Talk about burying the lede... Toward the tail end of "A Recluse? Well, Not To His Neighbors" (aka "Cornish Journal") in today's New York Times is this weird little reported factoid:
Peter Burling, a Cornish resident and former state senator, grew up near Mr. Salinger’s home and remembers him as a friendly neighbor quick with a hello.
Years ago Mr. Burling built his young son a red, painted bus stop at the bottom of their hill. Web sites instructed those looking for Mr. Salinger’s house to turn at the stop. Mr. Burling later sold the bus stop to another resident, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German who passed himself off as a Rockefeller and was later convicted of custodial kidnapping. The curious would instead end up at Mr. Gerhartsreiter’s home, Mr. Burling said.
“People would turn into his driveway, demanding to meet J. D. Salinger,” Mr. Burling said.
Sometimes, Who Knew? is the only appropriate response...
Vanessa Grigoriadis was working on a story about the fake Rockefeller for Rolling Stone, and parlayed that into a visit to Salinger's porch:
ReplyDeletehttp://tiny.cc/9VwKz