Farewell

J.D. Salinger died yesterday. If it hadn't been on the news today, very few people would have known, as he lived has reclusively for decades. I once went with some friends to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he lived. Maybe we hoped we would see him getting groceries, or gassing up his car and we could talk about The Glass Family...except we wouldn't know what he looked like, he purposely avoided everyone, and anyone we asked about him just rolled their eyes and blew us off, probably used to getting questioned about his whereabouts, and protective of their own.

The Catcher in the Rye was sitting on our bookshelf when I was about fourteen. Out of boredom one day, I was looking through the books to find something new to read and picked it up. It really changed the way I looked at being a teenager, but more than that, the way I looked at writing. I was in awe of the idea that seemingly unimportant events could be told in a wonderful and important way.

So thank you to J.D. Salinger for writing and for not ever letting his stories be made into movies. (Can you just see Zac Efron in 'Holden Caulfield--the Musical' "You're all a bunch of phonies, yeah, yeah! ?? Yikes!)