THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

 HOLDEN CAUFIELD

“I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.” - Holden Caufield

It's good to re-read books from the past. Perspectives change. Situations change. Even memories change. We realize that the two motorcycle riders we thought were so cool back when financed their journey by selling dope that destroyed individuals, families, and even entire neighborhoods. Here are some present-day thoughts on a seminal book from the 1960s, The Catcher In The Rye.

Maybe one reason for the book’s continuing population is that it nails the pains of adolescence so well. The fact that Holden didn’t handle it well doesn’t make the act of growing up any less real, or as John Steinbeck put it: “Just because something didn’t happen doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” We have, each of us maybe, wished on more than one occasion that our lives could have been frozen like a museum tableau at some less painful stage in our life.

But then we reach our "golden years."

We find, and "give with brief thanksgiving" a blessing for the fact, that we have come through it all, and most of it we wouldn’t have missed for the world. That a brief dream about a face from 40 years ago can break our heart one more time simply reminds us that once upon a time we loved that hard and hopelessly, not a bad thing. And though the deck may heave beneath us, we’ll always find a welcome port.

 As a lesson, the perspective of years says to me that the tough part of life is the living part. The things of value for me have always come hard: education, patience, empathy, perspective, and on and on. One can’t become an adult simply by being able to purchase cocktails in a bar. One doesn’t truly set one’s self apart from his peers by wearing an oddball hat. One doesn’t become a protector of the innocent by daydreaming. It all comes hard, some of it damned hard.

But hard as it was, it has been worthwhile. I treasure the acquaintance and I will see you later Holden, my old friend. You’ve been instructive through it all, even through the war and all the other dark times. Thanks for teaching me, way back then, that bemusement was okay. I’m not sure I could have made it through some of the times without that. Making it through has always been important to me. Oddly enough, making it through was the one thing you seemed never to get a handle on yourself. Maybe you did eventually

I hope so. I really do.