She gave me life. He gave me J.D. Salinger. With cousins like him, I didn't need a big brother.
...Photo ≈ 1947...I was two years south of being born.But flash forward to 1961. He was a high school senior in the Bronx and I was a curious 12-year old
from the better side of the Whitestone Bridge. His bedroom was adorned with CARDINAL HAYES banners and posters of Mickey Mantle and Y. A. Tittle.
I was getting curiouser and curiouser about a baseball book on his desk.
"Who is the catcher in the rye? Is this book about Yogi Berra?"
"It's about Holden Caulfield."
"What team does he play for? The Pittsburg Pirates?
Is Smokey Burgess in the book?"
"No, Holden was just a boy. A sixteen year old boy–just like me..."
My cousin talked about the book non-stop for a half-hour...My ears grew bigger than Pinocchio's nose.
That was the day I found religion.
Had not Mr. Salinger introduced me to Scott Fitzgerald, Ring Lardner and so many other writers
with meat on their bones, the "GoodFather/GodFather of Math" pages
would have gone through the looking glass.
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Footnote
I am not a name-dropper. I smash the names against the wall and watch all the shards sparkle.
There is a limit to my hyperlinking but NINE SALINGER PAGES continues here.
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