Letters to J. D. Salinger

Introduction

Introduction Dear Reader, My love affair with the U.S. mail began in fourth grade shortly after I read my first comic book during recess. It wasn't a very exciting story. Completely forgetable, actually, but on the comic's inside back cover was a colorful series of advertisements through which a grade school lad with a few bucks could buy many wondrous, valuable, and sparkly things: pills that could make you strong-man-muscular in under three weeks, a spaceage coin-counting device, an ant farm made out of a mysterious highimpact polymer, and rare, uncanceled stamps from Mrica and the Middle East. I began sending away for anything and everything, using up a fair amount of my spare time. I decided at age eleven (because of the large volume of mail I was now generating) that I needed my own return address labels, which I ordered from an ad found in the coupon section of the Sunday Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin's local newspaper. I also bought a box of glue sticks to expedite the sealing of envelopes. Rarely did the items I ordered ever turn out to be just what I'd hoped they'd be. The coin-counting device, for example, was nothing more than a flat, black plastic tray with half-circle grooves molded into it, each groove with tiny, barely visible raised numbers running along its sides. And those X-ray glasses only allowed me a briefglimpse behind the many silly ads I'd been answering. But the thrill of creatively and rapidly composing correspondence ("Why yes, thanks for asking, I'd love to be one of the first to try a pack of your riotous, red pepper gum!"), waiting six to eight weeks and then, at last, opening the mailbox to find small, liberally taped packages from far-off places like Ohio was always worth it. Some days, and with increasing regularity, I'd get more mail than my mother. And on those dismal days when we got no mail at all, I'd plead with Mom to drive me down to the Post Office to see if there'd been some mistake, to see if there was some little lawn care equipment magazine or homeowner's insurance flier waiting for me. ... Xl In a junior high English class, I was taught how to write proper letters of praise and complaint. I used this skill to send away for free - but this time more useful- stuff. It seemed that whether I complained about a product or congratulated the hell out of it, companies, at least at that time, had more coupons than they knew what to do with lying around the office and were more than willing to send them to anyone who had a stamp and anything at all to say about their stuff. I got three free cases of Pepsi this way three months in a row - not to mention a bunch offree BASF-brand cassette tapes and enough mini-toothpastes to fill an entire bathroom drawer. As I began to grow weary of the limited number of pencils and paper stocks available at the one small drug store that was a bike ride from my house, I tried to come up with ways to make enough money to buy a ticket to somewhere - anywhere - that offered a bigger selection. During a visit to my great-grandmother, Chicago became a contender when I checked out the "Stationers" heading in her Yellow Pages. Truthfully, though, any city large enough to be printed on myoId globe would have suited me just fine. I thought maybe I could invent something to make some quick traveling cash; one idea I dreamed up was for a new kind of cigarette lighter made of glue, a spring, a tongue depressor, and a box of matches. I also drew up plans for a new board game tentatively called "The Dark Ages" which was kind of like chess but with a ten by ten board and two extra pieces called the Wizards who could move in all the same directions as the Queen but only three squares at a time. I tried to sell these ideas to a company I think was called Inventors International, Inc., another back-ofthe -comic book ad-placer. For $1,200 a pop they would have helped me come up with winning marketing plans and I would have made more than enough dough to finally get out of town, but my weekly allowance at...