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Authors: Kurt Vonnegut
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one time, an
who had six
hundred relatives he knew quite
His wife had just
had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was
to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and
'
say how pretty it was, or handsome.
Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby? This rambling introduction is four times as long as the most efficient, effective piece of writing in the history of the English-speaking world, which was Abraham Lincoln's address on the battlefield at Gettysburg.
16
Lincoln was shot by a two-bit actor who was exercising his right to bear arms. Like Isaac and Uncle
Lincoln is up in Heaven now.
So this is Kurt Vonnegut, WNYC's now emeritus reporter on the afterlife, signing off on paper this time.
Ta ta and adios. Or, as Saint Peter said to me, with a sly wink, when I told him I was on my last round-trip to Paradise: "See you later, Alligator." K.V.
November 8, 1998 and May
1999
17
on my
experience
this morning, I found out what becomes of people who die while they're still babies. Finding that out was accidental, since I'd gone down the blue tunnel to o
interview Dr. Mary D. Ainsworth, who died last March
age eighty-five, in Charlottesville, Virginia. She was a retired but
developmental
psychologist.
Dr.
extravagantly favorable obituary in the NewYork Times said she had done more research than anyone on the long-term effects of bonding between a mother and an infant during the first year of o
alternatively, the absentminded lack of bonding. She
21
studied motherless babies in London, all kinds of mothering or lack of it in
and then here in the
o o '
U.S. of A.
She concluded, with impressive scientific proofs, that infants need a secure attachment to a mother figure at the beginning of life, if they are to thrive. Otherwise, they will be forever anxious. I wanted her to talk some about nature versus nurture, and also about the mothering I myself had received when a
that might not go
a long way toward explaining me.
But Dr.
was bubbling over with excitement over how her theories were confirmed in Heaven. Never mind all the honors she'd received from fellow psychologists on Earth. It turns out that there are nurseries and nursery schools and kindergartens in Heaven for people who died when they were babies. Volunteer surrogate mothers, or sometimes the babies'
actual mothers, if they're dead, bond like crazy with 22
the little souls. Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle. Kiss, kiss, kiss. Don't cry, little baby. Your mommy loves you. Bet you have to burp. I'll bet that's the
Feel better? Time to go sleepy-bye. Goo, goo, goo. And the babies grow up to be angels. That's where angels come
This is Kurt
signing off in the lethal
o
o o
injection facility in Huntsville, Texas. Until the next time, goo goo goo and ta ta.
23
us morning,
near-death experience, I was lucky enough to meet, at the far end of the blue tunnel, a man named Salvatore Biagini. Last July 8th, Mr. Biagini, a retired construction worker, age seventy, suffered a fatal heart attack while rescuing his beloved schnauzer, Teddy, from an assault by an unrestrained bull
named
in Queens.
The pit bull, with no previous record of violence against man or beast, jumped a four-foot fence in order to have at Teddy. Mr. Biagini, an unarmed man with a
of heart trouble,
him, allowing
J
the schnauzer to run away. So the pit bull bit Mr. 25
in several places and then Mr.
heart
quit
never to beat again.
1
O
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a
named Teddy. Salvador Biagini was
philosophical. He said it sure as heck beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War. 26
after this
morning s
near-death experience I am almost literally heartbroken that there was no way for me to take a tape
who had six
hundred relatives he knew quite
His wife had just
had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was
to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and
'
say how pretty it was, or handsome.
Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby? This rambling introduction is four times as long as the most efficient, effective piece of writing in the history of the English-speaking world, which was Abraham Lincoln's address on the battlefield at Gettysburg.
16
Lincoln was shot by a two-bit actor who was exercising his right to bear arms. Like Isaac and Uncle
Lincoln is up in Heaven now.
So this is Kurt Vonnegut, WNYC's now emeritus reporter on the afterlife, signing off on paper this time.
Ta ta and adios. Or, as Saint Peter said to me, with a sly wink, when I told him I was on my last round-trip to Paradise: "See you later, Alligator." K.V.
November 8, 1998 and May
1999
17
on my
experience
this morning, I found out what becomes of people who die while they're still babies. Finding that out was accidental, since I'd gone down the blue tunnel to o
interview Dr. Mary D. Ainsworth, who died last March
age eighty-five, in Charlottesville, Virginia. She was a retired but
developmental
psychologist.
Dr.
extravagantly favorable obituary in the NewYork Times said she had done more research than anyone on the long-term effects of bonding between a mother and an infant during the first year of o
alternatively, the absentminded lack of bonding. She
21
studied motherless babies in London, all kinds of mothering or lack of it in
and then here in the
o o '
U.S. of A.
She concluded, with impressive scientific proofs, that infants need a secure attachment to a mother figure at the beginning of life, if they are to thrive. Otherwise, they will be forever anxious. I wanted her to talk some about nature versus nurture, and also about the mothering I myself had received when a
that might not go
a long way toward explaining me.
But Dr.
was bubbling over with excitement over how her theories were confirmed in Heaven. Never mind all the honors she'd received from fellow psychologists on Earth. It turns out that there are nurseries and nursery schools and kindergartens in Heaven for people who died when they were babies. Volunteer surrogate mothers, or sometimes the babies'
actual mothers, if they're dead, bond like crazy with 22
the little souls. Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle. Kiss, kiss, kiss. Don't cry, little baby. Your mommy loves you. Bet you have to burp. I'll bet that's the
Feel better? Time to go sleepy-bye. Goo, goo, goo. And the babies grow up to be angels. That's where angels come
This is Kurt
signing off in the lethal
o
o o
injection facility in Huntsville, Texas. Until the next time, goo goo goo and ta ta.
23
us morning,
near-death experience, I was lucky enough to meet, at the far end of the blue tunnel, a man named Salvatore Biagini. Last July 8th, Mr. Biagini, a retired construction worker, age seventy, suffered a fatal heart attack while rescuing his beloved schnauzer, Teddy, from an assault by an unrestrained bull
named
in Queens.
The pit bull, with no previous record of violence against man or beast, jumped a four-foot fence in order to have at Teddy. Mr. Biagini, an unarmed man with a
of heart trouble,
him, allowing
J
the schnauzer to run away. So the pit bull bit Mr. 25
in several places and then Mr.
heart
quit
never to beat again.
1
O
I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a
named Teddy. Salvador Biagini was
philosophical. He said it sure as heck beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War. 26
after this
morning s
near-death experience I am almost literally heartbroken that there was no way for me to take a tape
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