wallowing in happy freedom. The
breakers did not batter it for it offered them no enmity to rage and
boil upon, but giving way with each surge, smothered the eternal anger
of the ocean with its own placid surety.

The seagulls, the helldivers, pelicans, seapigeons had not been
affected. Resting briefly on the weed, they winged out for their food
and returned. It mattered no more to them that the manmade piers and
wharves, the seacoast towns, gypjoints, rollercoasters, whorehouses,
cottages, hotels, streets, gastanks, quarries, potterykilns, oilfields
and factories had been swallowed up than if some old wreck in the sand,
once offering them foothold, had been taken back by the sea. If I
thought the grass awesome from the land, monotonous from the air, it
seemed eternal from the water.

But impressive as it was from any angle, there were just so many things
I could say about it. My art, unlike Slafe's, not permitting of endless
repetition, I was glad to get back to the Pomona office, to pad what
little copy I had, retire into the small tent I shared with six other
sufferers from the housing shortage, and attempt some sleep.

_31._ The course mapped for the saltband caused almost as much
controversy, anguish and denunciation as the proposal itself. Cities and
towns fought to have the saltband laid between them and the approaching
grass, understandably ignoring larger calculations and considerations.
Cattle ranchers shot at surveying parties and individual farmers or
homeowners fought against having their particular piece of property
covered with salt. The original plan had contemplated straight lines;
eventually the band twisted and turned like a typewriter ribbon plagued
by a kitten, avoiding not only natural obstacles, but the domains of
those with proper influence.

Recovery plants worked three shifts a day to pile up great mounds of the
white crystals, which were hauled to the airfields by trains and trucks.
The laden trucks moved over the highways bumper to bumper; the
freighttrains' engines nosed the cabooses of those in front. All other
goods were shunted on sidings, perishables rotted, valuables went
undelivered; all transportation was reserved for the salt.

Not only was the undertaking unprecedented for its magnitude, but the
urgency and the breakdowns, bottlenecks, shortages and disruptions
caused by the grass itself added to the formidable accomplishment. But
the people were aroused and aware of danger,