Happy Birthday, Franny Glass! Thanks For The Memories

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New Yorker
(1955)

In, 1955 a short story by  J. D. Salinger
appeared in the New Yorker Magazine.

It had a one-word title that sounded like
Granny but soooo much younger
and sweeter.

Franny  never went anywhere without
her favorite book.

She even took it into the bathroom
and the allegedly intelligent date
from Yale was totally blind
when Franny had a
nervous breakdown.

It was the weekend of
the Yale-Harvard game.

How dare a girl try to distract
a Yalie from the most important football game of the Ivy League season.


CATCHER IN THE RYE,  Salinger's first published novel, had been published
four years earlier–in 1951–and it would change my life in too many ways to count.

In 1955, I was in love with  Dale Evans,  who only existed on a TV series and in my heart.

But I matured seriously in the next seven years and then had two loves:
Diana Ross and  Cher.  One of them was the supreme voice of the Supremes
while the other was attached to a thing called Sonny.

By then I had read CATCHER IN THE RYE five times and hated everything
that was "phony," which meant–more than anyone or anything else–I hated myself.

But I also read Salinger's

Where did Franny get her name?

2nd novel which had already been
published–in two parts–
in the New Yorker.

It was goodbye to Diana and Cher.

I formed a very exclusive fan club for Franny Glass.

No one but myself could be a member.

As for real girls or women, having affection
for any of them was something I let my friends do.

Real girls required such oddities as conversation
and caring and buying them dinner in order to
get them to unbutton their blouses.

I only believed in real love.

Paul Loves Franny Glass!

Franny was the youngest of seven supremely gifted siblings,
the offspring of vaudevillians Les and Bessie Glass.

One more precocious than the next but only one of them had a nervous breakdown.

In my dreams, I became Franny's doctor who prescribed
nothing more than some high quality hashish.

The more we smoked, the happier she got.

The more we smoked, the more naked we got.

If it wasn't for my dreams, I would have been a virgin on my 30th birthday.

Meanwhile, the next New Yorker page is  here
and the next Salinger/GoFather page is  there.         
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