JD SALINGER DIES AT AGE 91!

JD, 'JERRY' SALINGER, author of the 'famous & infamous' novel, CATCHER IN THE RYE, passed away at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire where he has lived in near isolation since the early 1950's, the time when I was living in Cornish and then went to high school at Stevens High School in Claremont,NH, after moving somewhat from Cornish with my grandparents to Pine Grove Street. Over the years, many 'sightings' of Salinger took place with the frequency of UFO sightings once prevalent and several books on and about Salinger appeared, sometimes just critically assessing his writings and publications or his life in general. After 'granting' an interview with a high school girl at Windsor High School in nearby Windsor,Vermont, JD did not grant any more interviews apparently, probably because of the 'publicity' he received nationally as a result. LIFE MAGAZINE , if I am not mistaken, issued a few issues with articles,etc. on him. Some people do not realize that the major character of 'CATCHER' appeared as a character in a short story before the publication of his major work and probably only a few die-hard devotees have read all of collected works or noticed that Salinger was interested in Zen and related topics and perhaps adopted/adapted some of the Zen practices, as he interpreted them, into his actual life. That he spent time over the years writing, according to several seemingly credible sources, but never published anything, seems to bear out this 'Zenist' approach,similar, in my estimation, to the many monks, calligraphers,etc. that have undergone this sort of 'discipline'. In some respects, his later life, literary or otherwise, if it can be called such, is like a 'tea ceremony',but I shall leave that speculation to others to carry further if they wish. As far as I know I never met or saw Salinger but one friend of mine, now deceased, a Cornish resident for much of his life, and also a high school classmate and member of my 'special' group,and also interested enough to get me to accompany him and another friend, to some Gurdjieff meeting/activity in Lempster, New Hampshire,back in the 80's. My friend, Bob H., used to see him on the streets of Windsor where he worked at the time for the Postal Service. My friend said he used to say hello to Salinger,etc. and sometimes saw him in Cornish. When a student in college I took a course in ADOLESCENT PSYCHOLOGY and for one of the projects to be done, a written report, I did mine on THE CATCHER without actually having read the book which everyone at the time was raving about. I had the attitude which I still have somewhat today, sort of a snobbish affair, not to read 'bestsellers' and 'hot- off- the- presses' books,etc. and the same for viewing movies,etc. these days. I later read CATCHER some years later and also devoured the other things by Salinger I could find. For my report, based mainly on the jacket descriptions, and a quick shuffle through the pages of the book, I received an A + which tells you somewhat the state of academia and myself at the time. I still have the other paper. In 1962, while teaching in a small,private boys' school in Connecticut, I had a student(and so did other teachers so- to- speak, who came from Westport, Connecticut, the place listed as the residance of JD Salinger on the jacket covers of his hard backs(along with the same generic photo,etc. and who claimed to personally know JD Salinger to the extent he conned or convinced even the psychiatrists and school director into thinking this 'delusion' to be true,and then it happened: LIFE put out another issue or some magazine did, telling of Salinger being a recluse in Cornish and this student knew I had lived in Cornish, NH(I took another student from the school there to stay at my Aunt's cabin on the old Farm property there one time in 1962-63) and wondeered why I had not made the acquaintance of JD Salinger. He seemed slightly 'overwhelmed' and in 'awe' at this: that I could ignore JS Salinger. I then read some of the critical books on Salinger at that time. Saligner apparently was a sort of 'entertainer' pn a cruise line, spent time in Europe and also in the Army, and had a movie made from one of his works. Salinger will always have a certain appeal to many, as he was a fascinating,illusive,perhaps shy, person, who had the reputation of wanting 'privacy' almost a masculine counterpart of Greta Garbo. That he worked hard on 'the myth of JD Salinger' and let the popular imaginations of the public go to work and polish, seems somewaht obvious, but I should point out that Salinger is not the first or only person to seek 'solace and quiet' in the hills of Cornish. There have been a few others, many with talent and sensitivity and the like that will always characterize the creator of Hold Caulfield, a sort of forerunner of the BEAT GENERATION.

