I read The Catcher in the Rye when I was 14 and that was the perfect age to read that book.  For everyone I went to high school with, life was perfect!  No problems, no concerns.  My life on the other hand always felt like hell.  OK, I’m exaggerating, but a guy like Holden made me feel like there was someone else out there who felt as I did, that the teenage world was full of phonies and people I generally didn’t like.

I read the book when I was 25 or so and I couldn’t get over what a sniveling snot Holden was.

But now I’m a bit older and I see Holden for what a he is.  Just a confused young man who took a sojourn around New York for a few days.

Today I had 45 minutes in New York, unfettered.  Wasn’t meeting anyone, wasn’t in a hurry, just like Holden.  So I walked around and something hit me.  Holden would have been much better off with a camera in his hand.  Life through the camera lens is a good one, I think: