Sure I've met a lot of famous people

But I'd like to talk about one. Kurt Vonnegut

My dad showed us all how it was done. The guest of honor for the opening night gala was hiding on the stairs that led to the tech booth of the Steppenwolf theater. It was an ideal spot because it was closest to the lobby door where he could go outside and have another Pall Mall cigarette. Dad cut through the crowd and walked right up to the Pulitzer Prize winner and American legend and said, “you know I worked in Dresden, Illinois,” casually comparing his time building a power plant to the time the celebrated author dug up bodies in the wake of the firestorm of Dresden, Germany during World War II.

Granted, it was twenty five years ago or so, but I do believe my father was about the only person Kurt Vonnegut talked with during the whole post show party. They stood there for at least thirty minutes. Mr. Vonnegut was very interested in my father’s story. See, Dad didn’t really care that the writer was a famous man all over the world; to him, they were just two guys from the Midwest. Kurt Vonnegut worked for an electrical company - I believe it was G.E. and my dad worked in the same world. They had a lot to discuss. Who knows what went down, but a room full of Chicago dignitaries and theater luminaries were of no interest to the man who wrote Slaughterhouse Five. But my father was.