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Kurt was quite a bit older than me but his family were long time fixtures in the Irvington part of Indianapolis. They owned a hardware chain ~ terrible service, but only place to go. I was introduced to him several times over my childhood and got to talk to him. And, best of all once he became a well known published author he became the talk of the area.

Schizophrenia ran in his line ~ as everyone knows, but not all the Vonneguts were schizophrenic. Kurt went to Shortridge (the smart guys' highschool in Indianapolis) but for a wide variety of reasons he and one of my uncles who attend Tech were buddies ~ even after the war and after Kurt became famous ~ probably through the artsy-fartsy crowd. Both had been ground combat types in Europe ~ my uncle was a ranger and Kurt was taken prisoner in the Battle of the Bulge. Had two uncles by marriage in that battle, and several cousins ~ one of them died there.

Accordingly, as the dutiful son, nephew and cousin of brave warriors I always kept a mental tally on who was who in terms of their relationship to warfare ~ Kurt as a writer was way up there in my teenage mind, and later, as i came to understand the costs of combat more, i could finally understand some of what he wrote about AND where his pacifist inclinations came from. No wonder he left the Midwest or the NYC crowd, but there you have it.

BTW, I grew up in an area that was in the cusp of both Irvington and Brightwood ~ rather poles apart when it came to intellectuals, engineers, movers and shakers and hard working railroadmen, and at times, criminals and cops. A cousin was actually John Dillinger's wife for a time ~ his father lived across the alley from my grandparents.