Belated Thoughts on J D Salinger

When J. D. Salinger died in January, we heard--ad nauseum, it seemed--both about the author's failure to publish beyond his early works and his subsequent life as a recluse. These parts of Salinger's biography were portayed as they usually are, with dismay and with a sense of failure.

After rereading this spring The Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, and Nine Stories, I can say that I share none of this disappointment. Salinger's work is brilliant. Holden Caulfield speaks not only to the disaffection of youth but also to the heartbreaking, thin line between mental health and mental dissolution. And if you haven't read the short story "For Esmé--With Love and Squalor," find it and read it immediately. The war-ravaged narrator and his meeting with the young British girl are unforgettable and, like Catcher in the Rye, transcendent of time and place.

If J. D. Salinger had more good work to publish, well, I guess it's too bad we didn't get to read it. But more often than not, we read too much from one author. Once a writer publishes one good book, it's often assumed that everything else is equally good. This is rarely the case, I've found, and results in awkward book reviews and undeserved accolades.

Perhaps Mr. Salinger got it right. Put out your best work and allow it to stand on its own merits. And maybe, just maybe, generations of readers will continue to discover you long after the book tours are over.

Birds in Flight

In his research on a bird species called bar-tailed godwits, biologist Robert Gill discovered in 2006 amazing flight patterns that turned previous assumptions upside-down. While godwits had been thought to make several stops in Asia as they migrated from southern Alaska to New Zealand and Australia, it turns out that these large waders fly far out over the Pacific Ocean, traveling “up to 7,100 miles in nine days — the longest nonstop flight ever recorded.”

As reported in a story in this week’s New York Times, advances in technology—such as tiny and remote tracking devices—led to Professor Gill’s findings and opened up the door for similar research. Not long ago ornithologists thought that ruby-throated hummingbirds, for example, stopped in Mexico as they traveled home in the spring. We know now, though, that they “set out from the Yucatán Peninsula in the evening and arrive in the southern United States the next afternoon.”

There’s something comforting about this news from the animal kingdom, especially when our own species seems to have gone so far off track. With angry finger-pointing over the BP oil spill and violence at the Mexican border, we seem to be at war with ourselves. And not just in America. Tensions are mounting between North and South Korea, and Europe is in a tailspin over its economic woes. It’s as if the gods on Mount Olympus are looking down at the humans and wondering at the mess they’ve made of things.

I’m reminded specifically of Pandora’s Box. She seems to have opened it even wider these last several years, allowing greed and anger and hatred to flourish. Fear and mistrust abound. But Pandora offered a gift to humans as well. It was Hope that tumbled out alongside the pestilent plagues. Hope that would remain a constant comfort to the mortals below.

The bar-tailed godwits and the ruby-throated hummingbirds seem to me to carry Hope with them as they soar miles beyond our expectations. Unlike us, they’re using their god-given talents not only to survive, but to survive with grace.

We have god-given talents, too, with our minds and imagination and heart. If we use these gifts the way the birds use theirs, we just might find our way home—the home that most of us want, one devoid of hatred and injustice.

The Berenstain Bears & the Trouble With Them: Part II, Papa Bear

So Papa Bear is a problem, too. As an opposing figure to Mama Bear, ever efficient and orderly, Papa is a total screw-up. He's one of the most incompetent fathers in contemporary children's fiction. When Mama is called away to help Cousin Bertha with her baby twins, Papa manages to destroy the house in a matter of hours. In one scene he forgets to open the fireplace flue, and as the house fills with smoke he swats the flames with a feather pillow. His two young children rescue the situation, knowing wisely that water works better than feathers.

In nearly every book Papa Bear is the one who doesn't get it. He still wants Choco-Chums and Sweetsie Cola when everyone else is choosing carrot sticks and raisins. He's the last hold-out on pollution--a modern-day naysayer on global warming--denying until the story ends that Professor Actual Factual may be right after all.

But as in the case with Mama, Papa Bear hits a little too close to home. For fathers today are a bit like him: involved, but incapable of doing it right. Sure, we've got more dads than ever before changing diapers and staying home with their kids. But are we really comfortable with how they do the job, particularly the work that women used to do?

If you send any father with his child to the doctor, I guarantee you that the mother of that child won't be happy with the information, or lack of information, that he brings home. Send him to a school conference and she'll wish she'd gone. The questions that Mom deems important aren't the same ones for Dad.

So what would happen if Papa Bear suddenly starred in a story where he commanded respect, instead of bumbling his way around the periphery of the family? Perhaps he could be seen taking charge or simply listening to his kids. This would get us closer to where we'd like to be, and where we often are when we're not invested in maintaining control.

