Log24

Continued from Day at the Museum, last Sunday, October 19, 2014.

This post was suggested by…

1.  A piece in the Bookends section of the New York Times
   Sunday Book Review  (page BR31 last Sunday, Oct. 19):
   Daniel Mendelsohn on rereading The Catcher in the Rye .
2. A detail in Day at the Museum— The New York Times ‘s
   appraisal of Joan Rivers: “A Comic Without a Shut-Off Switch.”
3. A Sept. 7 Log24 post, Sunday School, in memory of Joan Rivers.

From The Catcher in the Rye , a passage just before the
museum passage quoted by Mendelsohn:

“She was having a helluva time tightening her skate.
She didn’t have any gloves on or anything and her hands
were all red and cold. I gave her a hand with it. Boy, I
hadn’t had a skate key in my hand for years. It didn’t feel
funny, though. You could put a skate key in my hand
fifty years from now, in pitch dark, and I’d still know
what it is. She thanked me and all when I had it tightened
for her. She was a very nice, polite little kid. God, I love it
when a kid’s nice and polite when you tighten their skate
for them or something. Most kids are. They really are.
I asked her if she’d care to have a hot chocolate or something
with me, but she said no, thank you. She said she had to meet
her friend. Kids always have to meet their friend. That kills me.

Even though it was Sunday and Phoebe wouldn’t be there
with her class or anything, and even though it was so damp
and lousy out, I walked all the way through the park over to
the Museum of Natural History. I knew that was the museum
the kid with the skate key meant.”