- Hope Is A Priceless Gift - I was just now thinking about the trips Sheri and have taken to Alaska and glaciers we cruised by and what Kurt wrote about Glaciers and war in the intro/Part One of his recognized masterpiece. One commentator on this video clip wrote Maybe now that the glaciers are melting theres hope for an end to war? . Sometimes all one has is hope and it is a priceless gift. I just thought that as I remembered the two seater outhouse on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana in which I first read Kurts book in 1970 and thinking about THE CHEYENNE picture Freddie and I created together [ paulhammersten ]. IN HOMAGE TO KURT VONNEGUT In my life I have been called many things, including, would you believe, once falsely accused of being a bibliomaniac! It would be true, however, to call me a bibliophile. One volume in my present home library that has special meaning for me is a true first printing of SLAUGHTER HOUSE-FIVE; or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death. The book was written by Kurt Vonnegut when he lived on Cape Cod. Only 6000 copies of this first issue were printed in 1969 followed by a multitude of later printings in the same year. The book belonged to Olga Von Ziegesar, the world famous whale researcher, whose work was instrumental in saving the Orca whale. Her signature is on one of the pages in the front of the book. It is always a thrill for my wife and me to have sightings of Olga’s Orca whales while cruising the Inside Passage of Alaska. The book also at one time belonged to Abigail Q. McCarthy whose name and Washington, D.C. address label is attached to another page in the front of the book. Abigail McCarthy was married to Eugene McCarthy. They separated the year SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE was published. Kurt Vonnegut is called one of America’s best writers and SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE; or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death is both an American classic and one of the world’s great anti-war books. What Vonnegut and others refer to as his war novel was written when, as he says, ...every day my government gives me a count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam. So it goes. At that time Eugene McCarthy and his wife Abigail were at the center of the nations political life. McCarthy had just mounted his famous dark horse challenge of the 1968 Democratic nomination for the Presidency - a candidate who consolidated the widespread opposition to the Vietnam war . SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, McCarthy, the Vietnam War will always be linked together - especially for those who first read the book back then. I can clearly remember the time and place I first read the book - the year after I graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1969 and in the two seater out-house out back behind my cabin on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. Anyone not old enough to have experienced the late 1960s or anyone who wants an aid to remember those times could read the last 30 pages of Abigail McCarthy’s highly praised memoir PRIVATE FACES/PUBLIC PLACES published in 1972. Abigail McCarthy was a summer resident of Chatham and her memoir can still be found in the stacks of Chatham’s Eldredge Public Library where I was on the staff for nearly a quarter of a century. Interleaved among the pages of Abigail McCarthy’s copy of SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE: or, The Children’s Crusade was a copy of one of the pages from her memoir - page 429. Writing of what came down in Mayor Daley’s Chicago the night of the nominating speeches [ you need to read this entire section ], she concludes, alluding to Vonnegut’s book, They made chains of daisy stickers and banners of print-outs from the press machines and held them aloft and chanted and sang to the very last, creating the illusion of hope as they had learned to do along the way in the ‘ children’s crusade ‘. The last card I received from Kurt before he died last April was of one of his original silkscreens. He wrote and told me he did meet Abigail during the McCarthy Flurry ...and never on the Cape. Kurt ended our correspondence with his characteristic humor by writing That book may be worth $30.00! I have Abigails signed copy of her own book PRIVATE FACES/PUBLIC PLACES and a second clean book jacket for the Vonnegut. Perhaps I should give the Pawn Stars a call! LOL youtu.be/CaUhWFQ49Fw
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 23:18:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015