For this is what it's all about, the grasp to control our children's lives in whatever ways we think possible. We delude ourselves, though, at a cost to all of us. Lives unfold in ways we never imagined, including the lives of our children.

If we can find ways to cede the control, we just might restore the balance we so desperately need.

The Berenstain Bears & the Trouble With Them: Part I, Mama Bear

Though the Berenstain Bears books no longer occupy the main shelves of our family's library, it's not that long ago that I read them over and over again--and discovered that I couldn't stand them. I wasn't alone; I often heard other parents say, "I hate the Berenstain Bears."

They seem like a harmless lot until you catch on to the unfortunate portrayal of Mama Bear. For starters, she's always dressed in the same blue and white polka-dotted dress. It's frumpy and unfashionable, and with her matching cap and roly poly body, she's all Mama and nothing else.

She's got no sense of humor, no secrets or hint of allure, and no surprises in her personality. Sure enough, when she and Papa Bear head out for their second honeymoon, she's dressed in that old familiar blue and white polka-dotted dress.

Moreover, Mama Bear always has the right answers to the family's problems. When Sister starts biting her fingernails in first grade, Mama devises thoughtful, Pavlovian solutions. When she tackles the family's weight problem (without ever acknowledging her own), she trashes the junk food and initiates sensible healthy eating.

The trouble with all of this is . . . it hits close to home. Even though most of us don't look or dress like Mama Bear, we may feel like her, especially when raising young children. It's hard to escape being Mama--even for a moment--when a baby's at your breast, when a toddler follows you into the bathroom, or when a pre-schooler hangs on your skirt and drags it off your hips. It's hard to find time to choose earrings for the day or find something new to wear.

It's easier to pull out that polka-dotted dress from yesterday.

And Mamas today still solve most of the family's problems. Maybe we're genetically hardwired for this responsibility or maybe we don't trust fathers with the task. In any case, the trouble is this: Mama wil eventually meet up with a problem that's too big to solve alone. Then will we see the real Mama, her cap askew, her daisy wilted? Will the title be "The Berenstain Bears and the Depressed and Overwhelmed Mama"?

Don't count on it. It's not a book we'd like to read.

End of Grade Tyranny

Today marks the beginning of End of Grade (EOG) tests in Durham County and in other districts across North Carolina. In honor of these colossal wastes of time, and, I would argue, hindrances to the education of our children, I have composed an acrostic poem similar to the ones my children compose in school when they're not forced to prepare for yet another test.

Endless cycle of pointless tests.
No time for real learning.
Death to creative instruction.

Original student work? What's that?
False sense of achievement.

Great minds stifled day after day.
Relentless onslaught of practice worksheets.
All math and reading all the time.
De Soto, Degas, de Gaulle. Social studies? Forget it.
Every child let down.

Teaching to the test is all that counts.
Education under siege by misguided bureaucrats.
Science suffers: it's not on the test, why bother?
Too much time spent on all the wrong stuff.
So many children left behind.

Drip, Drip, Drip Goes the Fundraising

Now that the school year is nearly over, I can say once again that we have received more fundraising appeals from our daughter's school than just about any other correspondence.

I can't remember all of the requests, but here's a partial list: tickets for the fall carnival; sweatshirts, t-shirts, and other clothes with the school's insignia; PTA memberships; Ident-A-Kits (in case my kid is kidnapped); my child's art emblazoned on pillowcases, note cards, and mugs; books purchased in my child's name for the library; a donation to the spring auction; and the book fair.

On top of this, I'm clipping Box Tops for Education from cereal boxes and toilet paper wrapping, and I'm supposed to have my Kroger card scanned to match a bar code for the school.

Wait a minute. Doesn't my kid go to public school? I didn't think I was supposed to foot the bill.

But this is how it goes these days, with schools so strapped for cash. More and more we're asked as parents to empty our pockets and supply such basics as colored pencils, markers, hand sanitizer, and Kleenex. And we're all hit up equally, regardless of our ability to pay. Professional working couples are asked to buy the same $20 sweatshirt as the single parent of four. Extended families of 15 relatives are asked to support the same auction as the family of one.

Moreover, schools in wealthier communities can raise more money from their parents than those schools in poorer communities. This furthers the disparity that already exists throughout our district.

It's not right. There's got to be a better way to provide schools with the funds they need. If we continue to rely on PTAs and parents' checkbooks, and not insist on full government support, we will continue the status quo of under-funded, inequitable schools.

