I wonder

how much someone would pay for any of my old love

letters? If you haven't heard, a techno-tycoon from Intel

paid $157,000.00 for some old love letters from hermit

author J.D. Salinger to a former girlfriend some 27 years

ago. She reportedly sold the letters to pay for her kids'

colleges. To kill what could have been a great story, the

Intel guy is just going to return them to the JayDee Man

(as he likes me to call him).

The scenario makes for a

pretty crazy story. It was 1972 and J.D. Salinger was 53.

After reading a story written by the girl in question, an

18-year-old Joyce Maynard, he started writing her love

letters. She quit college and they moved in together for

a short period of time, but love didn't last.

I have admired a people

from afar during my single life and even wrote a few

letters of contact. I once was at a large flea market

when I lived in Macon and saw a very cute, blond-headed

girl selling knickknacks off the back of a pickup truck.

I wrote her a note and took it back but she was gone. So

I left it fixed to the mirror on the truck. A few days

later I got a phone call. To her credit, I am pretty sure

I wrote something witty enough that few women could have

resisted calling. She told me her name, Sara.

So, we talked on the phone

a few times and she sounded as delightful as she had

looked. After about a week of talking, and I'm sure, lots

more wit, we decide to go out. I go to her house to pick

her up. A close-to-middle-age lady comes to the door and

I say, "Is Sara here?" She answers, "I'm

Sara."

This was odd. Come to find

out, the letter I left for a much younger, blonder girl

had been found by her older sister. Ten years older than

me even. I would have paid money right then to have that

letter back.

Another time, still in

Macon, (these were my lonely, depression years, circa

1983) I was washing clothes at a laundromat. These were

the Lycra-Spandex days and there was a lady there wearing

shorts and a tight Spandex top. It had a big star right

in the middle. I was down to my last bit of clothes and

was wearing some striped running shorts and a

three-button cardigan sweater with no shirt under it. I

was leaving and noticed that this very cute, athletic

girl had slipped out, leaving her laundry basket all

free, just begging for me to leave a note.

I went back to my car and

scribbled a note that started, "Dear Star..."

The middle section I do not recall but I am sure it was

something witty. Then I closed with my phone number and

signed it, "Stripes."

I am a late night person

and not much of a morning glory, and this is integral to

the rest of this story. A few days later my phone rings

at about 6 a.m. Easily hours before I normally rise, I

pick up the phone grumpily and say things that were not

all too witty. I hear a timid voice on the other end say,

"Is Spike there?"

I basically yell at her,

"NO! and please don't call again." I fall

directly back into my pillow in hopes of dreaming about

the cute laundromat lass. Then I raise my head and

realize. She was asking for "Stripes," not

Spike. "Stripes!"

Did she call back? Only a

future discovery of Billy Murphy love letters will tell.

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