Glad to hear from people through different channels how much they liked the story + existence of the red hat. Following up, thought you'd enjoy seeing it, at right. My dad took my post as a challenge and apparently found the hat in the family house within two minutes. Like father, like son.

And my mom e-mailed detail on the hat's origin. She bought the hat for a sorority rush party where you dressed as your favorite lit character. Continuing her streak of confronting the status quo with Catcher, after previously earning a high school nun's ire for listing the book one fall among her summer reading, she was the only one dressed as Holden.

A few other Salinger-related things I liked running across last week:

-Jody Rosen's favorite Salinger passage, about marbles at dusk.

One late afternoon, at that faintly soupy quarter of an hour in New York when the street lights have just been turned on and the parking lights of cars are just getting turned on—some on, some still off—I was playing curb marbles with a boy named Ira Yankauer, on the farther side of the side street just opposite the canvas canopy of our apartment house. I was eight. I was using Seymour's technique, or trying to—his side flick, his way of widely curving his marble at the other guy's—and I was losing steadily. Steadily but painlessly. For it was the time of day when New York City boys are much like Tiffin, Ohio, boys who hear a distant train whistle just as the last cow is being driven into the barn. At that magic quarter hour, if you lose marbles, you lose just marbles.

-The Onion's pitch-perfect "Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger."

-The Rutland Herald, Salinger's local paper, writing about how everyone liked misdirecting people hunting him. Touching stories, too, from all over town. (This story is better than the NYT's follow-up version.)

-The Impossible Cool, just quoting: "An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s."

-Joyce Maynard's "An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life," especially after Lindsay reminded me Maynard was her friend Joyce from Guateamala. Wildly precocious power, for her generation but also those to come.

-Among the great number of Salinger status updates and tweets last week, I don't know if I can name a favorite. But it's hard to remember deaths in recent years beyond Salinger's and Michael Jackson's that inspired such broad art-based response. Gawker compiles some.

-And Henry Allen's lede, earning him rights to punch a few more folks.

At the end, with J.D. Salinger dead at 91, we have no memories of him.

That is to say, we have no cranky anecdotes about thrown drinks, no second cousins who once stood next to him at a roulette table, no paparazzi pictures of him with his long face and solemn eyes staring with predatory kindness at some starlet in Malibu (careful not to look at her breasts, of course).

He was a sort of saint to his upscale readers, a foe of the cruel and the vulgar, a practitioner of Zen Buddhism, it was said, a man who in his writing found his masculinity in sensitivity and self-deprecation.

Yet another snowstorm lolls about the region tonight. I'm in search of peace. Not desperately searching, but seeking peace more than sleep.

A win from late tonight has been finding the Poetry Foundation "Poem of the Day" RSS feed because there's one about snow. "The Snow Is Deep on the Ground" comes from Kenneth Patchen in 1943. I know of him only what I've read tonight, but he sounds like a different kind of poet. Elsewhere on the site, a quote recalls a book of Patchen's poetry "printed with wild typography. Many of the pages had really big words and letters — perhaps there were pages written in all caps?"

Elsewhere on the Web, a quote of Patchen's talks about his painted poems. "It happens that very often my writing with pen is interrupted by my writing with brush, but I think of both as writing. In other words, I don’t consider myself a painter. I think of myself as someone who has used the medium of painting in an attempt to extend."

And his friend Henry Miller says of those artworks, "One is no longer looking at a dead, printed book but at something alive and breathing, something which looks back at you with equal astonishment."

I get the feeling Patchen wouldn't mind if I copied him into a blog.

The Snow Is Deep on the Ground

BY KENNETH PATCHEN

The snow is deep on the ground.
Always the light falls
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

This is a good world.
The war has failed.
God shall not forget us.
Who made the snow waits where love is.

Only a few go mad.
The sky moves in its whiteness
Like the withered hand of an old king.
God shall not forget us.
Who made the sky knows of our love.