MY BOOKS THAT NEVER GOT PUBLISHED

Over the years I have had at least three book or writing projects suggested, asked for, etc. by people who could print and publish them that I was fortunate to encounter. Some of them did publish a few articles of mine but when it came to books some other things intervened and diverted things, so nothing came of them except some manuscripts of a sort and some other items along the same way. I was asked by a national educational journal in another country to compile or write a book with this sort of title,A FRIENDLY FOREIGNER. My book and another book by a more prominent contributor to the JOURNAL never got anywhere, although his was actually published before mine and did not sell,etc. so the project to publish educational books was abandoned. Another book project in that same country by a different group of friends and associates, also educaitonal in scope, dealt with a mathematics text book which for various reasons was not published as I had envisioned and left me standing on the corner, in the wind and sun and rain, so to speak, but which proved to be a lesson of importance. The third 'GREAT PROJECT' when I was in that same country, came from a publisher in the US who took my materials and pictures,etc. and was to publish such but then decided not to and to go out of business and sell the company and also the magazine he had established and published and edited and it can still be found on the stands these days, even though he is passed away. Another US Publisher in the same field but with some different orientations wanted me to do a book for him, or rather update and improve a 'special course' he had printed and sold around the world for years,but this did not materialize. I could also mention two or three other 'writing projects' envisioned and partially accepted by some editors/publishers that also were returned to me for different reasons. One of them was that the actual publisher of the periodical became extremely irate when I sort of 'stepped on his toes' in some statements I made to the editor that was looking at my stuff. My friends had all recommended me to the mag(s). Eventually, the mags were discontinued by the real owner of all them and he returned to his first type of magazine love. Many of them are perhaps still on the stands now.

MY WRITING CAREER BEGAN IN

Several have asked me about my 'writings' and why I am unpublished for the most part,etc. I began my 'writing' career in around the 5th grade at the South Cornish One-
Room School that, at that time, handled grades 1-4. My first 'published writings' came into being then when MRS. SMITH(about whom I plan to say more about in other blogs) set up what is known as a 'hectograph', a device now rendered obsolete by various copying devices, scanners, printers,etc. and other electronic media,etc. Printing on a hectograph required several steps and some materials. I shall not go into the full details of this process, now long forgotten by most classroom teachers of this day and age, now the 21st Century. Encouraged to write stories and things in class(all students were) some of mine, based in part of the comicstrip, TINY TIM & also THE LITTLE PEOPLE, were 'published' in the small school paper that our school created under Mrs. Smith. Although at one time, I had most of the copies done on the hectograph, they vanished later, when perhaps some relatives,etc. of mine disposed of them as of little or no significance to the literary world along with other things of mine of a like nature.

JACK KEROUAC & L. RON HUBBARD

Two things that Jack K. and L. Ron had in common was their special typing methods: Both used long rolls of paper to type at their leisure and crank-out speed, their manuscripts. L. Ron had so many ideas and plots for his fiction, not to mention his other writings, that he had to 'speed-up' something that all of us need to do as we 'age','grow older' etc. rather than slow down and take life easy. This latter view and belief is fine for young people who have all the time in the world. Both Jack K. and L. Ron knew they had little time to accomplish all they wanted or had set out to do. Jack K. had so many thoughts that using the standard,single sheet of paper on the mechanical typewriters of the time(which I still prefer over the new computer types) took too much time and led to loss of thought not to mention rhythm!

THE DIFFFERENCE BETWEEN SAYING SOMETHING & SPEAKING SOMETHING

Everything I write nowadays is so indefomote. extremely vague, for most people who any of it. To SPEAK is not to SAY. Do you know the exact difference between saying something and speaking something?

AUTHORSHIP IS DIFFERENT FROM AUTHORITY!

Even if people author things,that is, claim copyrights and the like, they do NOT always possess, or even if they claim they do, AUTHORITY for what they have written! AUTHORITY of and for writings is not the same as AUTHORSHIP! Thus, you can be an authority without having written a thing! Even if you have written on a subject, you may not be an actual authority. Yet, if you find writings, such as these blogs, authoritative in tone, scope, nature, theme, thesis, and subject, then who is the author? If you make any of these ideas your own, under the best possible circumstances are you an authority and are you, thereby, authorized to author them?

JDS or J.D.S.

NEW HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE has an interesting article entitled,'SEEKING SALINGER' by Kevin Flynn and some interesting illustrations by Marc Sutherland, plus a 'EXTRA! EXTRA! by Edward Jackson Bennett. I suggest that fans of Salinger purchase the issue and also to subscribe to the magazine. They can contact the editor at editor@nhmagazine.com via e-mail. For the rest of this topic, please go to YANKEE BOYHOOD, another blog.