Schooners Coastal Kitchen & Bar – Monterey, California
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” ~John Steinbeck Cannery Row, 1945 During basic military training in the Air Force, several of us who could speak multiple languages were asked to take the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB), the test the military services use to measure aptitude to learn a foreign language. Fewer than five percent of people who take (or retake) the DLAB pass it. Somehow I managed a high score and was extended an opportunity to attend the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at the Presidio of Monterey. My response, one borne of ignorance and stupidity, was “I…