling errors in Joel Hedgpeth's 1956 preface, the second printing of the third edition of Between Pacific Tides by Edward Ricketts and Jack Calvin. The first correction is the spelling of the surname of George Borrow from G. Barrow. The second correction is the capitalization of the first letter of "we" of a sentence in the first paragraph. The third correction is indenting the two paragraphs of the 1956 preface by Joel W. Hedgpeth. The fourth correction is the separate line for the name of Joel W. Hedgpeth and the year of 1956. Now the 1956 Preface "Note" by Joel W. Hedgpeth appears exactly as printed by Stanford University Press in 1956!