Goodnight Mr Vonnegut

It has been many years. Like hearing a long lost friend has passed I read Vonneguts obit in the New York Times tonight. Like a long lost friend I will only have memories now. There will be no grand meeting in the future, no catching up. I first read 'Slaughter House Five' at the age of fourteen. Billy Pilgrim, like so many of Vonneguts characters after, became my Holden Caufield. My world view, the bizarre daily rituals of high school, the inequities of social caste, of economics, physical developement, emotional maturation, hormonal caucophony, finally found a chronicler. A journalist of the odd life, of the absurd life. the life of a human being, Vonnegut helped me to see that I was not alone. I saw the origin of my anger, the disatisfication with the status quo, the simple frustration of being alive. Above it all he proffessed the simple mantra of being decent to one another 'Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.' He had seen more tragedy than most could bear. He battled depression, alcoholism, smoked like a chimney, and chronic problems with relationships. He wrote. He wrote about being a human. Jeered by some, marginalized by critics at times, banned in schools, and forgotten about from decade to decade, he continued to write and be human. For that I am grateful. He is dead. So it goes.