Breaking The Code To The Catcher In The Rye discussion

Old Selma Thurmer,
Page 3
"There were never many girls at all at the football games. Only seniors were allowed to bring girls with them. It was a terrible school, .....Old Selma Thurmer--she was the headmaster's daughter--..... She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. What I liked about her, she didn't give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. She probably knew what a phony slob he was."


Pencey Prep is an all boys school. Girls are not allowed except if a senior brings one to the game.

However the head master daughter Selma Thurmer sometimes showed up at the game.

The word "phoney" is mentioned in TCITR 33 times. I need to correct this it is actually 35 times. Snoop has it wrong.
I found this out here:
http://www.shmoop.com/catcher-in-the-...

I don't think this hurts my other connections but I just want to set that straight.
Now 33 immediately brings to mind a Master Mason. Thurmer was a head master.

So I looked up "Thurmer and masonic" and found this:

generally accepted that the rough ashlar refers to a rough hewn stone as brought from the quarries, which in olden times was cut one eighth to one sixteenth of an inch over the required finished measure. However, the meaning of the broached thurnel in the catechism is uncertain. It seems most likely to have been derived from the Scottish operative masons to whom broach meant to rough hew, or to groove or scarify. A broaching thurmal, >broaching thurmer or broaching turner was the chisel used to carry out broaching work. One form of the broaching thurmal is a narrow serrated chisel similar in many respects to the scutch, a cutting and dressing tool used by a bricklayer, probably is derived from the Old French escousser meaning to shake off. Thus the three immovable jewels referred to in the old catechisms of an apprentice logically symbolised the instructions he received for the work, represented by the trestle board; the tools he used to execute the work, represented by the broached thurmer; and his finished product, the rough ashlar. Another possible derivation of thurnel is as a variation of the French tournelle, which means a turret, because the word was in common use in England in various forms from about 1400 until at least the 1750s.

http://www.themasonictrowel.com/educa...


A Masonic trestle board is a design board for the Master Workman (Architect) to draw his plans and designs upon to give the workmen an outline of the work to be performed. In today's terms, we might call it a blueprint.

It is one of the 3 Movable jewels.
http://www.masonic-lodge-of-education...

Ashlar
In some Masonic groupings, which such societies term jurisdictions, ashlars are used as a symbolic metaphor for progress. As described in the explanation of the First Degree Tracing Board, in Emulation (and other) rituals the rough ashlar is a stone as taken directly from the quarry, and allegorically represents the Freemason prior to his initiation; a smooth ashlar (or "perfect ashlar") is a stone that has been smoothed and dressed by the experienced stonemason, and allegorically represents the Freemason who, through education and diligence, has learned the lessons of Freemasonry and who lives an upstanding life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashlar

This paragraph mentions the fictional place called Agerstown. If you have not read my post on that you should read that now and I think this oath will make more sense in relation to TCITR.

To me this kinda worked in well with the description of Selma, when he says that "She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. ".

I believe that this bra might also be known as a bullet bra.

So I looked up Selma and the most interesting link was this one, which is a masonic lodge named Selma.

http://ncmason.net/selma320/History.htm

"July 1876 - It was agreed that the lower rooms of the lodge building be used for school purposes for the year 1877. The lodge reserved the right to send children of Master Masons living within their jurisdiction to the school free if they were unable to pay tuition."

It is the name of a masonic lodge that founded a school in July 1888. This happens to be the same year that the fictional school Pencey Prep was founded.

This lodge was instrumental in laying the cornerstone on:

"November 1, 1923 – Brother H. T. Weldon represented Selma Lodge No. 320 at the laying of the cornerstone at the Washington Memorial in Alexandria, VA."

If we go to wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandr...

We find this:
Like the rest of Northern Virginia, as well as central Maryland, modern Alexandria has been shaped by its proximity to the nation's capital. It is largely populated by professionals working in the federal civil service, in the U.S. military, or for one of the many private companies which contract to provide services to the federal government. One of Alexandria's largest employers is the U.S. Department of Defense. Others include the Institute for Defense Analyses and the Center for Naval Analyses."

Holden says that he liked Selma Thurmer. I think it is because she knew what a phony her father was. I wonder if this also reflects back to that "crazy cannon" mentioned in the previous paragraph?

If we were to look up Our Founding FATHER we would see he was a mason:

"Such was Washington's character, that from almost the day he took his Masonic obligations until his death, he became the same man in private that he was in public. In Masonic terms, he remained "a just and upright Mason" and became a true Master Mason. Washington was, in Masonic terms, a “living stone” who became the cornerstone of American civilization. He remains the milestone others civilizations follow into liberty and equality. He is Freemasonry's “perfect ashlar” upon which countless Master Masons gauge their labors in their own Lodges and in their own communities."

http://www.gwmemorial.org/washingtonT...

Our American Revolution was fought because we wanted government with representation. We didn't have any voice in the British parliament, and they were taxing the colonies heavily. Well what does Washington do? He starts the Whisky Rebellion, which was taxation without representation. I love the book The Education of Little Tree where he describes what a hardship this was to people that only had a small plot of mountain land. They couldn't grow cotton. But they could grow a little corn and make it into moonshine, sale the whiskey and survive.
You would imagine that everybody in America was related to George Washington the way his lineage keep showing up in our presidents...as does the royal family in Britain. What is going on here? We are told in school that anybody can become president. And, we really believed it. It is part of the American dream.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/all-...

Basically everything that I have said above has been restated by Arthur And. Pierson a master mason. Also he uses the trestle boards to explain Masonic symbolism. Very interesting and beneficial to anyone that wants to understand The Catcher in the Rye


In this video this master mason explains that the chisel is "education".


https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=ShKqg...

Also this is video taped in the Alexandria Washington Lodge No. 22
This is the lodge the Selma lodge erected the cornerstone for.

It is also interesting the symbolism for the swords for fencing were lost on the subway, in the next paragraph in the Catcher is touched upon in this video as well.