The snow is beautiful on the ground.
And always the lights of heaven glow
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

Neil has been Donald’s only friend in the world ever since his sister, Anne, passed two years ago. When Donald—who is severely mentally handicapped— was evicted in October we didn’t know where he would end up. The landlords had wanted him out for quite some time as he was paying something like $11 to rent a place that would now command $2K. He was also using it to store trash, bottles, and cans. It was a problem. Still, he’d been there for thirty-odd years and it was his spot. Now it isn’t.

One of my favorite blog strings from January — friend-of-friends Molly writing about her friend (friend-of-friend-of-friends to me) Neil writing about his former neighbor. The posts are about particular people and situations, but if you've never considered the difficulties for older folks with intellectual disabilities, dealing with life after parents, do read.

A week after that, I got a collect call from Donald. Figuring I could just call him back at Bellevue, I declined the charges and called his ward. The nurse on duty told me he had indeed been discharged that afternoon. I asked where he was. She said she didn't know.

As shot by Dr. Hoops and Fb-posted by Laura, various members of the Gannet philanthropy team with Dikembe Mutombo at the sports forum.

I noted the day last week, but more links: USA TODAY Kindness leader Christie Garton writing on the panel of Mutombo, Bob Lanier and Pat LaFontaine and Page 3.0 chief Mike Bambach with a take on the same. Word is videos of the athlete, cause and league panels are coming.

A few others:
-USA Weekend remembers Mutombo as Most Caring Athlete
-One attendee "moved and inspired" by the athlete panel
-Brian Reich, leader of the cause panel, talks sport as faith
-News of a Nike initiative out of networking at the Forum

Surfacing in my feed last week from a colleague, the Facebook group is called "I worked at USA TODAY when USA TODAY was still cool!" Right. You want to guess my reaction? When USA TODAY was still cool? My disagreement burns with the fuel of a thousand angry Neuharths.

The group's description (above shot from its pix) is what you'd think:

We worked at USAT in the 90s, when the paper was doing great and we had a blast! Remember the massive Christmas parties with the shrimp the size of your hands? Remember summer Detours in the 17th floor conference room? Remember Thursday night happy hours and Friday morning hangovers? Let's share those happy times…

Ah, the parties and the shrimp. When I arrived at USAT six-plus years ago, practically all I heard about org-wise during my opening months was the Rosslyn parties and the shrimp. And the chocolate fountains, strawberries and karaoke. And you know what? I didn't give a crap.

Don't get me wrong, friend. I love parties, shrimp, chocolate fountains, strawberries, and karaoke as long as other people are singing. But I didn't come to a world-beater news brand for some bullshit afterglow feel-good festival of reminiscing. I came there to get some work done.

And that's what we do, my colleagues and I, every damn day of the week. We don't run away, give in or rest on laurels and fat shrimp.

We believe in doing great beyond a medium. We believe in buying our own shrimp. We believe in going to conference rooms to throw down and develop the future. We still believe in drinking on work nights and fighting hangovers, except we do it 24/7. We have happy times, but we share hard times now to secure happiness for those who follow.

I worked at USA TODAY when USA TODAY was still cool? I'm in.

But he could not sleep. He lay awake longer and longer each night, and his sleep was less restful. He woke too often in the night. Whether he was waking up to think more about the game or to escape from his dreams, he wasn't sure. It was as if someone rode in his sleep, forcing him to wander through his worst memories, to live in them again as if they were real. Nights were so real that days began to seem dreamlike to him. He began to worry that he would not think clearly enough, that he would be too tired when he played. Always when the game began, the intensity of it awoke him, but if his mental abilities began to slip, he wondered, would he notice it?

One of a word I recognized and one I'd never heard before.

1. Zaftig.

As in, "Kate, who is zaftig and often fretful, noticed that a group of models were still in their underwear." Defined, italics are Merriam-Webster's: "of a woman : having a full rounded figure : pleasingly plump." From the Yiddish "zaftik," meaning "juicy, succulent."

2. Tegument.

As in, "Sunlight streams through the big picture window, though it’s cold, down to zero overnight, and the lake is sealed beneath a hard uneven tegument of ice so thick you could drive a truck across it." And defined, via "integument," also in your M-W: "an enveloping layer (as a skin, membrane, or husk) of an organism or one of its parts."

The best part of these definitions? This blog post is a metaphor for nothing. When a snowstorm hits, good words are just good words.

