Logically, this shouldn’t be bringing me down as much as it does. The only one of Vonnegut’s books I have read is Slaughterhouse-Five - I did read Harrison Bergeron in the 8th grade, but I didn’t know it was the same author.
But when I read Slaughterhouse-Five, I was very impressed. I felt like I was reading the work of someone with an amazing combination of imagination and insight. I doubt a factual recounting of the firebombing of Dresden could have had more impact.
I went to the same high school that Vonnegut did–Shortridge High School at 34th and Meridian Streets on Indianapolis’ northside. Our nickname was the Blue Devils but some of the athletic teams had “Satans” written in a deep blue cursive on the uniforms. You don’t see that much these days.
I lived almost equidistant from two of the elementary schools (they were kindergarten through eighth grade at that time) that fed into Shortridge. At the flip of a coin (I like to imagine it as such but the reality was probably less dramatic) it was decided I would attend DeWitt Morgan School No. 86–a little brick school house 7 blocks north of my house.
Vonnegut attended James Whitcomb Riley School No. 43, which was about 9 blocks to my south. It figures he would go to the one named for a great Hoosier writer. I have no idea who Dewitt Morgan was.
James Whitcomb Riley School No. 43 was just two blocks from Booth Tarkington Park. Kurt Vonnegut grew up surrounded by famed writers’ names! Is there any way he could *not *have become a great writer himself?
There is one way. He might have burnt to death during the firebombing of Dresden.
During my years in high school the Indianapolis Public Schools board decided they needed to drastically reduce their expenditures because the school system was flooded in enough red ink to fill the swimming pool at Shortridge High (except we didn’t have a swimming pool. As far as I know, none of the schools in Indianapolis at that time had a pool.)
The school board wrung their metaphorical hands and decided they would close two high schools. They appointed a Blue-Ribbon panel to recommend which schools to close. No one wanted their school closed, of course. There were tears, marches, speeches, letter-writing campaigns, and buttons pinned to shirts. The one we all wore read: “SHORTRIDGE IS INDIANAPOLIS”. I don’t think I would wear a button like that today because it doesn’t make any sense. But back then it was my badge.
Be true to your school!
Shortridge had somewhat of a storied history in Indianapolis which I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that even though we were a little nervous, none of us really thought they would close it.
The Blue-Ribbon panel finished their research and made their presentation to the board. Shortridge was among the last of the schools the panel recommended to be closed! We were overjoyed!
The school board took this information and considered it carefully. They knew that the decision was a weighty one and that many people’s lives would be drastically changed by their decision. That’s why they paid thousands of dollars for a Blue-Ribbon panel. Very smart!
So, the board decided to close Shortridge as well as one other school.
Sadness ensued. More petitions, more letter writing, more protests, and some more teary school board meetings commenced. Kurt Vonnegut must have followed what was going on with his alma mater. He ended up in communication with my sister, who was a student leader at school.
I will never forget stopping at a phone booth a couple blocks from Shortridge one rainy morning on our way to school. My sister needed to make a call to Vonnegut! I can’t remember what they talked about or why she couldn’t have called him from home.
I’ve heard Mr. Vonnegut speak a few times. Those evenings, along with every book and essay of his I’ve read are among the highlights of my life. I always wanted to go out to New York and have a coffee with him. Being aware of the legions of admirers who would also like to rub shoulders with him, I couldn’t bring myself to contribute to his mounds of postal detritus by sending a letter.
Using a wiser and kindly cynical mind Vonnegut took the shocking raw tragedy of humanity’s willful self-loathing and converted it to thought-provoking and sometimes humorous, sometimes dark (often both together) words we could put in our heads. He allowed us to steep in life’s necessary pessimism without being drowned in the oceans of soul-crushing bilge.
My captain. Artfully–miraculously-- keeping a wildly pitching boat above the waves.
You can stop writing now, Kurt. You did all you could. It’s our turn on Watch.
I Love Me, that was lovely. I am weeping here, seriously, and everybody at work thinks I’m batshittier than usual, and they’re probably right, but … that was lovely. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the link. I was thinking this might make a good bedtime story for the ten year old tonight, but I was going to have a devil of a time finding it in my boxed-up books.
I was one of those college kids in the early 70’s that read Vonnegut and loved him. I’m sorry to see him go.
I think it was in 1985 that I had the pleasure of having dinner with Kurt’s brother Richard in Indianapolis. Richard was a gentleman in every respect. Didn’t know me from a sack of salt, but treated me beautifully.
The accounts I’ve heard peg Kurt as every bit as nice as his brother.
RIP
Kurt’s only brother was Bernard Vonnegut. He discovered cloud seeding.
Oh no, this sucks.
