Milestones from Nap Town Natives and a "Shock Jock" Who Got his Just Deserts

Novelist, essayist, short story writer, playwright, lecturer, Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) was at his peak in the 1970s when this writer discovered him and became star-struck. His big book is generally agreed to be Slaughterhouse Five: The Children's Crusade, about an autobiographical hapless infantryman who is taken prisoner of war by the Germans in World War II. He, "Billy Pilgrim," is imprisoned in Dresden, and is in a subterranean meat locker when the US Army Air Force fire-bombs the city, causing more casualties than occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The enormity of this disaster was not widely known up to that time. Kurt was one of seven American POW's who survived that holocaust. The irony of that dripped from Slaughterhouse Five. It is a fantastic novel.

Kurt didn't lose his edge right up to the end. In an interview he said this:

"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities..."

Kurt was born in Nap Town and he was always charitable toward and affectionate of his hometown. Another Nap Towner was born there 60 years ago today -- David Letterman! I hope Dave appreciates being a SEXAGENARIAN. (What a lovely word! And truer than you know!)

Don Imus, NOT a Nap Town native (and I, as a not-so-closeted Hoosier chauvinist, am glad!), is unemployed. He deserves it. Bob Herbert in his column today recalled a 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace, who confronted Imus for saying that he kept his producer around to "make n----- jokes." Imus said he thought his conversation was off-the-record. "The hell it is!" Wallace came back.

Dick Cavett, of all people, defended Imus. He said that Don is a "real cowboy,"that he reads, and is one of few people who pronounces both c's in "arctic." God dog! Why, I bet he even doesn't say "nucular!" (Then why not be an English teacher?) I understand that he overcame an alcohol and cocaine problem, and that he has a ranch for disadvantaged kids.

He's a nice guy, right? He's just got a mouth that has been heard by millions every Monday through Friday for three decades and an attitude that insulting the innocent -- blacks, women, Jews -- for the amusement of the guilty is OK. As was the case with the obnoxious Bob Knight, Imus will be greeted enthusiastically in some other venue and carry on pretty much as he has all these years. And heck, he's not the only one. He said so himself. There's a whole damn network ... oh well.

But, ending on a sweet note, Kurt Vonnegut was a sweet man and he will be missed. So it goes. And so is Dave Letterman and I hope he will be with us a long time.

Amen.