All About Sausage (NINE SALINGER PAGES #3)

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In 1937, Jerome David Salinger went to Vienna ...Not because of the CIC...
Nor the CIA...Salinger did not have Adolf Hitler in his binoculars...
He did not have binoculars...He was born on January 1, 1919...
The eighteen year old boy was in Vienna for one and only one reason...

SAUSAGE

His parents sent him there to learn the family business: specialty food imports
But Jerry was much more interested in the ankles of Viennese girls...
He preferred lacing up their ice skates to learning about Vienna sausage...

There were fifty-seven varieties of Viennese sausage but there were as many girls
as there were dreams...and twice as many ankles...with four times as much deception
when we visit the words of Before and After:

BEFORE:
I’ve asked CIC to send me to Vienna, but so far no results. I was there for a nearly a year in 1937

AFTER:
I’ve asked CIC to send me to Vienna, but so far no results. I was there for a nearly a year in 1937 and I want to put some ice skates on some Viennese girl’s feet again. That’s not much to ask of the Army.
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Two friends were reunited after one of them was eviscerated in a biography.
They met as teenagers in Vienna, the year after the son of Sol Salinger
arrived in Europe to learn the family business. The year was 1938.

They didn't meet again until 1989. Donald Hartog fulfilled his family's wishes
by making a career in the specialty food import business but Jerry never learned
diddly about sausages. (Except how to eat them.)

Yet, he did so declare...from the bottom of his heart and stomach...that
Burger King burgers were superior to McDonald's and Wendy's.

But Donald Hartog took issue with Salinger's declaration because Donald knew every-
thing there was to know about beef. And then he imported it before tripling the price.

"Jerry, when I visit you in New Hampshire, we cannot go to Burger King."

"Okay, Donald. I am willing to eat the occasional Big Mac."

"No!"

"No. What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Jerry, baby. No Burger K...no Mickey D or Wendy Do...I will only eat tofu burgers."

"Jesus Christ Almighty, Donnie. You sound just like Holden."

"Jerry?"

"What?"

"Of course I sound like Holden. Have your forgotten?"

...

...

"Now I remember. It was when we met those two Swedish girls in Vienna."

"Exactly. You said to me. 'Let's walk right into their dream.' I told them
your name was Zooey."

"Of course. Then I introduced you as 'Holden'...Holden Cornfield from Iowa."

"And I said, 'Zooey is from Glassland.' And, unfortunately, they told us they were
allergic to glass."

"But we laughed so goddam hard, two Russian girls took us home. One of them was BooBoo."

"And the other one was Walter. They were the Wiz kids of Wostoyevsky."

"It was a perfect day for bananafish."


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Footnote
NINE SALINGER PAGES continues here.
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