Eerily enough, on the very day of his death, some random lady in the locker room finished a conversation with a friend about some acquaintance who’d died. She turned to me and said, “It seems like there’s so much death lately,” and I replied, “‘So it goes.’”
Of course she had no clue what I meant, but she went with the sentiment.
I’ll imagine him in a Tralfamadorian zoo, and drink a toast to him tonight.
etc.
Sad news, didn’t get to read Slaughterhouse 5 yet, but I loved The Sirens of Titan.
When I read how he passed, my first thoughts were “it wasn’t the cigarettes that got him then…”
::silence::
I love the graphic on http://www.vonnegut.com today. (It’s technically Kurt’s official website, but it’s actually a website he licensed to sell lithographs and original artwork.)
This fellow here at the bottom of the page (Richard Vonnegut '32) is the man I had dinner with 22 years ago. He called himself Kurt’s brother. Even if he was jerking my chain, he was a wonderful gentleman!
He said in recent years he planned to sue tobacco companies for breach of promise, because the warning label had said they were fatal for almost 40 years but he’d never died from them. (He did at least get to set his townhouse on fire with one a few years ago.)
John Irving’s told a funny story of how he “saved” Kurt (his mentor and, in Irving’s own words, “father of choice”) from choking to death in a restaurant a few years ago. Irving’s about 5’7, Vonnegut was about 6’5, so the Heimlich was difficult, especially with Kurt spasming and trying to scream, so Irving straddled him on the floor til Kurt was able to gasp out “Stop! I’m not choking! I have emphysema!”
If Ellison goes this year, I won’t know what to think. He and Vonnegut were the two writers who molded my irascibility, curiosity and cynicism. I’m a bit more upset right now than I have any reason to be.
I’m going to wake up tomorrow with the image of a small man, his fingers wrapped in twine, saying to me, “See the cat? See the cradle?”
I thought I’d finally rid myself of that.
I wish I could find the exact quote- it’s in one of his essays- but the most influential thing he ever wrote for my purposes was something to the effect of “I was in my 30s before I realized you could say something meaningful without having to sound like an English aristocrat who died a century ago.” He was at first bothered by critics who trashed his work (they totally ignored his magazine stories of course) but later developed a “fuck 'em” attitude that was great. When Gore Vidal slammed one of his books and called him the worst thing to happen to English language literature in recorded history Vonnegut simply replied “I think Gore wants way too much credit for wearing a suit”.
I’m glad he wasn’t like a Lovecraft or a Poe who influences writers from beyond but dies in penury. By his own admission he made a fortune and he knew how popular he was and made peace with it and (unlike Vidal or Vonnegut’s friend/neighbor Capote) was always self-deprecating. I read one of his lectures given to a group of mental health professionals in which he referenced his son Mark’s mental health classic The Eden Express (if you haven’t read it, it’s a memoir of Mark’s psychotic episode in '69/'70- Mark is now a pediatrician) and he remarked “My son’s who you should really have gotten, and he’s a whole lot cheaper than I am. That’s what he gets for being a better writer.” He said of the firebombing of Dresden “If it had a purpose it was to make me rich; I figure by now I’ve earned about ten dollars per body from that firebombing.” He also declined one of the greatest honors any writer could receive: the opportunity to break a set of racked balls on Twain’s pool table- upon receiving the Mark Twain Award for humor writing- as he didn’t feel he was worthy. (I know I’m not worthy of that honor but I’d have broken the rack and slipped the cue ball into my pocket if I could get away with it.)
Aaah… how can you mourn an 84 year old chain smoker you never met so much? Well, at least I have good company in doing so.
I don’t known when he had his accident but I’d like to think he gave his Easter speech (about Jesus and his “joke” about the poor) one last time. At least I hope they replayed it. It almost made me a Christian…although of course he was a Bokononist.
“Fool! Don’t you know everybody on this [message board] is a Bokononist!” 
Speaking of, I don’t have my copy of Cat’s Cradle handy (I’m at work). Does anybody have Bokonon’s final poem from that book handy? I remember it involves looking at the sky and laughing.
Update: found it, never mind.
I actually keep a quote of his in my wallet, from a pamphlet he wrote back in the '80’s called “How To Write With Style” (you can find it in Palm Sunday and online at various places): “I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have?”
Except for that one time, when we hokey-pokeyed, I never met the guy, but he has had such an impact on me.
In my earlier post I related a bunch of drivel about Vonnegut and the Indianapolis high school we had in common. Obviously I wrote it in a style intended to suggest Vonnegut’s writing. Why toss up such lame mimicry on an occasion such as this?
Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Regardless of how horrible the imitation is, it’s still sincere.
PS-rockle, thank you for the kind words.