So He Goes, Not Quietly

The America Vonnegut loved -- the one he came home from World War II to look for -- was an optimistic place, he said. When you asked its citizens what class they belonged to, "practically everybody said 'middle,' and there was always a job you could get that was enough to live on." There was "a great system of free public schools."

Now we've got "a government run entirely by people who are beholden to rich people or who are themselves rich." And they have "carte blanche, apparently, to do whatever they want. . . . These people are decisive. Women go for them, because the other guys they know are all so wishy-washy."

A rasping laugh.

"Bap, bap, we do this, we do that. And they don't care what happens next."

He went on in this vein for quite a while. You worried a bit that he would keep going until your time was up.

He didn't. A minute later, he was talking about his Uncle Alex, who'd found it upsetting that human beings "so seldom noticed when they were really happy. Whenever something really nice was going on, he'd stop and say: 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.' "

Vonnegut took to including this advice in graduation addresses: "Please notice when you're happy!"

And what kind of things made him happy?

"A pretty girl. A street musician. A friend who gets off a perfectly wonderful joke." Then: "I'm happy you're here."

You tried to keep it that way.

You told him your teenage daughter had just read "Cat's Cradle," his favorite of his books, and loved it. This backfired.

"I wish grown-ups would read me," Vonnegut said.