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J.D.Salinger, 1919-2010
The Daily News

1 So…J.D. Salinger walks into a bar…

2 Let’s face it. Salinger is the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, but much of his other stuff was depressingly difficult to consume.

3 To many, the book was probably just one in a line of hundreds of books.

4 To me, that book is responsible for my entire life.

5 Allow me please, to explain.

6 As a kid, I was an avid reader. I would read ANYTHING I could get my hands on, and spend hours with books, magazines, sports pages, comic books, science magz, and even the more sophisticated articles in Playboy.

7 Haha!

8 Oh, granny, puh-LEEEEZE. Do me a fat favor.

9 Anywho, I LOVED reading everything and nothing. Didn’t matter,and it doesn’t matter.

10 Comic books in particular I found absolutely creative, innovative, and wondeful.

11 AnywayZ…

12 School reading always bored me. While I understood the importance of guys like Thoreau and Emerson, I would often look out the classroom windows hoping for some nice clouds to drift by so I could hitch a ride to a lofty daydream.

13 My tenth grade teacher, the immortal Sharon Jackson, brought wonderful books to us all the time. It was just my sophomore year, she didn’t.

14 I had already moved swiftly through the English thing, so in my sophomore year, I was placed in a junior English class, which would be the modern equivalent to English 3.

15 THAT literature bored me to death. I absolutely hated The Scarlet Letter, and when my Mrs. Jackson brought Walden, I wanted to run screaming to the mountains.

16 I remember trying to read Walden at a time when EVERYBODY loved it, and I still thought it was b-o-r-i-n-g. I just thought it self-indulgent and a real snore. Meanwhile, everybody raved about it all around me, because it was such a cool concept: Ah, simplicity!

17 Ah, get a life, green man.

18 Well, for the record, I now appreciate Thoreau, and I appreciate that Emerson is now one of my favorite writers ever, but at that time, I wanted never to pick up another book to read.

19 Amazing.

20 AnywayZ, one fine day, Mrs. Jackson brought in The Catcher in the Rye, and I simply rolled my eyes. “Not ANOTHER one,” I thought.

21 She brought a chair to the middle of the class, and said, “This is a story about a boy who is having trouble trying to deal with all the phony people around him, and with his own struggles in dealing with being young.”

22 Words to that effect.

23 The shades came down, and all I wanted to do was to either go home and shoot some buckets, or go to the drug store and buy a coupla DC’s.

24 She continued. “I am going to read only the first couple of paragraphs, and then I’m going to allow you time to read the first chapter,” she said.

25 Oh, brother…

25 Well, the first chapter began thus:

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They’re nice and all – I’m not saying that – but they’re also touchy as hell. Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out and take it easy.”

26 That one passage did more to turn me into a raving reading maniac than everything I had read up ’til that point, an anything I have subsequently read.

27 Sidebar: the italics on the Salinger quote, by the way,ended at the last quotation mark. Neither Mozilla nor MSN would honor my font requests, so I guess item 26 shall remain in italics forevermore, even though it is my own words.

28 So it goes.

29 Back to it: AnywayZ, my point was that Cather in the Rye inspired me like no other.

30 Up to that point, I had separated my own reading from the reading that was school assignments and homework.

31 I tore through Catcher in the Rye as though it were the Sanskrit. I read it, re-read it, and absolutely fell in love with all literature at that very moment in my young, frabjous mind.

32 To this minute I don’t know why, except to say that it spoke to me, and became one of my favorite books ever.

33 I read other things by him, but they seemed even more depressing. I wasn’t interested in any of that, if you want to know the truth.

34 So to Mr. Salinger, thank you for your masterpiece. I do think it appeals to guys more than it does ladies, but in my life, it reached my very soul.

35 Amazing.

36 Moving on, Part 1: Ah, I thank all of you who wrote me emails about yesterday’s DN. I would also like to thank my wonderful friend and confidante Shawna Fleming for contributing her spirit and soul to the memories.

37 If I may, she sent me another email with a special tribute to the girls who delivered the goods in Three Minutes to Midnight. Here is the email, and I know Shawna would love for the girls to read this, so here it is, with LOTS of love:

I love remembering this show (i.e., “Three Minutes to Midnight”)! The music was a blast and a half to sing, play, and choreograph; your skits and vignettes were inspired (and hilarious); and I was continually blown away by the spirit, talent, and exuberant goofiness of our kids. The Girls’ Ensemble made the girl group sets (with songs like “My Boyfriend’s Back,” “One Fine Day,” “Dancin’ in the Streets,” and “Goin’ to the Chapel”) a joy to put together and perform; and Chris, Nelson, et al on “The End of the World as We Know It” (as the rest of the cast tore frantically across stage in escalating state of panic) rocked the house as it seldom had been rocked before. The show was inspired fun from beginning to end–kind of a miracle really, when you consider how little time we had to get it together.

Thanks for the memories,

Shawna

38 Ah, Shawna, if I may, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb publicly to declare you the miracle that lived in all of our hearts the entire time we worked together. I LOVED watching the girls bringing it the other night when watching the video, and can anything ever be more fun than “Dancin’ in the Streets” with Evelyn bringing the soul?

39 Calling out around the world are you ready for a brand new beat?

40 Just fun, pure and simple.

41 Sometimes it’s the simple things, to be sure.

42 Running theme on the DN, and certainly to anyone who knows me.

43 So thank you, Mr. Salinger, for without you, I may never have pushed to go to college, and to move on to direct all those wonderful Shows, and maybe never have enjoyed all the beautiful lives that came to me as a result.

44 I feel blessed to have met so MANY amazing friends through teaching, and I cherish all the students, teachers, and staff who have brought so much love to me over the years. It is nice to see that they made the same impact on you as well.

45 Moving on, Part the Second: On behalf of Shawna, Ponch, and myself, I just want to say that it has been a pleasure and an honor to have been part of all of your lives, and I’m happy to know that there may still be more memories to be had in the coming years. We all cherish your love and friendship through the years. And thanks J.D. for the inspiration.

46 Live life.

47 Love life.

48 Peace.