Update: Wrote Sunday, posted Monday. Metaphor arrived in meantime.

Update #2, a few hours later: What the hell, I got nothing. Tank is empty. Tuning back into Philly 104.5 and turning it wayyy up.

Somewhere between shower and cereal, I started one day last week alternating cuts from Freewheelin' Bob Dylan — the angry cuts, Masters of War, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Bob Dylan's Dream — with the Alicia Keys + Beyonce's Put It in a Love Song. The latter played better in my car both commutes the day prior, but turning up the speakers helped. The goal was to get fired up, which is equal parts fire and progress.

Same holds for Jay-Z's On to the Next One and sleeping on the couch.

I've been wearing ties to work and sleeping on my couch every night of 2010. Life is unresolved in a number of ways, and I have to tip the outcome. Satisfaction, by reasoned accounts, isn't coming otherwise.

The ties are a reminder. I don't like wearing ties every day and don't have that many. But the way your or my ancestor might tie a string around a finger to keep something in mind, I'm tying a big fancy string around my neck every day to keep fighting, keep cool, keep pushing.

The couch, like the music, is propulsion. You can sleep on a blue couch a few nights, no problem, but every night you sleep on the couch, you like it less. You can fall asleep just fine. But when you wake, the couch tells you to get up. You can't just lie there. You know this after the first nights. You wake up, and you are up. You're the only one in the space, and you're going to the only one all day. So, get up and get it done.

On to the next one, on to the next one, on to the next one…

This is what I get for reading about abandoned subways before bed. My Metro train wouldn't stop. No one else seemed to notice, so first I tried to get a wireless signal and stop the train that way. But nothing connected. I walked to the front of the car, found the driver's room open and pressed the red stop button. No luck. I moved to the front of the next car and tried the same. No luck. Finally I reached the front of the train and hit the stop button as the train ran out of track. It slowed just enough to fly through a door, across a pretty empty waiting room, car after car after car, into my empty grade-school cafeteria, down a flight of stairs, with cars pinballing around the room, at last stopping.

I got off the train expecting chaos, but all the passengers seemed to melt away. An investigator stopped by to look at the train, but no one else did. I stood around waiting for someone to talk to me, but no one did. Soon enough an old-fashioned train flew down the stairs and into the cafeteria, same way my subway train had, and all my train cars seemed to disappear and nobody seemed to mind that either. Dwight Schrute may have been driving that train. Alone in the cafeteria once again, I got bored and went looking for an investigator. Found one, but he said to hang on and that someone would talk to me later. He said he'd seen my ties on the Internet and asked why they hadn't worked. I said I couldn't get connected, and that satisfied him.

I went to my newsroom, apparently on another floor of the building. I nearly fell over a ledge where I thought stairs were, but I jumped back and someone said the stairs were on the other side. Went down them, but then found a low wall and row of desks blocking entry. Tried to go under the desk fence one way, couldn't fit, had to step over it another, beyond a few more desks and plants. The space I stepped into had something to do with opinion, and Jim Halpert worked there. He was surprised and amused to hear I'd been driving the subway train. But he didn't care too much. I went looking for someone who did, maybe a transit reporter or someone, and wondered why I hadn't tried to call the newsroom earlier. But I wasn't too bothered. Then I woke up.

What I need to do is move with a Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears in my pocket all the time. That's a possible resolution after Friday night.

I put the disc in my jacket pocket as Meghan handed it to me atop the Metro Center escalator, with her headed in the other direction and us going to see the band a month later. Met Mike and Mark in the pub for our old combination of storytelling, venting and conspiring. Mike had to go back to work, so Mark and I junked our plans for the car show and got dinner at Acadiana. Steen's cane syrup bourbon vinaigrette… the scallops and bacon pork loin were swimming, and I wanted a mainline.

Halfway through dinner, the bearded manager tapped me on the back — wait, the bearded manager was Dr. Love, he of the neighborhood, basketball and the Metro crew. He'd returned; I hadn't known, and we traded man hugs. Generously, he sent over desserts, and along with the waitress recommending a port, I walked with Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears in my pocket back to the train, frigid night, warm kid.