Salinger and "Shining Your Shoes for the Fat Lady"

Katherine here.

Franny called me yesterday. I was having lunch with C.Fite between visits at Manual High School and Lincoln High School. Franny needed to let me know that Salinger had died and she didn't want me to learn from someone who didn't love me. I gulped and teared up and tried not to let it interfere with Cindy's tale of the new recliners she and Jerry are moving into their living room. I made it through lunch.

I got in my car and headed to Lincoln and managed to watch my teacher (an avid hockey player from Hawaii--go figure). He was trying to meet a literacy requirement and his lesson was just okay, but I paid attention and tried to see what was good. I got back in the car and my boss called with an update on some Metro issues and I told her I was struggling because Salinger died. She's a former Jeffco English teacher and I waited for her to gasp or something, but instead she asks me who this Salinger is. I tell her and she lets me know she never read Catcher in the Rye. I didn't know what to say and headed to Bruce Randolph School and started to cry.

I watched a Physics teacher (also working on literacy requirements) who told me she really doesn't understand what a prefix or suffix is in our follow-up conference. It was almost 3:00 and I returned to the car a disillusioned mess.

I turn on the radio and hit the NPR button and there is a voice reading the opening pages of Catcher. I would have read the words differently--I mean, I read them so many times. I started weeping and I realized I needed to pay attention to the traffic on I70. The ode to Salinger ended with the last page and Holden missing everyone you talk about. More weeping.

I got off the various highways it takes to get me home, pulled over and discovered Facebook messages on my Blackberry from folks I read those Catcher pages to and all I could do was miss them. So much.

Salinger is the glue to my life. I read Catcher in high school because it was banned. I was a "good" kid and couldn't understand the fuss over the book and wondered why Holden didn't just do his work. God, I was such an idiot.

Jim taught me to understand. When we were dating there was this bizarre moment when he arrived at my apartment on a Saturday morning. He had books, champagne, and record albums. He didn't want to come in, but handed me the items. He said that he was falling in love with me, but couldn't love a woman who had not read these books, drunk this wine (Mumm's--Hemingway's favorite), and didn't feel at home with the music (mostly The Band). He left.

After half of day just really being pissed (I wasn't in the mood for weekend assignments--I had plenty of papers to grade), I decided I'd try the wine. I'd never opened champagne. It was a challenge and I wasted some.

I picked up Franny and Zooey (I'd been told to read it first and if you're going to blindly obey a fellow you might as well go whole hog). I drank champagne and read all night. I read Nine Stories next and then the Seymore novellas. The Band and Life is a Carousel went round and round in the background. I fell in love. With Salinger, the wine, the music, with Jim.

I spent years at Green Mountain High School trying to teach kids what I learned that weekend. I've spent most of my life trying to live it with on-and-off success. It's not that big a lesson so it surprises me how hard it is to teach, to grasp, to live.

All I try to do every day is to "shine my shoes for the fat lady." I try to pay loving attention to the people around me. I try to see what is good and what is working in them. I try to accept them for what they are. I try to listen--that's all Holden, Franny, Zooey, and Buddy really had in Seymour--the world's best listener. I try to see trees instead of roads and realize that swimming suits are equally blue and yellow. I try to walk from one piece of hallowed ground to the next.

It's so hard and I don't do it very well. Rush Limbaugh saps me of the grace I have when he suggests we not contribute to Haiti and then my quirky grandson Zack tells me his favorite food in all the world is my roast turkey and I'm somehow a bit more balanced again. My problem is that Zack will grow up and I don't know if my kids are ready to produce a string of kids just to keep me on an even keel.

One last thought--Jim does the Facebook thing and I check in--I'm on the computer too much for Metro stuff as it is. I want to say how joyous it is to see faces I've loved and continue to love and to know how many truly wonderful things have grown from little things J. and I taught. Chris Hartman called last night too. I missed the call, but the voice and message were just right. Thank you all for sharing your lives with us way back when and now.

That's it for now. Love and kisses,
Mrs. S.