dual personalities

Tag: J.D. Salinger

July 17, 2012

If you really want to hear about it

by chuckofish

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published on July 16 in 1951. It has been translated into almost all of the world’s major languages. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year, with total sales of more than 65 million books. I am one of its biggest fans and have been since I first read it in the 10th grade. I was one of those teenagers that identified with Holden Caulfield and forty years later I still do. I love him and his creator as much as any fictional character and author out there.

“The part that got me was, there was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through the goddam picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You’d have thought she did it because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn’t. She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn’t take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they’re mean bastards at heart. I’m not kidding. ” (Chapter 18)

How right is that?

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June 13, 2012

Another ugga wugg memory

by chuckofish

“Well, one afternoon I was supposed to be taking care of Sonny while Mother was out shopping. He couldn’t have been older than three or four at the most. I was about ten. Well, we had a big fight about something, I forget what it was about, but Sonny got so mad he packed a suitcase and ran away. He was always running away. When Mother came home from shopping a few hours later, she found him in the lobby. He was dressed from head to toe in his Indian costume, long feather headdress and all. He said, ‘Mother, I’m running away, but I stayed to say good-bye to you.’

“When she unpacked his suitcase, it was full of toy soldiers.”

(Story told about J.D. Salinger by his sister Doris in “Dream Catcher” by Margaret Salinger)

I cannot tell you how much I love this story. What would you give to see a picture of little J.D. (Sonny) dressed in his Indian costume with full feather headdress?

Well, the best I could do is show you a picture of daughter #1 wearing the Indian costume that my mother made for me when I was in the first grade and we played the Indians in a school production of Peter Pan. Unfortunately, although I searched high and low, I could not find the picture! But I did find the dress!

All the mothers made the costumes for their own daughters, so you can imagine they varied quite a lot according to the skill level of each mama. Not surprisingly, some were store-bought and pretty fancy. I seem to remember some glitter in there too. Mine had real leather fringe and hand-beaded trim.

My older brother even strung me a bead necklace to wear with the dress. My mother, of course, went for authenticity and made the costume brown, unlike some mothers who went for “cute”. There was much diversity of headbands, I recall–some definitely leaning to the “tiara”.

Come to think of it, I would like to see a picture of those first grade Indian maidens, wouldn’t you?

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