"Later, when we knew each other better, and Jerry felt comfortable enough to be himself around us, I got to see what a sweet, swell guy he was. We played golf on the nine-hole course in Windsor, Vermont, and he wouldn’t let us keep score. He played with bamboo clubs and cursed like a sailor when he hit a bad shot, which was often, though not as often as we did (we were secretly keeping score, so we knew). A few years later, I spent a wonderful afternoon with him going around San Francisco’s Chinatown, looking at exotic mushrooms, roots, and herbs. Jerry had an encyclopedic knowledge of mushrooms, and often travelled under the alias Mr. Boletus, which was one of his favorite varieties.
But, on the occasion of our first meeting, everyone was wary; we quickly left him in the kitchen and hustled into the main part of the house, while Jerry (as we awkwardly called him) saw to the popcorn. The living room had a dorm-room air about it. We sat down on the uncomfortable, worn furniture and tried to think of something to say to each other. I listened to the popcorn—the first heraldic explosions of the kernels, followed by the dramatic crescendo, and then the dying fall—thinking, J. D. Salinger is in the kitchen making popcorn. "
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/02/08/100208ta_talk_seabrook#ixzz0eFJXvFKY
