Vonnegut's House

Not too long ago a story popped up on my Facebook newsfeed which noted that Kurt Vonnegut's boyhood home in Indianapolis was up for sale.  It struck me as odd that the city had not purchased it and made it into a national monument of some sort or a tourable pilgrimage site for us Hoosier ex-pats.

I then began fantasizing about buying it and sharing the space previously occupied by this man I hold in such high regard.  Maybe I would brush past his ghostly form on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, tendrils of smoke lifting from his transparent cigarette.  Possession would not be an altogether unpleasant experience if my writing improved, though the nicotine cravings would likely be insufferable.

So the logistics of such a thing... I don't make enough money to purchase such a house.  This is something that could probably be remedied by a boost in ambition and time spent working.  It would also likely include my wife working as well.  But then I read this today from his collection of essays "Wampeters, Foma, & Grandfalloons (OPINIONS)" while sitting in the Columbus airport:

There is an almost intolerable sentimentality beneath everything I write.  British critics complain about it.  And Robert Scholes, the American critic, once said I put bitter coatings on sugar pills.
It's too late to change now.  At least I am aware of my origins---in a big, brick dreamhouse designed by my architect father, where nobody was home for long periods of time, except for me and Ida Young.

Just prior to that he writes about this black woman, Ida Young, who was the cook for his family and whom he spent most of his growing up years with.  He describes her thus:

Her name was Ida Young, and I probably spent more time with her than I spent with anybody---until I got married, of course.  She knew the Bible by heart, and she found plenty of comfort and wisdom in there.  She knew a lot of American history too---things she and other black people had seen and marveled at, and remembered and still talked about, in Indiana and Illinois and Ohio---and Kentucky and Tennessee.  She would read to me, too, from an anthology of sentimental poetry about love which would not die, about faithful dogs and humble cottages where happiness was, about people growing old, about visits to cemeteries, about babies who died.  I remember the name of the book, and I wish I had a copy, since it has so much to do with what I am.

My fantasy was dismantled by this telling excerpt describing his life in a practically parentless house.  I am incredibly lucky, dare I say 'blessed', that I can be home every day by dinner time and find my family there---my wife, son, daughter, dog, and fish.  Not to mention the squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and a nesting robin that live in our backyard.  As far as fantasies go, this is pretty darn fantastic.  And as a kind of consolation prize, we live in the house where central-Ohio-celebrity Flippo the Clown lived for forty years and built our lovely gazebo which he called his "gazooby."  God bless you, Flippo the Clown.  And God bless you, Kurt Vonnegut.