A Nation Off Balance

During the same week that Goldman Sachs announced its record-breaking 2010 first quarter earnings of $3.3 billion, The New York Times reported that school districts across the country were planning to lay off teachers: 22,000 in California; 7,000 in Illinois; and 600 in nearby Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district. Quoting Superintendent Peter C. Gorman, “We are doing things and considering options I never thought I had to consider.”

Interestingly enough, that same week brought the news that a military commission of retired officers concluded that our national security is at risk because we have too many fat people. Yes, you read that right. Twenty-seven percent of all Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are overweight. “This is the future of our Army we are looking at when we talk about [this age group],” Recruiting Command’s Mark Howell said. “The sad thing is a lot of them want to join but can’t.”

I also heard that same week a radio report about Senator Jim Webb’s commission on the state of our criminal justice system. Intrigued, I read more and learned, among other things, that though the United States comprises 5% of the world’s population, we house 25% of the world’s prisons. Moreover, four times as mentally ill people are in our prisons than in mental health hospitals.

What do these stories have in common? A nation off balance.

A nation where one company earns $3.3 billion in 3 months while schools are closing their doors cannot lead the world in education.

A nation whose citizens are too fat to serve cannot lead the world in national security.

A nation that imprisons 1 in every 31 adults cannot set the standard for criminal justice.

I’m reminded of a boat tilted into the water because too many people are standing on one side. It’s as if we’ve mindlessly accepted a state of affairs that’s now reached a tipping point, or perhaps has already passed it.

It takes more than the captain to correct the problem. We’re all in this together.

#22

Several years ago when a landscaper helped us lay out the large plant groupings in our front yard, she sketched a map of the plants and gave each one a number. It so happened that our daughter, in third grade that year, had the same number of students in her classroom. In her mind, plants #1 - #26 corresponded to each of her classmates. She was #22, a lovely and delicate mountain laurel.

That same year she came home one day from school and told us that her computer teacher, who identified the kids by number rather than by name, called on her in response to her hand raised in the air and said, with a degree of irritation, “What is it, #22?”

(As my uncle used to say, death isn’t the only great leveler. So are the public schools.)

Well, the story continues (as all stories do), and #22 grew up and this month turns 21. Her path, like her corresponding mountain laurel, has taken some unexpected nosedives. Beset with a rare health condition that plagued her on and off during childhood, she nonetheless managed to thrive in sometimes harsh conditions.

Her mountain laurel, though, didn’t make it through a drought one year. We replaced it with the Daphne pictured above, the new #22. Though not botanically related to the mountain laurel, Daphne means “laurel” and, as such, remains connected to the original plant.

The Daphne, it turns out, suits our daughter better. It’s a hardier plant and takes good care of itself. And it blooms in the late winter when not much else is happening in the yard and brings joy at just the right time.

We still joke now and then about that thoughtless computer teacher. When our daughter has a question, we sometimes say, “What is it, #22?” But the truth is, #22 wasn’t brought down; she wasn’t leveled by the public schools, by her health, or by the other trials that come with life.

Like her sturdy Daphne, she’s ready to bloom—even in the winter.

Earth Day Catastrophe

That the oil spill—threatening to become another environmental disaster—began just in time for Earth Day seems like a cruel joke. Earth Day, it would appear, has become unmasked. And it’s high time. Thinking that we can set aside one day each year to love Mother Earth and celebrate the fact that some of us recycle simply doesn’t cut it.

I’ve wondered for some time if we have the collective will to change our ways. When it comes to environmental awareness, we are light years behind Europe. Ireland prohibits plastic bags, I learned when we traveled there three years ago. You had to bring your own bags for shopping, and the only plastic bags I saw were biodegradable. These are impossible to buy locally at a reasonable price.

In Greece, where my daughter is studying this spring, hot water isn’t an open tap. In her apartment she and her roommates need to plan ahead; they turn a switch to heat the water and turn it off when they’re done. Ditto the electric stove. Lights turn off automatically after a certain amount of time.

Germany has windmills everywhere. My mother’s friends who live in a small village have solar panels on their roof, and their energy use data is collected regularly and transmitted to a central monitoring agency. Friends of friends who spent a semester in Germany were charged for the amount of trash they produced. Thanks to a host of incentives, they managed to reduce, recycle, reuse, and compost, and at the end of their stay they collected just one bag of trash.

Imagine accomplishing this in our country—with all the packaging that attends nearly every purchase.

Until Earth Day becomes ingrained in our lives, we are destined to trot out our globes and garlands each April and hope for the best. This isn’t good enough. As long as we consume 21% of the world’s energy and constitute less than 5% of the world’s population, we will continue to wreak the havoc that only gluttons can produce.

And watch an unimaginably large oil slick grease its way through our off-shore waters and fragile coastline.