Thursday, January 28, 2010   J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)  If I
weren't in a rush to post this, I might have taken more time to
try to find a better photo of J.D. Salinger, but somehow this
seemed appropriate with the author's obsession with privacy and
life as a recluse. His output was relatively small for a
legendary writer such as he was, but those novels and short
stories were so monumental, so influential for so many
generations of readers, that his reputation was sealed long
before his death Wednesday at 91.  Salinger's best-known
creation was Holden Caulfield, his protagonist from his 1951
debut novel The Catcher in the Rye, a rite of passage for
adolescents of many generations and a book that still generates
controversy, which always seems puzzling to anyone who has read
it. I actually didn't read it until college, under unusual
circumstances. I'd driven to Dallas to visit a friend for spring
break only his mother had summoned him home without him having
the chance to tell me, so I let myself in with a k